While walking around Playa del Carmen, you see an endless advertising stream for CocoBongo. What is it? A show? A club?
Turns out that it’s a bit limited to see it as one or the other…
For a considerable amount of my time at CocoBongo, I kept thinking: “You don’t go to CocoBongo, you experience CocoBongo.”
The quick summary is that it’s a series of mini-shows of dancing and acrobatics with an open bar that then becomes a nightclub. But really, it’s so much more.
Delphinus sent me a tweet a few days ago telling me I should come by and swim with dolphins. Thus, today, I swam with dolphins.
Here are my highlights:
Honestly, more than any of the actual dolphin stuff or the other awards that they have, I was happy to hear that they work with the disabled. In the pre-swimming intro video, they talk about how they have programs to bring disabled children and adults in for free. I have a soft spot for programs of that nature.
For the dolphin stuff, the coolest parts were:
Having the dolphin (Kissin, ‘devil’ in Mayan) swim circles around us.
The “foot push”, wherein two dolphins push you through the water with their noses. One of the oddest things about it is just the thought: “that feeling on my feet is that of dolphin noses”.
On the walk down to the check-in area, they have various facts:
As for the name of the place, there’s a constellation named Delphinus, along with accompanying mythological stories.
More pix of me with dolphins can be found in my Delphinus Riviera Maya Flickr set.
Delphinus has 4 locations throughout Riviera Maya, Mexico.
Part three of my Europe pictures series:
When I think of Zagreb, this is what I see in my mind: St. Mark’s Church.
turk and cypriot, turk and greek, turkish-american, turk and greek friends, cyprus friendship, laughing men, men at restaurant
A Turkish Cypriot-American laughing with a Greek Cypriot in (North) Nicosia.
My post, “The Cyprus Tug-o’-War”, which also features a link to my appearance on Amateur Traveler.
I stepped out of my hostel in Prague in 2004 to be greeted by this sight. It was then I really felt like I was in Eastern Europe. (Which the Czechs and others in the region will argue that you’re not, that you’re in “Central Europe”.)
This is tavuk gogsu, a dessert made from chicken.
Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France
Did you know that it isn’t ‘habañero‘? No ‘ñ’, just an ‘n’. Habañero is an example of ‘hyperforeignism‘.
Here are some words cited in the Wikipedia article:
French
Italian
“latte” (milk), as in “caffè latte”, is often misspelled as latté or lattè, despite having no orthographic accent in Italian and having the stress on the letter “a”
One thing they don’t mention are the annoying reporters who over-enunciate in Spanish and sound like tools. On the other end, they also missed how on foreign radio, they say names of American bands/singers with a terribly forced American accent. So sad.
Anyway, here’s the video of me chomping a Habanero chili with one bite:
Today was the last full day of the press trip. Everyone other than me will be leaving Riviera Maya shortly. I’ll be around for a little longer. You’ll get fuller posts in the coming days/weeks.
Here was our day:
We went to Aktun Chen for “natural adventuring”. While there, we got to see various animals.
We ziplined.
We went into underground caverns.
Bats
I ate a habanero pepper.
Then, we drove back to the hotel for a brief rest/hangout.
This evening, we went over to Hacienda Tres Rios. This weekend they had a big event where they invited Tibetan monks to hang out with Mayan priests.
We went around the property.
After, we went to a Tibetan monk prayer/blessing event.
Next, was a Mayan fire ceremony.
And last was dinner, followed by a few more drinks before we all said goodbye.
For more pictures, check out my Riviera Maya Flickr set.
Another quick recap, with better details when it isn’t 3 AM. (And now that I’m finished, after 4 AM.)
Our day started off with a site tour of our resort, Barceló.
Resort spa
Then we went to Coba, where we checked out some ruins. We went via bicycle and got to climb up to the top of one of them.
The Mayan temple we climbed
The view from the top
Ryan Whaley makes sweet love to the camera
Ancient pelota court
Next, it was a brief pottery class, run by an Argentinian expat. A really awesome guy who dedicates his time to helping the Mayans reconnect to their culture and have environmentally sustainable work.
The Argentinian is on the right
The kids in the shop were skilled at pottery
'Una casita' (a little house), built by the little guy that's seen
Dinner was next on the menu. (Ha, ha.)
Our last out-of-resort activity was a Mayan show (performed in Mayan), involving pelota and fire.
One of the actors accidentally setting himself on fire
Back at Barceló, I was encouraged by my entertainment-seeking compatriots to engage in conversation with people outside of our group. One of these people was Eva, a girl from Monterrey who was visiting with her family.
And that’s that. Ziplining, rappelling and other more adventure-y things tomorrow.
More pictures can be found in my Riviera Maya Flickr set.
I’m going to go into fuller detail when I’m not writing posts at 2 AM (and finishing them around 3 AM), but I wanted to give you a bit of an idea of what we did today.
1) Taco breakfast
2) Floating down the Mayan-carved channel at the Sian Ka’an Biosphere
500 year old Mayan customs house
Above is the water we floated down. If you take it and take it, you’ll get to the ocean… We wore life jackets like diapers so we could just float along. I’d need to get a picture from someone else. It was crazy cool.
3) Walking up the tower for the Sian Ka’an Biosphere view
A series of ladders gets you up
The water's color comes from the acid of the plants
4) Tulum ruins
Iguanas galore!
