By Linda Ellerbee,

Picture > Linda in her Lucky Duck Productions office in New York City.

Sometimes I've been called a maverick because I don't always agree with my colleagues, but then, only dead fish swim with the stream all the time. The stream here is Mexico. 

You would have to be living on another planet to avoid hearing how dangerous Mexico has become, and, yes, it's true drug wars have escalated violence in Mexico, causing collateral damage, a phrase I hate. Collateral damage is a cheap way of saying that innocent people, some of them tourists, have been robbed, hurt or killed.

But that's not the whole story. Neither is this. This is my story.

Playa del Carmen has many marvelous spots to go snorkeling, scuba diving and even cave diving. Along the Great Mayan Reef, the second largest coral reef system in the world, you can dive among hundreds of multicolored fish and discover coral formations that have been around for more than 500 years. At the sinkholes (ponds connected to underground river systems) located in Playa del Carmen’s environs you can explore various caves and caverns full of stalactite and stalagmite formations, allowing you to take in sights of rare beauty that few people will have the opportunity to see.