Roll over darling, and pass me another lotus blossum.....

Saturday went to Tulum for the morning.  Hopped on the collectivo and drove there, paid our three dollars as we got off.  Price has gone up from the last time.  We had a short tour of the site--the place first conquered by Cortez who arrived via Cuba.  Mayans later made a deal with the Brits for Belize for money and arms then took the place back.

I also learned about Mayan creation story--woman created first, needed someone to birth humanity; 13 levels of heaven and nine levels of hell. Lots of reading up for that.  Beautiful beach but one has to go down via quite steep risers.  Consequently, I passed as coming up would have not appealed to the hip.  Yesterday, Mike lay on the beach and I indulged in a little retail therapy.
We have a great beach here--the surf is rather high so they have built baffles out of tarp and sand.  The waves crash into them -- not just to slow them down, but to prevent the undertow from sweeping the bather out to the middle of the Caribbean.  We, of course, use them for muchos fun.

I spend some time writing out my Christmas cards, and actually enjoying do them.  We have run into several Critters that we can't photograph, either because they are too quick or because  it is night time.  In the early morning we have seen a small animal about the size of a muscrat but without a tail and with longer legs in the wild area just to the right of our unit (see picture from Nov. 25.)  I am still searching for what it is, but no one here seems to know anything about the fauna around here.  The front desk type employees seem all to be from some other place in Mexico.  The Mayans of the area are here only for cleaning and waiting table, the caste system is alive and well in the Yucatan.
The other critter looks to be of the coon family, but with a thinner, longer nose.  We saw one dining the other night as we were en route to La Tortuga (a Brazilian a la carte where the menu was solidly for carnivores). Yesterday, en route to La Hacienda Dona Isabel, (the hotel run mini mall and tourist trap) I took the photo just above.  The critters are called coati, and according to Wikipedia are indeed also known as Mexican hog nosed raccoons, Brazilan aardvaks, or "Snookum bears"  I am going for snookum bears, personally. Here is a link to a Wikipedia photo.   http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/CoatiNosara.jpg
Coming soon will be birds.