And, of course, actual ruins.
There was a show on the way out of the ruins complex.
"Mexican bungee jumping"
5) Lunch on the beach
7th course
We had seven courses. First time I saw creme brulee in a pineapple.
6) Playa del Carmen
Appetizers
Mezcal (alcoholic drink, no pix available right now, as I don’t drink alcohol)
Reina Roja Hotel - An amazing hotel with theme rooms that will blow you away.
“After Hours room” is a party room. And there’s a bondage room. You can see the pix in my Flickr set.
Here’s my expression after our tour.
Dinner
Chaya-ade
My fish dish
Walking by bars
Then, we drove back to the resort…
7) Jaguar’s – our resort’s disco (club)
In the VIP area
More pictures in my Riviera Maya Flickr set. G’night.
The trip has been totally different from what I expected.
1) Ryan Van Duzer is a cool guy. I told him that I thought he’d be a frat boy type, but nope, he’s down-to-earth and immediately relatable. We’ve become fast friends.
2) While I’ve stayed at luxury hotels, I’ve never stayed at a massive all-inclusive resort. Barceló Maya Palace Deluxe is quite an experience. It was a hike to get to our rooms and there is a resort shuttle that can take you around. The group of us contemplated hitting up a disco that is on the property, but we decided we didn’t want to wait for the shuttle when we have to be up at 8 AM tomorrow.
We had dinner with the hotel and Riviera Maya tourism people today. Apparently, there are multiple restaurants with different styles of cuisine across the resort. I have yet to become familiar with the property. Tonight, we had Caribbean food. (I had shrimp ceviche, scallops, lobster and a pina colada dessert thing, along with some seafood salad bar stuff.) The company was great and all-in-all, I’m having a great time.
Do I need to complain about something for you to not see this as an advertisement? I’ll choose corn flan. I have no idea who came up with it. It was supposedly a dessert, but it just tastes like corn. Just an odd concept all around.
It’s 12:22 AM now (and trust me, it’ll be much later before this post is actually up) and we have to be leaving at 8 AM. So there’s a little for you. Night night.
More pix of dinner and my room can be found in my Riviera Maya Flickr set.
The B’s. Second set in my series of Europe pictures:
Minsk, Belarus
Wanna take a crack at what this is?
Did you say “the KGB building”? You’re right. If you said “the former KGB building”, you’re wrong, as it’s the current KGB building. Yes, in Belarus, there is still the KGB.
Gent, Belgium
A lot of Europeans will tell you that “French fries” are really Belgian. Whatever the origin, you’ll also hear that French fries are the best in Belgium. Like Napolitano pizza, I didn’t buy that there couldn’t be that big of a difference. Like Napolitano pizza, ‘they” are right. Belgian fries just taste better.
Bosnia
I use the smoking kid picture enough and I just wrote a post about Sarajevo, so let’s go a different direction.
There’s just something I like about this picture, taken on a bus (in case you couldn’t tell).
My post from my 2nd time in Sarajevo is here. It’s a two-parter.
Here’s my ROL from Bosnia:
Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria
I didn’t like Sofia (the capital of Bulgaria) much. I was ready to write off the country in general, but I was told to not do so until I went to Veliko Tarnovo, the old capital. I’m glad I did, as it has a totally different feel than Sofia.
My Bulgaria ROL:
Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic
Second post in my Lebanon series. Here’s the first.
Here’s my second Beirut video, where I see some more sites:
Beirut is big enough to have neighborhoods so disparate that your opinion and experience of the city will vastly change based on where you go. Walking around the city for a few days allowed me to see the expanse of Beirut and feel a variety of ways about the city. Beirut is known for its nightlife, which I never really experienced. I got a brief taste of the European-style cafe culture, which was not shared by the more Middle Eastern flair of the restaurant that I went to in Saida (Sidon) (a bit further south in Lebanon). So you do have the cosmopolitan side of Beirut, but the majority of Beirut is certainly not Westernized.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the best part of Beirut for me (and Lebanon as a whole) were the people. I’ll write more about that in a later post. For now, let’s talk about Beirut’s sites.
Raouche: They’re rocks in the water off of the coast of Beirut. That’s it. I have no idea why they’re a must-see thing in Beirut. Probably just because they’re distinct.
The souks: Don’t expect thriving markets of old. They’re upscale shops. If you want the former, head up to Tripoli, in North Lebanon.
Burj Hammoud: I had a rolicking good time in the Armenian part of the city. I hung out with an Armenian travel agent and a Kurdish barber. The neighborhood felt totally alive, with people walking around, kids playing… A dynamic, immigrant sort of a place.
Mohammed Al-Amin mosque: Built between 2002 and 2007, inaugurated in 2008, it’s big, beautiful and worth seeing.
Bullet holes in buildings: Ever since Sarajevo, I’ve always been fascinated with a city that wears its scars. Throughout the city, you’ll see evidence of civil war.
All-in-all, Beirut wasn’t what I expected. When you hear cities compared to Paris, they rarely live up to that level. Bucharest is no more like Paris than Beirut is. Paris is Paris. I had a good time going around Beirut, but I wouldn’t even rank it as a second-tier city for a casual tourist. I would recommend the city for someone who has traveled a good deal in Europe and wants to have something with a bit more of an edge, though. I never felt unsafe, but I definitely would not begrudge someone if they did.
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