Trip to the Yucatan

Written by Fermin Washington

I was watching a travel channel on DirecTV Virginia and there was a program about the Yucatán peninsula in southern Mexico. Not only were there luxurious resorts in the towns of Cancun and Cozumel, there were endless opportunities for adventure all over the peninsula.

Although my friends and I were talking about driving from the southwestern United States through the entire country of Mexico, we, at last, decided to axe the road trip and take the airplane. As opposed to the three-week drive, the airlines took us from the sun drenched desert to the sun drenched tropics in a matter of four hours flying from Phoenix to Houston and on to Cancun.

After several days of being pampered in the opulent surrounding Cancun, we left the beaches and the bathing beauties, rented a car and set out to explore the jungle. A highway, if you can call it that, runs the entire length of the Yucatan's Caribbean shore and we traveled with the sea on one side and the jungle on the other. After an hours drive we came to a lovely little spot in paradise called Xcaret. It is best described as an ecological theme park with natural activities. Here we went snorkeling in the lagoon with dolphins and turtles, took an underground river ride and were able to observe a pre-Hispanic ball game.