Mayan Viagra

On the southern end of Isla Mujeres there were a couple things we didn't get to take advantage of because they were closed for off-season renovations (we were told that this isn't usual, it was just our bad luck). One of them was the Garrafon Park, a type of theme park where you pay an entrance fee and then have free access to kayaking, snorkeling, and a zip line that dumps you into the water at the end. The other major attraction on the island that was closed was the Mayan Temple and Lighthouse. I was really sad about not being able to go in because the lighthouse is perched on a rocky cliff with beautiful views. Since we couldn't get into either of these places, we roamed around to find a place to spend the afternoon by the water and we came across the Hotel Garrafon de Castilla. If you aren't staying at the hotel there is an entrance fee of 30 pesos (that's only $3, my kind of place). Once inside you can get a locker for your stuff, lay in the sun and drink cold beer, eat lunch and rent some snorkeling equipment, all of which we did.


The place was so peaceful that we came back again on another day. We went snorkeling and swam out to a rickety platform that you can climb up and jump off.
You can buy cat food pellets to take into the water and feed to the fish. So we used our small change to buy some and opened the container in the water, we thought there might be a little bit of a feeding frenzy but the fish are so used to it that the whole school opened their mouths and the pellets disappeared in one collective gulp. It took less than a second and then the fish converged on us and circled our bodies (particularly me!) until we swam away, they gave chase but we lost them eventually. When I saw all those mouths coming towards me I was genuinely scared for a second, they weren't interested in eating me though, they just LOVED those pellets. There was a guy there, I'm not sure if he worked there or if it was just his hang-out, who spent the day chopping up fish scraps and feeding them to the sea gulls and collecting conch shells so that he could make the meat into ceviche. He called it Mayan Viagra and pounded on his chest after he told us how strong it made him. He gave us some to try, on a little cracker, to me it tasted lemony and rubbery but my boyfriend really liked it, he didn't pound his chest after he ate it though.

Return to Sender

This is the Ever-Together Tyvek ParAvion Billfold, and I like the idea of this wallet for a lot of reasons. First, it doesn't look like a wallet, it is the exact size of an old fashioned air mail envelope and could easily be mistaken for one. Second it is made using a single sheet of Tyvek paper (it is also available in a dot matrix pattern, faux wood grain and others but I like the envelope best), folded to eliminate the need for seams and stitching. When I first saw it and picked it up I thought it felt flimsy but the Tyvek material is lightweight, tear resistant and water resistant since it is made of super long plastic fibers. It also has secret pockets, and who doesn't love secret pockets? I know I do. The innovative folded construction of the wallet allows it to expand to accommodate as many as 25 credit cards (if you have that many cards, please seek some financial help). The Tyvek material does show wear over time, but if you've ever tried to tear one of those FedEx packages you know that this material is tough, and tough is what you need when you are logging as many frequent flier miles as you can. Here is what the wallet looks like after some serious use:

Pedal to the Metal

After a couple of walking and taking cabs around Isla Mujeres, we decided to rent a golf cart to get around more easily. We did a little price shopping in advance but found that the price only varied about $5 from place to place. It was $55 to rent the cart for 24 hours from our hotel (in town you got the same deal but we would have had to taxi back and forth). The other vehicles available for rent in town were bicycles and mopeds but we opted for the more luxurious golf cart. At first we couldn't stop laughing about driving around in a golf cart, especially since the top speed was pretty tame (a swift cyclist could easily overtake us), but it really was a great way to see the island: wind blowing in our hair, a nice roof to keep the sun off and hitting speed bumps (there were MANY) was always an adventure. And so, we nipped over to the western side.


This side of the island is a jagged coral coast, the water is a deeper blue and the waves crash against the rocks while pelicans dive bomb the surface. It has a much more exposed feel compared to the tranquility of the bay on the eastern side. We went down to the water side where the ground was razor sharp and dotted with tide pools. From up close the eroded coral nooks looked like giant caves.


There were many more private homes along this side, some of them with fantastical architecture, and I was surprised to see new homes with floor to ceiling glass windows going up, Rita and Wilma seemed to have been quickly forgotten. We took a little detour off the main road down a private lane and were chased off by a feisty little dog. One of my favorite houses was the Shell House, made in the shape of a giant white conch shell standing on end, you can't see it so well in my picture but the adjoining building is in the shape of a snail shell!


We also passed a shanty town , I never got to ask anyone about it but I thought that it could be where people who came to work from the mainland lived, especially during the high season months.


