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Isla Mujeres, Mexico – 1/26/2017

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January 26, 2017 (Thursday)

Got up and headed out. We had been told (by the nice man at check in) about a place nearby that served really good breakfasts. We walked over to the “Green Verde” restaurant and ordered coffee while we decided on what to order. Everything we saw was beautifully presented and delicious, plus can’t believe the great prices!

A tiny but nice place.
I had a monster burrito, it was excellent.
Edie had fruit and french toast with bacon. Looks great.
The bathroom door is a slider and it took me, and others, a minute of looking at the signs to figure this out.

Aaron and Arla had rented a golf cart to drive us around the island. They also wanted to check out of the hostel and move in with us. I think they were missing us too and wanted to hear our snoring some more. I guess it’s true that at some point the snoring becomes a comforting white noise. Anyway, they really liked our unit and we went to the hostel to check them out and move them to our place.

Entrance to the Worldmark. A guard drops a chain to let you pass.
Aaron’s rental golf cart.
My selfie while the boy keeps his eyes on the road.
A place for fishing.
Colorful homes here. Adds to the Caribbean feel.
It is poor by US standards, very island in feel, and the weather is most pleasant.
Nice statue at the end of the road turn around.
Another view of the fisherman.
The downtown area.
An Island hero.
Mexican Navy.
Nice mural as we drove to the hostel.
We returned to the hostel and they checked out a day early.
The hostel’s private beach.
Pretty nice. The music shuts down around 2 am. A real kid place. They chose to come stay with us.
Nice homage to Nelson Mandela.
Their hostel bedroom.
Recreation area.

Once they were all settled into our unit, we drove around the island. How fun it is to ride around in a golf cart – except over the sped bumps. That’s not fun at all for a large busted woman. We drove and drove. We went to the site of the Mayan ruins and walked around. Ended up having a small ice cream there and walking. Had some lovely statues there.

Nice homes, some for sale, on the windward side of the island.
Some nice looking vacation homes.
Edie threatened me not to touch.
Fun statue.
Some ruins from the Mayans.
They wanted too much money to see the single structure, especially after the Tulum Ruins.

We then drove to the turtle sanctuary. There were several pools with different sized turtles in them. Very interesting. You can purchase food for the turtles to feed them. At one pool it was more feeding the seagulls who would swoop in and eat the food before the poor turtles could get it. Very aggressive but fun.

Turtle pen at the sanctuary.
Abandoned and current turtle pens.
Several different species of turtles and different sizes.
Beautiful creatures being readied for release.
They clearly did not like confinement.
Unusual yellow back.
A couple lobsters in a tank.
My family ahead of me.
The gulls were after the turtle food we tossed in the water.

The island is very lovely but dirty. Can’t understand why people wouldn’t want to pick up their trash, or make their place look better. Different culture I guess. Very small island and we were done within two or three hours, that’s with stopping. When we got back to our unit, Aaron and Arla took a swim and then headed out to a local bar, and we went for a walk to find food.

Aaron and Arla enjoying the pool.
Edie living the life.
Huge yacht parked at the club.
Two jet skies that look like storm troopers out of Star Wars.

We decided to live dangerously and go into a very local restaurant called “Dona Ines.” No one spoke any English and we ended up pointing to what we wanted – a dinner special for 70 pesos which included soup, entree, tortillas and drink. The poor little girl serving us ended up bringing out two plates and asked us (as best she could) which one we wanted). We both pointed to the bean soup entree.

Dona Ines is a local place that we ended up enjoying for dinner one night.
We ordered off the chalk board.

The little girl brought us a container of what looked like kool aid for the drink, it had big irregularly shaped chunks of ice in it. Also some home made tortillas, corn and flour (yummy), and a bowl of pasta soup. We were perplexed in that we thought we had ordered the bean soup but later on the bean soup arrived. Everything was very tasty but very interesting in that the bean soup had beans, chicken, hot dogs, sausage, bones, and other types of things I could not identify. I tried to dig out all the meat that I could and really enjoyed the bean portion of it but I just knew Michael and I would be fighting over the toilet and eating Imodium like candy. We were both surprised and delighted that NOTHING HAPPENED. We were fine. We really enjoyed the authentic experience and were not so afraid to venture out.

That was our day. Hope yours was great!