Mexico Trip Pt 1: Overview

I don't often get too personal on my blog here. (I don't often update it in the first place.) This is for a number of reasons (including why there are so few pictures of myself on here) but mostly because Hollow Ryan is a pen name and I don't often like to associate it with my real life. It's my alter ego and I don't have to be me when I come into this space. I get to be the writer and author and random facts person in this space.

Not today.

Due to a variety of issues, I'm forced to share my vacation videos in this space, since I know it can actually hold them. (I hope.) Therefore, this is going to be a bit like a recipe blog: I'm going to chatter away about my trip to Mexico and only at the end will you get to see SOME videos. As the title of this post suggests, I will be breaking them up and distributing them over several posts because I don't want it to get too bogged down. So now, let's dive in. (Pun intended.)

My boyfriend and I are scuba divers. We're PADI Advanced Open Water certified which means we can go down to around 100 feet without someone figuratively holding our hands. This is really helpful when you consider some of the coolest shipwrecks are down below 70 feet. That being said, what this means is that when we choose vacation destinations, diving is usually one of the first things we look at.

After much research, we decided that Mexico would be a great place to vacation. The bf has been to the area twice before and liked it well enough to take me. (I declined to go the two previous trips for financial reasons.)

We stayed at the Iberostar Tucan (also directly connected to the Iberostar Quetzal) in the Playacar gated community in Playa Del Carmen. It was incredible! They really embraced the jungle at the resort and I mean that literally: there is a jungle section right in the middle of the property. Since it still retains the feel of a natural habitat, this means that there are creatures like agouti, coati, and howler monkeys constantly going about their business. Birds like the flamingoes keep to themselves while the peacocks are literally strutting their stuff all over the place.

The beach access is wonderful, with paths through the jungle to get you to the huge pool. After skirting around that, you find beautiful pale sand and turquoise waves crashing into the shore. I was immediately mesmerized and went straight for the salt water.

Now, because there's still so much more left to say and information to give in other parts, I'm just going to let this devolve into monkey videos now. Enjoy!

Other than the tortoise, you will find agouti in this video. I called them squirrels the whole trip because of how they eat with their little forepaws.

Was surprised to find this gathering of monkeys upon leaving the room one day. They were just off the path leading to our building in the jungle section of the resort. Why? Because disrespectful people thought they were so entitled that they didn't have to adhere to the simple request to not feed the animals.

The beginning of this footage not only shows the primary culprits for feeding of the animals, but also the coati that knew they wanted some of that. This was not the first time we saw tourists feeding the coati during our trip, but it is the only time I was able to get decent footage of them.