Here’s Pat Robertson, of the 700 Club talking about the earthquake in Haiti:

The Haitians “were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever,” Robertson said on his broadcast Wednesday. “And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.’ True story. And so, the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’ “

Seriously?  He believes that?  Aside from the complete and utter heartlessness of his “explanation”, it doesn’t really sound like his god is all that loving or big on forgiveness.  Mr Robertson seems to be light on the compassion as well.  Not that this really surprises me, mind you,  since he and Jerry Falwell blamed 9/11 on”the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists…” rather than squarely where the blame really was, which was religion and politics.

Looking back on 2009, it was pretty quiet for the most part. We didn’t get to travel all that much, which is one of my favorite things ever to do and the year just kind of sped by. It was actually a pretty good year in its quietness and I’m happy to have traveled it.

Some highlights for me include:

1. Barack Obama’s inauguration – which I didn’t go into DC for because it was too damn cold. Instead, we watched it on the telly.
2. Seeing Video Games Live at Wolf Trap – I wasn’t sure I would enjoy this, but did quite a lot. Wolf Trap is a wonderful venue and we really should see performances there more often.
3. I was able to spend a wonderful weekend with my mom and all my siblings – I hope we are able to do that again in the next couple years. It’s easy to get caught up in the day to day and forget just quickly time passes. Oh, and our 73 year old mother kicked our collective asses in Wii Bowling.
4. We spent a glorious week in Cancun – what a way to escape winter! But not for long, we got back just in time for a blizzard.

See – kind of quiet. I don’t lead an exciting life and I’m ok with that. I like it, actually.

For 2010 I have hopes to do at least a little traveling, upgrade my camera and maybe I’ll even pick up a new hobby – I have not decided what, though. Of course, time passes so quickly now that I’ll probably still be thinking about that a year from now.

I hope everyone has a happy and prosperous 2010!

Yeah, I used this graphic last year, but it still makes me laugh.

I hope everyone has a fantastic holiday filled with people and things you enjoy and nothing you don’t!

Interestingly, nearly every time I mentioned to someone that we were vacationing in Cancun the first thing they asked is “is it safe there?”.  Although Mexico has seen a lot of drug related violence, most of that violence is in the border cities far away from Cancun.  Mexico is a large country with quite the range in safety and violence.   One of my coworkers also vacationed in Cancun a few weeks ago and he said he had been warned against leaving the resort, so they didn’t.  I find that sad, because all the warnings I could find really dealt with other parts of Mexico.  Cancun and it’s surrounding areas really have so much to offer.  To not see any of it really is tragic.  I’ve been to Cancun and the surrounding areas twice now and haven’t felt the slightest bit unsafe.  We haven’t gone exploring completely on our own because neither of us speaks much Spanish.  Tourist Spanish really only goes so far.  So we book tours to places we want to see.  And even when we have had free time to explore the areas we have visited we have not felt unsafe at all.

Ok, on to the fun parts..

Just like our first trip in 2007, we stayed at the Westin Resort & Spa.  We loved it the first time and this trip was even better.  Their staff is excellent and the service is impeccable.  The location is fantastic, too, actually.  They have a nice beach and the hotel is situated in a quiet area away from down town.  Our first full day there we basically hung out in the shade by the pool.  We had a long day of travel the day before and we wanted to just chill and enjoy the warm sunshine shade.  They have bar/snack service all down the beach and by the pools so we just hung out and drank all day.  It was a lovely way to start a vacation. Most relaxing.  We even took a long walk down the beach (after slathering on plenty of gazillion SPF sun block, of course).

Then on Sunday we took a private tour to Chichen Itza (where we’ve been before) and Ek’ Balam (had not been there before).  They have everything cabled off at Chichen Itza so you can’t climb on any of the ruins, sadly.  The last time we were there we were able to climb one of the smaller ruins, but they had it blocked off this time.  I do understand why, though.  Chichen Itza is very heavily toured and all those people really do take a toll.  It was good to be there again, though, as it is a beautiful site.  After taking some lovely photos, we decided to take a look at the stuff the myriad of vendors had for sale.  I had been looking for a large Aztek calendar that was brightly painted.  I found exactly what I was looking for and a few other things to bring home.  We also saw some fresh excavation which is always pretty neat.

