25th of November. Xel-Há

Today we have spent the day in Xel-Ha, which is a natural aquatic park, It is difficult to explain what it is, it is fun, all related with water, in a natural environment.The basic tickets are expensive ($80) but it includes Unlimited food and soft and hard drinks It is all included, with the exceptions of some spacial attractions, like swimming with dolphins(which we didn't do) or swimming and touching stingrays (which we did)

There is abundant wildlife, lizards, birds, etc. Not just fish too see.There was a good amount of snorkeling, jumping from cliffs, zip wires etc.

 

 

24th of November 2011. SHARKS!!!!!

 

First thing in the morning Alberto, Javier and me we went for a dive with SHARKS !!! It was fantastic 45 minutes surrounded by 7or 8 huge Bull sharks in the wild. Pictures say it all.

 

We were still excited about the experience, and with adrenaline still flowing through our veins, when we arrived to the hotel. We couldn't stay dry with all that addrenaline, so snorkel again, and we found the relax there. I was finally able to see 3 turtles. Everyone else saw them, and there are even photos and videos, but I don't have them with me.

Then at night after dinner, Alberto and I went for a night dive. It was my first time .Again fantastic.

Filo Un anonimo conocido

 

23rd of November 2011, diving in Akumal beach

Today we planned the day to be around the Hotel. In the morning, Alberto Javier and me went to the scuba center in the beach next to the Hotel and took 2 dives. While we were down there, Nuria was relaxing, in the Hotel, got a massage, and while doing snorkeling she found turtles.

We joined Nuria by lunch, snorkeling, eating burgers, and relaxing a bit. We spent the afternoon in the hotel getting ourselves ready for Mr Akumal contest.

The Alberto, Javi and myself got dress to impress, with our Stravaganza shirts, which were the sensation of the night. The Mr Akumal contest consisted in a series of test. Alberto and myself won one test each of us, and myself was in the last test (a musical test) but got mind blocked, and the French contestant scored his second point winning the Mr Akumal price. Two things to mentioned, first was that the speaker constantly called me Philip, while Alberto was Alberto de España, as the was one Alberto from Italy. The second thing to mentioned, and it is very important to keep it in writing is that Javi didn't scored a point. Now that it is written we can remind him in the future.

 

 

22nd November 2011 Maya experience

What can you do, if it is 6:45 am, you are in a hotel resort in the Caribbean, with a great beach full or corals and life, and you have a bit of jet lag ? There is o ly one thing. SNORKEL before breakfast.

And that is exactly what we did. After breakfast we were going on a tour to visit some Maya culture, and to swimming in a "Cenote"

In the tour we visited

• Tolum, a Mayan city 10km away from playa del Carmen, which is the only one by the sea.

• swimm in a Cenote

• Coba, which is the highest Mayan Piramid, and the only one you could climb
  

• .And visit a Mayan village. Well really this was something we could have missed, as the was nothing really interesting or significant about it.

Tulum, Coba and the Cenote was something really good to visit, unfortunately for us we had a bad Tour guide. He was awful, we walked in silence most of the time, while we were seeing how other groups stopped and were told things, and when the finally stopped, our guide talk about the things we were seeing without any emmotion. He memorized list of food, and dates which he was naming in a fast maner. And some of the data was as a minimum questionable, as he tends to invent the answers with things that looks similar to what he remembered.

Listening to him was like reading a book, he was talking everything by memory, but was a bad book, because he mentioned that one of the main reasons Mayan people died of was Osteoporosis. The guy would probably meant tuberculosis. That was the topic of conversation all day, and it is likely to be the the main joke of the trip, it was funny to think how Mayan could die the weakening of bones in the body, caused by lack of calcium deposited, we were trying to picture Mayan cities with everyone with soft bones, like plastic families. in the bones, normally common in elder people :).

 

Anyway we learned more by listening to other guides as we walk by them.

 

Back in the hotel, we had dinner, and also time in the bar. We learned that tonight was Karaoke night, and so we went, finding that we went the only ones, but we had a good time. Thank god that Nuria and Javi sung most of the songs.

