Mexico has an area of two million square kilometers (four times France).
Mexico City is the capital and there are one hundred and twenty million inhabitants.
The currency is the Mexican pesos and life is very expensive (one euro equals nineteen pesos). The equivalence for a postcard would be 2€.
We left Le Quesnoy, by train to Charles de Gaulle airport.

Boarding at half past eleven and departure at twenty to one p.m. The flight was a Boeing 777 of Air France.
We arrived in Cancun at half past five p.m local time and the temperature was twenty eight degrees (the time lag is six hours).
We had a shuttle to the hotel (about one hour) and we arrived in Playa del Carmen. It’s a very comfortable hotel with a big beautiful tropical garden of eighty thousand square meters and there is also a marvellous white sandy beach.

On the first day we explored the hotel and its garden, and planned our visits.
We started with Playa del Carmen which consisted of restaurants and tourist shops.

For the visit of Cobé which is a Maya site in the rain forest, we took the bus which put us at the foot of the site and we met our guide who accompanied us all day.
The Mayan civi l isat ion dates f rom prehistory and Cobé dates from the 5th century B.C.

Built on eighty square kilometers in the middle of the virgin forest, it was discovered in 1920 but it was only in 1970 that the excavations began.
All the constructions are limestone.There are different monuments, churches,ball games, and pyramids.The arrival of the Spanish in the 15th century precipitated the fall of the Maya.
There was another interesting site : Tulum Along the Caribbean sea, it was a fishing port and trading centre in the 6th century.
Walls four meters high and six meters thick formed a defense along which we could walk.

The visit of a small Maya village was certainly the most wonderful day. We travelled round the village in a rickshaw and visited typical houses, and a meal ended a very busy day.

In the hotel park we could see many animals such as peacocks,iguanas,flamingos and many others.
The great white sandy beaches, a swimming pool and a deckchair : too hard were the holidays!!!!
All good things come on to an end, and many little stars shone in our heads !
I forgot to tell you that this trip was to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary.

Thank you, and I wish you could make the same wonderful journey.

Jean Michel Dupont