Wishing all who are celebrating this Christmas holiday a very merry day. May Santa bring you everything you wish for and more!
Today we say Merry Christmas in various languages:
Jeff and Nancy take an exotic lovers vacation to (gasp!) Acapulco, Mexico in this absurdly silly and over-wrought video from YouTube. Nancy actually looks quite fetching walking the beach, and one immediately wonders how she got stuck with this Jeff guy, but that’s beside the point, I suppose. No matter. It’s a shame, in an odd sort of way, they don’t make videos like this anymore…although if they did, one would imagine it would be Rwanda or something, not Mexico, that people would be warned about. Amazing how things change.
OK, folks, this is the first of a series of posts I’m going to do on my very recent paddling trip to Baja California. I got back on Sunday night after a deliriously awesome five days paddling in the turquoise waters of the Sea of Cortez. This post is a simple one. A picture, which may or may not be worth 1000 words, of my two pals crossing a nice little stretch of water with a crop of redstone in the foreground.
So with the threat of terrorism and changes t passports themselves (I.e. RFID tags), there are lots of open questions about changes in passport requirements when you travel. Why, just a while ago, I traveled to Newfoundland and discovered much to my surprise that I needed a passport to travel by air to Canada. I lived in Seattle for many years and NEVER needed a passport to get into Canuck country. Mexico the same. I just got back the day before yesterday, but thankfully ,I brought my passport.
Well, if you are heading out soon, it might make some sense to take a look at a new site put up by the travel industry to help you navigate and understand passport rules. Called GetAPassportNow.com, the site is meant to inform travelers about new passport requirements and to help them get passports. It explains the issues and requirements for those carrying passports to and from the US, Canada and Mexico.
Over the years, Cancun, Mexico has morphed from a beautiful stretch of beach to a tourist ghetto with too many high-rise hotels and partying college students. As a result, I have no interest in ever visiting.
I was surprised, therefore, to come across an enticing description of a luxurious resort in the heart of Cancun in which guests are pampered and fawned over in truly regal fashion without nary a wet t-shirt contest in sight. In fact, the Grand Aqua resort is so high-end that it provides eight different types of pillows for its guests, for God’s sake! It also employees two very famous chefs to whip out culinary masterpieces–thus the write-up I discovered in Food and Wine magazine.
I took more interest, however, in the second part of the Food and Wine article in which the author goes in search of a supposedly fantastic restaurant about two hours south of Cancun in the far mellower beachfront community of Tulum.
Hechizo restaurant is owned and operated by two cooks who used to work for Ritz Carlton but have now struck out on their own. Apparently it is difficult to find and a little expensive, but well worth the search. They don’t have a website, but reservations can be made at hechizo@bigfoot.com.
My advice? Skip Cancun altogether and just head straight for Tulum. I did so last week and loved it. I only wish I had known about that restaurant…