How We Spent our Christmas Vacation

or Mexico on $1000 a day

(almost free)

During December of 1998 and Janurary of 1999 we spent three weeks touring the ruins, cities, towns and beaches of the Yucatan, and we are going to tell you about, like it or not.

The full cast of participants, Carolyn, Shelly, Anthony, Tim and Debra, in the Yucatan, Mexico.

The Vault at Labna, Yucatan, Mexico.

We read many books about Mexico, the Yucatan and the Mayan ruins before this trip and brought several with us. Amazon.com has been a great help and has many of the books we used. There are specific books that helped on this trip. On certain pages where one of those books was important to us, we'll reference it. If you go to amazon.com and actually buy it, they will send us (me) a portion of the sale. What a deal!

A book I've had since my first trip the Yucatan (1988) is A Guide to Ancient Maya Ruins by C. Bruce Hunter. You will actually carry this book around the sites along with your water. With this book you can read aloud and impress even the guides (if you do decide to compete with the local guides be prepared to embellish your narrative at length). Besides the northern Yucatan, this book also covers the Pacific Slope, Southern Yucatan (Chiapas and Tabasco) and Guatemala. There are plenty of color plates, black and white photos and maps. Its fun to compare some of the black and white photos taken in the early '70s to existing scenes, the ruins don't change, but the jungle grows.

No reproduction or use without permission of the photographers. © Shelley Stallings & Tim Miller 1999