 

Of course e boys, Javier, Alberto and me, were dressed with ellegants clothes, and drinking tequilas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

21st of November 2011 Sunrise in the Caribbean

21 November

We woke up earlier then we thought, around 6 am. We started to see the beauties of the Hotel, really good beach. The hotel is old, that is true, but the sea in front of us, the white sand beach is great.

We found the gem in the buffet breakfast: omelettes and then in the bar ask for an espresso coffee, because the one in the buffet was, as usually are, quite bad.

We had at midday the Introduction talk by pullmantour, the Tour operator. We decided not to take any of the recommended tours they offered but was good to make our mind about what we wanted to do all week, and of course we went to Playa del Carmen in the afternoon to buy some gifts, and book tours from the multiple much cheaper tour operators we foun there.

We also found much more "appropriate"shirts.

Back in the hotel we did a bit of Snorkel in the hotel beach by sunset. It was amazing we didn't know the we're that many corals and live just in front of us. We found later that Akumal beach, where we were, was a tour by itself, and people paid to do snorkel in the beach. Apparently turtles were easily seen in this beach. The hotel is getting better.

We had dinner at the hotel dinner, with our "elegant" shirts bought in the morning. After hotel bar with live music. Needless to say that we had a few tequilas, and cocktails, but unfortunately they couldn't do cocolocos

 

 

Riviera Maya D day 20 November 2011

From Evernote:

Riviera Maya D day

20 noviembre!

!que viva México cabrones!

Up at 8:30 in the airport at 10:30 for a 14:30 flight. We found a Huge queuing time for check-in.

The airport was a huge Boeing 747-400, what we previously used to call "jumbo". The flight was tiring, food was not good either, but it was at least, direct flight, 10h30 long though.

We arrive at about 18:00 local time, then after about 1.5 hour for picking up the luggage, we took the bus that 1h15min later took us to Akumal Beach Resort, close to 10:00 pm local, 5 am in Spain. We almost lost dinner, and we are so tired that we are not looking very positive today.

Maybe tomorrow we will have a different perspective but today we are finding the hotel a bit old.

 

Riviera Maya D DAY -1 19-November-2011

Finally the trip that my friends and I have been planning for few years has arrived.

Few years ago my Friends and I decided to start collecting 2€ coins and on 11-Nov-2011 (tat is 11-11-11) we would go to the Caribean, to an all included. Resort. The most active members of the group choose Riviera Maya as de destination, because we were notary good fans of the all included type of resorts.

At the end only 4 of us went to the trip, and instead of the 11-11-11 we took 20-nov-11. So today here we are in Madrid Javi, Nuria, Alberto and myself, on the table having dinner, and trying a Juan Gil 18 months, which by the way is great.

Pitty that Andres and Gema couldn't make it. They were the biggest promoters of the idea, and also Marta and Maria Jose didn't come either so Nuria is the only girl in the trip. I know that I will particularly going to miss Mariajo, but she cannot take vacations outside August.

Tomorrow our trip to Mexico start get the cocolocos ready for us!!!!!!!

 

 

US trip Day 12

Today Mariajo and myself have done an intensive work of visiting San Francisco. What a fantastic city this is.m there are so many places a things we have seen that it is very difficult to be able to describe them all.

What I will do is list the things that we have seen. But before I should sway that we had a fantastic, mostly sunny day

• Finantial District

• Pier 39 Fishermanwhalf

• Coil tower(.Rusian hill)

• Lombard street (telegraph hill)

• Grace Cathedral in Nob hill

• Victorian houses.

• Japan town

• The mission (latino zone)

• Castro (gay zone)

• Union square (shopping zone)

Tomorrow morning early in the day we will be departing, :(

Filo un anonimo conocido

 

From Evernote:

US trip day 11.

Plan for today was going to Nappa Valley,

Before going there we went to visit the Golden gate.

Then in Nappa valley our first stop was to the Chatou of a winery, this time it was Domaine Carneros winery. We had some wine testing of their fantastic wines.

Lunch was in the cute town of Sonoma. We had lunch the "fig and the girl", and then wander around the town the place was nice , and somewhere you can imagine yourself living.

On the way back we stop in Tiburon, on the other side of the Valley, a residential fairly exclusive.

Today was a great day, tomorrow Mariajo and myself will visit San Francisco.

Filo un anónimo conocido.