At one point where we stopped, there was a large group of pelicans circling and diving for fish and then gulping down their prey. It was amazing to watch them in action. They have such grace as they soar and drop but then they hit the water with a comical splash and all of a sudden they just look silly. I never tired of seeing them skim by, flying about 5 feet above the water and looking like they had important business to take care of.

Green Foot Forward

So, Earth Day is coming up on April 22nd and we should all be thinking seriously about how to help out the planet - even when we are traveling. Sustainable Travel International is a non-profit organization that promotes eco-friendly travel and sustainable development. Their Eco-Directory is a unique resource that allows visitors to the site to search for environmentally conscious travel and tourism providers. Enter an interest and a desired region and choose from the list of SIT member companies, all of which are committed to sustainable tourism. The members range from straight up eco-tourism companies to island spa retreats. The search results aren't always as specific as one might like, but reading through the list I spotted some things that I would have never thought to look for on my own. Elsewhere on the sight you can purchase carbon offsets to make your travels (and the rest of your life!) carbon neutral. Their Carbon Calculator can help you determine how many offsets you would need to buy to cover your trip (plane, car, hotel), or the electricity you use in your home. It costs about $9 to off-set 500 miles of air travel, so the price is right to go green! The money goes to finance climactic protection projects in different countries.

After the Winds

We arrived on Isla Mujeres about nine months after hurricanes Wilma and Rita had passed through. While our hotel had already fixed any damage that had been done to their buildings, a lot of places were still at it, especially on the mainland. On the island the most noticeable effect of the storms was that most of the palm trees had been stripped of their fronds, other types of trees had been uprooted and buildings that had been covered in flowering vines (we saw them in pictures) were left naked, baking in the sun. The staff at the hotel commented on the damage to the vegetation, but you could already see the palms and bougainvilleas putting out new growth. In some of my pictures there is a lonely desolation that I think is heightened by the bald palms. In person all I noticed was peacefulness.



We spent one day walking from our hotel all the way down the beach on the East side of the island. To the north of our hotel was the Dolphin Discovery. It's a Sea World style tourist attraction where you pay (about $90 per person) and you get to spend and hour in the water swimming with dolphins and their trainers in a seawater enclosure. We decided to try it, it was expensive and touristy but we had a great experience. The dolphins were incredible and the staff was informed and very well trained. The dolphin trainers were very impressive and I really felt that I learned a lot about dolphins once we were done.


They do put a lot of pressure on you to buy the pictures taken of you with the dolphins (we bought some), and they make a DVD of you which is inevitably embarrassing (we didn't buy that although I thought it might make a great audition tape for a reality show). Before we got in the water I was skeptical and worried about the conditions of the enclosures, but everything was very clean and spacious and once I got face to face with the dolphins I was sold.

South of our hotel there were several other hotels and some villas available to rent. There were a couple of lavish private compounds that we fantasized belonged to Cuban gem dealers.


Iguanas were everywhere, warming themselves on rocks and walls and on the road, in general they weren't scared of people but they would dart off if you got too close for comfort. Along the beach we came across make shift bars leftover from high season parties, waiting for their turn to come around again. There were abandoned hotel compounds with decaying docks from someone's venture that never took off.

Doctor's Orders

I think that we all know that going on vacation is good for us, but now a study has been done using methods developed at NASA, so now we can declare it a scientific fact. Vacation is good for you! There I declared it. The study, called The Vacation Gap, was conducted by Air New Zealand in conjunction with Alertness Solutions, a fatigue management consulting firm. To read more about the study go here. The survey's website is conveniently linked to Air New Zealand, so as soon as you finish reading about the healing effects of travel you can "Fill a Prescription" and fly off to start your cure. Here are a few of their findings on how vacation affects health and rejuvenation:

* Travelers rated their overall health more than one full point higher (on a scale from one to five) while on vacation

* Travelers received three times more deep sleep (rejuvenating sleep when the cells physically regenerate) after their vacation

* Travelers slept one hour more while on vacation than at home

* Travelers continued to get almost 20 minutes more sleep post-vacation than pre-vacation

* Travelers received their best sleep (about 1 extra hour) the first night back from vacation

If you've got a vacation coming to you make sure you take it, you owe it to your health!

Rapido y Furioso! Or not...

After a dip and a nap lulled by a soft breeze we started out on an exploratory mission. Isla Mujeres is small, only five miles long and half a mile wide, so it doesn't take long to drive all the way around the island. There aren't too many cars on the island but there are a fleet of red taxis which are pretty reasonably priced, a lot of people (locals and tourists) make their way around on golf carts (more on those later). On our first day we flagged down a cab and decided to take the driver up on the island tour, which cost $15 US.