Our next stop was Ek’ Balam, where you can climb everything.  It doesn’t look as heavily traveled, so they haven’t blocked everything off like they have in many of the larger parks.   We only climbed the main ruin, which was fairly high, and the view was spectacular.  We hired a guide there, which honestly I wish we had not done.  He was good and very nice, but he took too much time telling about the myths, which I remember nothing about (sadly, because it really is interesting) and we weren’t really able to take much time to explore.  Coy enjoyed the guide a lot more than I did.  I would have been happy to walk around, climb everything and take a lot of photographs.  I often research sites I’ve been to after the fact, actually, and match everything up with the pictures I’ve taken.  That works pretty well for me.

Tuesday, we ventured to Cozumel to take a little trip on a submarine (Atlantis Submarine) to see the reefs.  The deepest depth we went to was 105 feet.  We saw the edge of the island — it’s like a cliff.  We saw lots of reef, fish, a few sting rays and whatnot.  It was a blast.  Sadly, we were kind of stuck in Cozumel for a couple hours after that before we could catch the ferry back to Playa del Carmen and get our list back to the hotel.  Not a fan of Cozumel.  Too many overly aggressive people trying to get you to spend money in their shops.  I have never liked that.  Still, the sub ride was super fun.  I suspect that durring high season it’s actually better because there are more people.  We tend to vacation in the tropics just before their season really starts because we like the lack of people.  But it does have it’s drawbacks.

Wednesday was Coy’s birthday.  We were suppose to go on a sunset cruise and have dinner on the beach, but the travel agent changed the time of our pickup and I didn’t notice and so we missed it.  Hopefully they will refund our money. They said they would, but I’m not really optimistic.  Once we got back and I was able to check my mail again I saw it really was my mistake, but it just did not occur to me that they would move the time up.  The sunset is extremely predictable, so they really should have known more than a week out that their pickup times were wrong.  They also could have called our hotel the day before to confirm the pickup (another tour we took did just that).  But, anyway, we missed it and so we stayed at the resort for his birthday and the waiters kept feeding us cocktails and we had a really lovely dinner at their nice restaurant.  Actually, with every meal that day (including breakfast) we got a free desert.  And more than a few free cocktails.  I tell you, they really know how to take care of their guests!

Thursday, we took our last tour for the vacation and we managed to really wear ourselves out with all the walking and climbing.  This time we went to Coba and Aktun Chen.  Coba is really spread out and there doesn’t seem to be a lot to see.  Maybe there is more than we had time for, I don’t know.  There is one big ruin which you can climb — The Nohoch Mul pyramid — it’s 145 feet tall.  I didn’t climb that one. My fearless husband did, though.  After we left there and before we got to Aktun Chen, we also stopped by a local shop (the tours generally take you to somewhere to hopefully spend your cash) and we got some lunch and did a bit more shopping.  I really liked a number of the things for sale there.

Aktun Chen is a cave complete with stalactites, stalagmites, fossilized coral, fruit bats (non-fossilized) and a cenote.  However, unlike every other cave I’ve been to, this one was hot and humid.  I’m used to cool and damp in caves.

After our full day we headed back to the hotel for one last dinner for the next day we came home (to winter wonderland, as it turned out!).

Galleries:

Mexico Trip – December 2009

Chichen Itza

56 Photos

Ek Balam

32 Photos

Atlantis Submarine Cozumel

16 Photos

Cozumel

8 Photos

Coba

35 Photos

Coba Cenote

8 Photos

Aktun Chen

46 Photos

Westin Cancun

32 Photos

 

Videos:

The view from “our spot” by the pool:

Two videos from our submarine ride:

Yesterday morning, we enjoyed our last few hours in the warm sunshine, wearing shorts, tshirts and sandals and then we came home to a blizzard:

Our view yesterday morning:

And this morning:

Something tells me we aren’t in Cancun anymore…

I never got to meet him, never got to thank him for everything he did for his fellow humans.  Everything he did for me.

If you’ve never read any of his books, I recommend them all, but particularly The Demon Haunted World.  If you’ve never seen Cosmos, it’s on Hulu, you should check it out.

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

~~ Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark