Tag Archives: Mexico

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You Just Can’t Get Away From The Guinness

Guinness-Mexico

You can be in a remote town in Mexico, way off the beaten tourist path and there it is, right in front of you: a Guinness sign with the signature address from your home town and the iconic Irish harp logo. As my brother-in-law (who took this photo) said: “You just can’t get away from the Guinness!”.

2009 is Guinness’ 250 year anniversary and they’re celebrating (surprise!) with a 250 Anniversary Stout and a contest to win a trip to Dublin. Go on, enter. You never know, you may be in Dublin to join in the celebrations!

I’m just sharing the love by mentioning this contest here. There were no payments or sponsorships received by yours truly, although I wouldn’t say no if a six-pack or a t-shirt was to magically appear on my doorstep :).

Enjoy more Photo Friday fun at DeliciousBaby.

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Reading on Vacation

akumal-reading

Earlier this week, I wrote about our stay in Akumal, Mexico in 2006. This photo was taken one evening on that trip while I was reading aloud to BigB – I think we were reading from a chapter book from the Secrets of Droon series. I love how the colorful tile in our apartment stands out against the white walls and tiles.

You can tell that we’re enjoying the moment and that our oh-so-white Irish/Seattle skin has been enjoying the warmth of the Mexican sun – just count those freckles :)

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Akumal Mexico With Kids

akumal mexico with kids

Akumal Mexico is one of my all-time favorite destinations for a family vacation.

This is one of my favorite photos from our travels. It was taken in Akumal, Mexico in 2006. (Check out the bear in CAM’s arm – that bear truly has traveled more than most adults!)

Akumal is a tiny pueblo between Playa Del Carmen and Tulum on the Yucatan coast. I stumbled upon the town when traveling with some girlfriends (without children!) in 2003.

Akumal Mexico: Activites
Akumal has a grocery store, some craft stores, two dive shops and a couple of restaurants. The Ecological Center is the heart and pride of the town. It hosts an interesting display on the history of Akumal as a nesting place for Green and Loggerhead turtles and information on the activities of center employees and volunteers in caring for the local turtle population. You can also sign up to participate in night-time turtle walks to help find turtle hatchlings. Hatchlings, on a dark beach, are guided by moonlight towards the water. Beach lights from houses and hotels can confuse them and cause them to turn away from the ocean and toward the danger of buildings on the shore.

CAM, who was then 10, was fascinated by the night-time beach walk and utterly intrigued by the hatchlings. Months after we had returned home, he was still re-telling the story of how he had helped to find a hatchling. Since BigB had fallen asleep as we drove to the start point for the walk, so, while CAM and his Dad were looking for hatchlings, I waited on a recliner with my (not-so-small) baby fast asleep on my lap. Imagine my surprise when a turtle came out of the ocean, lumbered heavily directly towards me, and started to thrash about on the sand preparing a nest. What a sight! Unfortunately this particular turtle-mom had chosen a spot extremely close to an existing nest, so although the naturalists tried to encourage her to move a little away from the existing nest, in the end she gave up and lurched back to the ocean – most likely to attempt to find a nesting spot at a different place on the bay.

akumal-beach

Akumal Mexico: Lodging
We stayed at the Vista Del Mar condo hotel. Our two-bed condo opened directly onto the beach with hooks for hammocks outside the door. The tiled, white-painted interior was a cool respite from the heat in the middle of the day.

This condo hotel is not like the larger resort hotel developments which have been built along the Mayan Riviera from Cancun to Playa Del Carmen and more recently, south towards Tulum. The rooms are spacious and comfortable with fully equipped kitchens but they are simply furnished and there is only AC in the bedrooms. Similarly, there is an internet cafe on site, but no internet in the rooms and no cable TV.

akumal-treehouse

The hotel facilities are basic – the on-site pool is small for example – but there are treehouses on the beach in which my children ate their meals at every opportunity and, who needs a fancy pool when there’s a reef on your doorstep? BigB and I snorkled daily.

Next time you decide to visit Mexico, I encourage you to stray a little outside dedicated tourist resort areas. You never know, you might, like me, find a family-friendly place like Akumal in which you really can relax away from the rush of modern life.

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Four Days To Pandemic

B00526 H1N1 flu med That, folks, is a picture of the H1N1 influenza virus – just in case you were wondering what it looks like. Barely a week ago, I hadn’t heard of the so-called Swine Flu and was happy in my ignorance. Since then, I’ve visited my sister and her beautiful new baby; juggled work, kids and travel in a very packed weekend and ended up quarantined in my house for fear of spreading a potential infection to my friends and neighbors. What a whirlwind! If, like me, you’re feeling a little overwhelmed by the torrent of information on this topic and can’t really remember the sequencing of events, there’s a really useful Swine Flu Timeline interactive tool on the Fox News website. For this post, I’m going to focus on our experience and hopefully provide some insight to other families who are considering whether or not to postpone travel plans between now and whenever this pandemic abates.