 

From Evernote:

US trip day 10

We woke up this morning and we went for our free Breakfast that we were granted. This hotel on the outskirts of Stockton has been the best for the price we have been. Then we head our way to San Francisco.

We Arrive to San Francisco just before Midday, which was good because that made the rental at least $40 less,

Then JJ and Susi picked us from the airport . The plan for the day was staying in Silicon Valley. We started with Palo Alto, where we had lunch in the Cheesecake Factory, where as you can imagine the difficult choose was the desert, with at least 30 different options for cheesecake!!

Then we went to visit Stanford University, where all started ! This was the venue of the famous speech by Steve Jobs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zlHAiddNUY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

After this we went to visit Google, it was very interesting. As today is Saturday everything was closed, but we could see the bicycles, the gym, lost of funny statues, swimming pools, tennis tables.

Then in the afternoon we went to the Apple Store, and I bought an IPad.

Enough for today tomorrow Nappa and Sonoma Valley

FILO a known anonymous.

 

From Evernote:

US trip DAY 9

For my "crowd" of fans I have to say, don't you worry I have been back to being able to drink the multiple cup of coffee.

Don't you worry the myth of FILO Drinking coffee is still alive. I didn't have many, but at least I was able to keep my energy levels constantly high with 3 coffees.

Also important to mention that Mariajo and Imight have probably had the cheapers 2 beers in America, only $2.5 for 2 beers, while 2 coffees in the same place cost $ 5.5.

Today we have had quite a long day, this time on the other side or the valley. We drove through Tioga Road stopping by Olmsted Point to compemplate the great views views from there. The area had a few lakes and lots of sings of the Ice age. As Mariajo and myself want to be able to do some trekking, we did in the Tolumne Meadows area, a 4hour trail that include going to Dog lake plus climbing Lambert Dome, 150 meter high granite rock that you could reach the top without need of any special climbing equipment. Incredible views from there.

After that , and of course getting our beers and coffee mentioned earlier, we drove 1 hour to Mono lake,, passing by even more lakes, at almost 3000 m altitude, with patches of snow, and glaciers.

In Mono lake we could not see the stalactite formations, because from the view point the looked like another hour away, in the opposite direction of

Stockton, were we had booked our hotel. Stockton was chosen because it a bit more than half way San Francisco.

By the way, we could not see anu bear, a excuse to come back to Yosemite.

We arrive to Te hotel, late, around midnight, and very tired. The hotel was great for the money 45$, and we got free breakfast for free, I guess because we looked very tired af the long day.

Tomorrow we will go to San Francisco, were we hope to arrive at midday, And I have plans to buy an IPad !!!! Where else but in silicon valley.

Good night

FILO un anonimo conocido

 

From Evernote:

US trip DAY 8

Today we woke up in Fresno, and after buying a couple of things on a local store we head took our road to Yosemite, to the south entrance.

We arrive there close to midday, initially we went to Mariposa grove, to see the giant sequoias. Really amazing to be able to see those building tall trees that have been there for centuries. The place was packed, but we were lucky to be able to drive all the way up to the grove parking.

In the afternoon we visited the information center to get advise about what to see. They told us that the best views of the valley were from Glacier Point, and although there is a fire, by the road going to glacier point, but it should be controlled. I have to admit that the idea of going by a fire, was not in ply plans, but we went to ahead. In the end the fire was really controlled, but there was some smoke. And the views, OH MY GOD!!!!!! Totally impossible to put words to describe them. Absolutely breathtaking.

The view of the Valley, the impressive Half Dome, the waterfalls. I have not seen any picture good enough, nor mine or in Internet so I will have to add mine.

We then went down to the valley, and from there we could see "el gran Capitan" and all the masive granite walls we saw earlier, but this time from the base. Just to put you into perspective, el gran Capitan is a 910 m granite wall, there are waterfalls are 300-600m long. Wherever you looked at you found something worth for looking at.

When thensun left the valley we headed to el Portal, about 10 miles outside Yosemite, were we had our Motel, the Yosemite Cedar Lodge.

Worth noticing that in all the day we had only 1 coffee, and those who know Mariajo and specially me, that meant that we were really lacking of energy specially in the afternoon. So you can guess how tired I am right now.

FILO, un anonimo conocido.