When a Geography Assignment turned into a Vacation

In fall 2016, I enrolled in the World Geography course taught by Mrs. van der Merwe on FundaFunda, hoping to improve my geography skills. One of my favorite assignments was a group project to plan a week-long, budget-friendly, Latin-American vacation for a family of four. My partner and I decided to plan a trip to Tulum, Mexico. Our plan included airfare, lodging, food, and activities.

The Geography Assignment from FundaFunda Academy

Here is the trip as planned by Lily and her group (yes, you can do group projects in online classes!)

Fast forward to summer 2017, and the trip I planned became reality. I had been hoping to go on a retreat with my scholars’ program, but that didn’t work out. Because I had already planned the Mexico trip as my geography assignment, my family was able to quickly make reservations to go to Mexico. It helped that I was able to tell my parents it would be affordable!

I was so excited when the plane landed in Cancun. The sky was blue, the weather was balmy, and palm trees swayed gently. We started the drive south to Tulum, and along the way, we stopped at a tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant. That was also where I realized that I totally don’t know Spanish, despite having listened to a series of Spanish language-learning cassettes four years prior. Unfortunately, the restaurant staff knew equally as little English… I accidentally told the waiter “I love you.” Whoops. The fish tacos there were excellent.

The first two days were spent in Tulum. We visited the Tulum ruins, one of only a few Mayan villages built along the coast. We stayed in a palapa-roof cabana on the beach, sleeping under mosquito nets and realizing that Mexico without air conditioning is not 100% enjoyable. Behind the cabana was an above-ground cenote (rainwater lake, pronounced sea-no-tay), which was a fun place to kayak.

One of my planned activities was to visit Aktun-Chen, an incredibly beautiful cave and cenote. Aktun-Chen is a wet cave, so there are plenty of stalactite and stalagmite formations. Tree roots, seeking water, come down through the roof, and bats flit around. At the end of the cave tour, we went snorkeling in the underground cenote inside the cave (warning: the water is cold).

Spending the day underground was the perfect way to avoid the stormy weather brewing up above. When we got back to the cabana, we were pleased to find that the tropical storm had driven out all the mosquitos and dropped the temperature to a much more pleasant 80 degrees. Unfortunately, the storm also made the beach too rough for swimming, and the rain managed to percolate through the roof of our cabana. We made plans to move inland the following day.

Deviating slightly from my original planned trip, we found a place to stay in Valledolid, an old Spanish colonial town several hours northwest of Tulum. Valledolid wasn’t far from another activity I had planned: the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza.

Chichen Itza was a much older and larger city than Tulum. It was amazing to see the ruins and realize we were standing in the remains of a once-bustling city that included numerous temples where priests offered sacrifices, including human sacrifices, to their many gods.

We left Valledolid to spend the last days of our vacation in Puerto Morelos. Puerto Morelos is a small beach town, about 30 minutes south of Cancun and noticeably less crowded. At Puerto Morelos we were able to enjoy the beachfront activities I had originally planned for Tulum, the highlight being a snorkel tour.

The Mesoamerican coral reef is the second largest reef system in the world. This reef is right off the Puerto Morelos beach and can be accessed by a five minute boat ride. We saw a lot of cnidarians: star coral (huge), staghorn coral (brown), brain coral (lumpy), sea urchins (pointy), and both green and purple anemones. We saw lots of colorful fishes! My favorites were the rainbow parrotfish and the juvenile yellowtail damselfish. We saw large schools of fish, huge gray fish swimming solitarily, and tiny little yellow fish. There were pencilfish (they swim vertically!), pufferfish, lobsters, and a stingray.

It was an incredible week in Mexico. I love it when school assignments have real-life applications, especially when that application means a tropical vacation!