I vaguely recall hearing something about an outbreak of flu in Mexico City on Friday, April 24th as I drove to work. Since we weren’t flying through Mexico City, I didn’t pay much attention to the story. At 6pm that evening, I was running through my packing lists and chiding my boys to make sure they had what they needed for the trip in their backpacks. We dashed to the airport with little time to spare before our red-eye to Guadalajara (via LAX) and didn’t even catch the evening news.

we arrived in Guadalajara at 7am Saturday, April 25th. There was nothing remarkable about passport control but I noticed that the customs staff were wearing gloves and facemasks as they checked bags. When we got to our accommodation, I worked for a few hours as my husband and children slept. Then we spent a quiet day by the pool with family. In the evening, we had dinner at a local restaurant on the plaza in Ajijic. There wasn’t a facemask or surgical glove in sight.

Early Sunday morning, April 26th, my sister mentioned to me that the staff at a local store were wearing masks. Given that I hadn’t read a newspaper or heard the news since Friday morning, I was probably more than a little arrogant when I brushed her off with a “Oh, it’s just a big fuss over nothing!” We spent the afternoon exploring Tlaquepaque, blithely unaware that schools and other public locations had been shut down in Mexico City and that the WHO had announced that the world was facing a swine flu pandemic. But later that evening, listening to the evening news on CNN, I started to get concerned.

On Monday, April 27th, WanderDad and I talked about whether or not we should mention the pandemic to our boys. My sense was that since we likely hadn’t been exposed, talking about it might scare our children and so we shouldn’t bring it up unless it was really necessary. WanderDad disagreed but given that we were eager to start our journey to Colima, we let the matter drop. Later that day, when we sat to dinner at the restaurant in our hotel, the waiter brought facemasks to our table. So much for ignoring the topic in front of the children.

Tuesday, April 28th was a busy day. After breakfast, we talked about the flu with CAM and BigB. They were, as WanderDad had predicted, more fascinated by the science than scared by the possibility of becoming infected themselves. We emailed a friend in Seattle who is a nurse and asked for advice on protecting ourselves and whether or not there was anything we should do during or after our flight home the following day. As we waited for her response, we realized that if there was any possibility that we had been infected, we would have to be careful not to spread the virus when we returned to Seattle. We emailed the children’s schools to get their input. (The kids were thrilled that they might have two extra days off school!) Emails were flying back and forth furiously: don’t bother with facemasks; make sure to use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer frequently and liberally; stay away from crowded places; yes, the schools would like us to keep the boys at home; yes, we should stay in our house for 3-5 after we returned and monitor for any flu-like symptoms.

And then, just as quickly as we’d arrived, it was time to go home. The airport in Guadalajara was pretty busy when we checked in for our early morning flight. Now it seemed that everyone, staff, officials and passengers, was wearing a facemask. We joked about being quarantined on our arrival into LAX, but our trip home was completely painless.

The most interesting part of this whole experience was being able to observe how people were reacting to the news as it broke around us in Mexico and then deciding how to communicate with our children about what was happening and why. With an on-the-ground perspective, it seemed that the level of reporting on the flu was out-of-proportion to the size of the problem and that this was causing unnecessary alarm. What worked best for the children was to talk to them calmly about the issue. Since we don’t speak Spanish, we were also protected from the impact of the media coverage. I can’t say for sure that this helped, but my sense is that it did because we were able to control the message to our children and avoid any undue alarm.


CAM obviously wasn’t too perturbed by the whole experience. He woke me on Thursday morning, wearing a facemask holding out this book (in gloved hands), open to the page on “How to Survive a Flu Pandemic”!

Will we change our travel plans for the rest of this year because of swine flu? I don’t think so. We will, if possible, avoid places where contagion seems more likely – although currently that seems to be just Mexico City. It seems to me that during the rest of this year it’s important to practice the things which you would normally do to stay healthy during the regular winter flu season: cover your mouth and nose when you cough or sneeze and wash your hands frequently. If you usually spend the winter indoors worried about catching the flu, then maybe you should stay indoors now. If you don’t, well then, what are you waiting for? It’s a great time to travel!

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In-Motion Geography Class in Mexico

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Last weekend, we visited the Lake Chapala area of Mexico. The focus of our trip was to assist with a family matter and since we were only in the country for four days, our general plan was to hang out with family while the kids played in the pool. We knew that we’d have a long drive from Ajijic to Colima, but we hadn’t even researched the route we’d be taking. We absolutely did not expect the spectacular sights we saw along Highway 54.

In the first half of the three-hour drive, as you drive through the dry lake beds of Laguna Sayula and Laguna San Marco, the dust devils are amazing. For my children, this became a competition in who could spot the best, biggest, devil. As we drove along, I commented on the reflection of the mountains in what seemed to be some shallow water on the horizon.

laguna-sayula-mirage

We very quickly realized that there wasn’t any water at all and that we were actually seeing a mirage. The boys were transfixed. I was stunned and not really sure that it really was a mirage. But, sure enough, as we drove closer, the “water” receded. If you look closely at the photo above, it appears that the lower ridge of trees and shrubs is reflected in the water. It’s not. I had never really appreciated how authentic a mirage could be. My children, of course, would never have been able to see this in a classroom.

We have a family habit of playing tourist in our own city the day after we return from a trip to let ourselves down gently from the fun of traveling together. This wasn’t an option after this trip: we didn’t play tourist today, in fact, we’re self-quarantining in our house for a few days because we’re not sure whether or not we’ve been exposed to Swine Flu.

Being in Mexico as this situation developed was a fascinating experience especially as a mom who writes about traveling with children. I’ll be writing more about this experience next week once I know we’re all safe and healthy.

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A special way to celebrate a new family member

ajijic-rental

I’m a huge fan of using vacation rental properties for family vacations. I’ve been renting apartments, condos and houses for our vacation accommodation since BigB turned two – and we discovered that two young children in one hotel room can be problematic for everyone’s sleep needs. I’ve recommended using vacation rental properties in my WanderTips article on Planning a Destination Family Reunion and reviewed the properties we’ve used in Tuscany and Ireland on this blog.

But for this HomeAway contest, I have a special reason for wanting to rent this beautiful property in Ajijic, Mexico on the shores of Lake Chapala: I’d like to give it as a gift to my sister and her husband when they go to this part of Mexico in 2009 to meet the baby they will be adopting. It’s been a long, difficult journey for them to get to this point – not least because as members of a large, Irish, Catholic (surprise!) family they’ve watched and supported as siblings have married and babies were born while themselves struggling with fertility issues.

When they go to Mexico, like all first-time parents they’ll be adjusting to having a new, beautiful family member. It would be fantastic to be able to help them with this transition by looking after the important, practical detail of accommodation for them. The best thing about this stunning four bedroom, four bathroom property? It’s big enough that the WanderDad and I and our boys (as the only family members living on this side of the Atlantic) will be able to join them there and help out with laundry, cooking or whatever else they need – and not crowd out this new family’s personal space. A win-win situation for everyone – sounds like a contest-winner to me :)

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CAM and BigB in Tulum 2006

mayan ruins and water parks in mexico

It’s Photo Friday again. Brought to us of course, by Debbie at DeliciousBaby.

My photos this week were taken in Mexico in 2006 (when CAM and BigB were 10 and 6 respectively). We planned our summer vacation gambling on the weather that year: we vacationed on the Mayan Riviera (the Caribbean cost of the Yucatan peninsula) in August. I must have checked the hurricane watch on NOAA daily for weeks before we left. Yes, it was a little crazy, but it was also darn cheap. We also avoided Cancun, Playa Del Carmen and all the purpose-built resorts. We stayed in Akumal, a little pueblo between Playa Del Carmen and Tulum. There’s very little in Akumal except the beach, a grocery store, a dive shop and the Ecological Center – which suited me just fine.

As it turned out, my husband had to change his plans at the last minute (work, work, work). So I ended up traveling with the kids alone. (He joined us later). We relaxed on the beach for the first couple of days but it didn’t take long for me to get ansty with all that sitting still. I bargained with my kids. I wanted to go explore Mayan ruins, they wanted to check out the water parks they’d seen advertised on the roadside. We compromised: Tulum first and then the water park.

Tulum was cool. Naturally they were reluctant at first, but they got into it. The game of the day was to pretend Mom was a Mayan princess and find a suitable place to sacrifice her. (CAM’s idea). It was enough to have them chasing around the site, map in hand, looking for a place to push me off into the sea.

CAM and BigB in Tulum 2006
CAM and BigB taking a break from their schemes to sacrifice their own Mayan princess (i.e. Mom).

The next day, I stayed true to my word and took them to Xcaret. We did a little snorkeling, but after wearing themselves out at Tulum the day before, the boys really just wanted to relax. Since BigB and I had become snorkel buddies in the open water and CAM was taking scuba lessons in Akumal, lazing was OK by me. This photo, I think, sums up the day:

Boys at Xcaret 2006
“Yes, Mom, we’re doing fine.”

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