The road runs around the coast and cuts across the middle of the island. The west side of the island is white sand beaches while the east side is rocky coral buffeted by the Gulf of Mexico. We had our driver drop us off in town where we walked around and grabbed a simple lunch of tacos and beer along the Avenue Hidalgo.


We arrived in the off season, partly to get a lower price on the hotel room but also to avoid high season crowds. In May the town is peaceful, the bars and restaurants seem to be resting after the crowds have receded. The shop keepers are a little over eager but not aggressive. Cars aren't allowed in the center of the town so strolling and soaking up the colors is a perfect way to kill a couple of hours.

Pussy Galore's Carry-on

It's time to channel your inner Bond girl with a Samsonite Signat Black Label attache case. It's a little pricey but the air of mystery is worth it! Samsonite is an old standard, you know when you are standing by the baggage claim with red eyes and your hair askew and those giant plastic behemoths come crashing down the chute while your bag is nowhere in sight? Well they have some hot new things going on with their Black Label line. Designers have been enlisted, fresh looks and retro inspiration have been injected into some old classics and some originals. The attache cases come in three different sizes and different colors, and inside you'll find several compartments and a cosmetic case.



I own a Samsonite (not as chic as the Black Label, but it is a nice deep red color!) which has weathered the transworld beatings for six years and is only just beginning to show signs of wear. If you are about to embark on a spy mission, you'd better not leave home without this case!

Into the Blue

Almost exactly one year ago, my boyfriend and I spent a wonderful week on Isla Mujeres in Mexico. I had heard about the island from someone at work who had been there in 1978. He described its sleepy charms to me and I was hooked. Needless to say, 28 years have brought a lot of change to the island but it still holds its own in the charm department. We cashed in some frequent flyer miles and got two free tickets to Cancun. I decided that that gave us the green light to stay in a more expensive hotel than we normally would. After a week of internet reasearch (hotels on the Island range from very cheap to VERY expensive), we chose The Hotel Villa Rolandi. The Villa Rolandi is a twenty room hotel with its own private beach on the western side of the island, looking across the bay at Cancun.
We barely made it out of the Cancun Airport, every two feet there is a person trying to rope you into some activity or other while someone else with a competing offer tries to tug you away to their own counter. Politely explaining that you aren't interested does nothing, the only thing to do is to pick up your bags and just walk away. We battled our way out to the curb and got a cab, making sure to get a price quote before we got in the car. And finally, we were off to Playa Linda to rendezvous with the Cocoon, the yacht sent by the hotel to bring us out to Isla Mujeres.


Being picked up in a private yacht sounded good when we read about it on the internet, it was a thousand times better in person. The water was impossibly blue and the motion of the boat shook off the city stress as it scudded over the waves. We sped across the turquoise blue bay, and into an inlet (the Laguna Makax), docking at a pier right behind the hotel, frigate birds drifted serenely overhead.


The wooden boards of the dock were heaven to my feet. A porter took my bag from me as I tried to lift it myself, I had to pause and remind myself this was my vacation and I was paying some extra money for some extra pampering. Up in the room we breathed a sigh of relief and contentment and sat back to enjoy the complementary glasses of champagne while the water beckoned.

Aerial Decoder

Recognize this picture? I bet you've taken some a lot like it. This one is taken somewhere over Nova Scotia, on the way back to the New York from London. More than that I cannot tell you. If I had had this book, I might be more on the ball. For in-flight fun and post-flight reference Window Seat is what you need.



Region by region it deciphers the patchwork passing below, the sights are laid out in 70 striking aerial photographs. Natural wonders, man-made eyesores, cloud shapes and flight paths all get their due. So far there is one edition for the US and Canada and one for Europe. Hopefully more will follow soon.

London Bridge is Still There

When we were done theorizing about the possibilities of aliens in the center of London, we turned our attention to more touristy activities. I was adamant about seeing the crown jewels which meant visiting the Tower of London. The jewels dazzled us even as we were shoved out of the way by a hundred kids who looked like they just got let out from Hogworts. Once we escaped out into the courtyard we met face to face with the resident ravens. Their wings are clipped to keep them from flying away, legend has it the Kingdom would fall if they did, so they hop around in the grass. It seems that they are well fed though because they are BIG birds. The one on the right was the king of the balance beam...



We also went up in the Tower Bridge and enjoyed the views down the Thames from the top. The engine rooms were my favorite part, with Victorian machinery plugging away.