Unique Things to Do in Yucatan Peninsula

Find unique things to do in Yucatan Peninsula in the video below. It includes such off the tourist track places as Ek Balam, with its magnificent carvings in the face of a pyramid that you can climb. You’ll also find Valladolid, where you can get wonderful local Yucatecan food. Plus, you’ll love Izamal, the yellow-painted town with its cathedral, home of the Black Christ or Cristo Negro. And, of course, there’s the usual Yucatan tourist hotspots of Tulum, Chichen Itza, Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Coba, and Akumal.

Many Reasons to Love Yucatan

There are many reasons to love Yucatan. In this video, narrator and co-writer of the travelogue, Yucatan Travel: Cancun to Chichen Itza, Miriam Balsley describes 12 of the reasons she loves Yucatan Mexico.

From swimming and snorkeling in the warm tropical waters of the Riviera Maya, to exploring mysterious lands and ancient Mayan ruins, to the shopping and nightlife of Cancun, to the rich cultural heritage of the Maya peoples, to the world-renown Chichen Itza pyramids, the Yucatan Peninsula is a magical place. Here’s a short video showing the many things to love about Yucatan:

Stories about Life

Kristine Ellingson tells her stories about life in Tales from the Yucatan Jungle. She describes how she needs to get away after a devastating marriage breakup, but she doesn’t lose heart.

Cooking in a Mayan House

Kristine Ellingson learned cooking in a Mayan house during her marriage to a Mayan man and living in a Mayan village for over 20 years. In the video below, Kristine describes the traditional cooking hut used by her Mayan mother-in-law, Carmen, also explaining Carmen’s method of cooking in a Mayan house. 

14 Reasons You’ll Love Yucatan

Pyramid of Kukulcan, Chichen Itza

14 Reasons for loving the Yucatan? Let me count the ways. From swimming and snorkeling in the warm tropical waters of the Riviera Maya, to exploring mysterious lands and ancient Mayan ruins, to the shopping and nightlife of Cancun, to the rich cultural heritage of the Mayan people, to the world-renown Chichen Itza pyramids, these are just some of the 14 reasons the Yucatan Peninsula is a magical place.

Tales from the Yucatan Jungle doing well on Amazon

I am really happy today, because a book I worked on as editor, Tales from the Yucatan Jungle: Life in a Mayan Village by Kristine Elllingson, is doing very well.

Yesterday, on Amazon.com, the paperback book went to No. 3 in books on the Yucatan Peninsula.

This morning, on Amazon.ca (Canada), the paperback was No. 1 in books on the Yucatan Peninsula.

This morning, on Amazon United Kingdom, the paperback was No. 5 in books on the Yucatan. 

 The Amazon.com Kindle is doing well also. Yesterday, it was No. 1 in books on Mexico. Not too shabby!

It is a great book and I highly recommend it. It’s not only a love story of how Kristine met and married her Mayan husband of 20 years, but it’s also a behind-the-scenes insider’s view of a Mayan village. Most expat stories are about the difficulties of being an outsider in a foreigner country. Kristine has become an insider. She tells stories of a Yucatan that tourists see while they drive by in their tour buses, but seldom know anything about. Get this book and get the inside story!

Tropical Storm Alex Headed Toward Yucatan

According to the National Hurricane Center, as reported by Eric Ehlir on the Men’s Lifestyle and News Spot site, a tropical storm which could possibly increase speed to a hurricane is headed to the Yucatan Peninsula.

The models forecasting possible tracks of Tropical Storm Alex mostly show the storm heading for the Yucatan Peninsula. The storm could travel to the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico possibly as soon as this weekend says Jack Bevens, a hurricane forecaster.

Tropical Storm Alex Heading Directly Toward Yucatan Peninsula

However, I thought the first of the hurricanes in 2010 was Tropical Storm Agatha, as I reported on this blog on June 8th. Either the hurricane forecasters from different countries need to start communicating with each other or, more likely, I don’t know how the hurricane naming system works because I thought that the first tropical storm/potential hurricane’s name started with the first letter of the alphabet, i.e. “A,” the second with “B,” and so forth.

While in Cancun filming footage for the Yucatan Travel Movie, we saw the ravages of previous hurricanes with metal staircases twisted like a pretzel. Pretty darn scary!

What do the Space Program and the Chixculub Crater have in common?

In the sequel to the Yucatan Travel Movie, we will visit the location where the Chixculub Crater on the Yucatan Peninsula.

We are almost certain that we know what killed the dinosaurs. Sixty-five million years ago, an object 10-15 kilometers in size impacted the Earth near the present-day town of Chixculub on the Yucatan Peninsula. . . .The Chixculub collision was more powerful than one billion Hiroshima bombs and left a crater more than 100 miles in diameter, now mostly covered by the Gulf of Mexico.

Why explore space? [Part I of II]

You may be wondering what space exploration has to do with the Chixculub Crater. As I understand J Klugler, the author of the above excerpt in the Houston Chronicle, since an asteroid once caused mass devastation on earth and the extinction of the dinosaurs, we need to have colonies in space so that should another asteroid collision wipe out most life on earth, human beings can continue on another planet.

Copyright (c) 2010 Carol Chapman

Cenotes and the Chixculub Asteroid

In the Yucatan Travel Movie, we visit a cenote that few tourists go to because it is not a tourist bus destination. The following excerpt from a blog for students visiting the Yucatan Peninsula describes the probably association between cenotes or sinkholes and an ancient asteroid that hit earth.

The peninsula is largely an irregular limestone formation, comprised of cenotes, underground streams, and caverns. Cenotes, or sinkholes, are widespread in the northern lowlands and served as the main water source for many ancient and contemporary Mayans. A now famous ring of cenotes outlines what is thought to be the site where an ancient asteroid crashed. Located off the north coast near the town of Chicxulub, the site is believed to outline the shock wave of the event which dropped the surface limestone into the underground Yucatan aquifer.
Holy Ghost Temple Missions

Lovely Background Music for “Tulum”

Tulum is one of the most beautiful archeological sites in the Yucatan Peninsula. Surrounded by rustling palm trees and perched on a cliff overlooking the turquoise Caribbean Sea, the section on Tulum in the Yucatan Travel Movie needed a poignant heartful musical accompaniement and I am happy to have found it in one of the Sony Creative Software Cinescore selections.