Ahead lies the adventure of Cancun 2013! It all started with the LONG, COLD, DEPRESSING winter we experienced here in the good ole SLC. The inversion in the valley was horrible, we could barely see anything all winter long, and it was dark most of the six month long winter. No sun=no warmth..at all! Carrie and I had really been feeling a vacation coming up! With the delightful $1,000 tax return I got this year we thought a tropical vacation was the perfect thing to spend it on!
One night Carrie and I spent hours looking over all the deals available on groupon. We found a $350 five night all inclusive resort stay in Cancun, and we were sold! Add on top of that our amazingly priced $570 round trip airplane ticket, and we were still under budget! We were sold! We tried to get more people, but all that was on board was Carrie's co-worker Jill. We were sold!
Cancun ended up being a lot more prep work then I expected. For starters I'd need to get my very first and expensive passport, then I had to get a tanning pass so my skin wouldn't completely fry in the hot Cancun sun, then I needed luggage, as well as a neck pillow, floppy hat to shade me from the sun, and of course beach outfits and a new swim suit. All was well and I got everything I needed including work off!
I was all packed and ready to go Monday night, and after Carrie got off work Tuesday we went to do a session in the Bountiful Temple to fulfill my ward calling of ward temple night. Then we got a free dinner on the ward at Applebee's and we were on our way to pick up Jill and head out on our red eye flight.
Little did we know that the trip there, long as it seemed was WAY better then getting back! More about that later. We left SLC at 11:59 PM, endured a crying baby, and tried to get as much sleep as we could. We made it to Charlotte NC in the wee hours of the morning, then tried to sleep on the hard airport floor until our next flight which would take us to paradise!
FINALLY IN CANCUN!!! WE made it to Cancun around 11:00AM, and headed to our hotel via a taxi service. We were so grateful for Jill's amazing Spanish! It saved us time after time on this trip! I have to tell you, Mexicans are CRAZY drivers! Nothing like Utah drivers, but they are fast! It was quite the experience! The airport is in the middle of the jungle, and we wondered where the beach was, and a 20 min ride later we found it! Hotel central! Every hotel had an amazing private beach, and great view! We dropped off all of our taxi companions at amazing hotels just hoping ours was half as nice! This is what we ended up with:
The Grand Oasis Viva. Not to shabby!!!! It was super upscale and nice! We were served fruit punch in fancy glasses while we checked in. We immediately knew we made a great decision in coming!
The view from our room was AMAZING!!!! We felt we had died and gone to heaven! We just had to get down to that beach!
This was our own private beach with little bungaloo shade huts! AMAZING!!!! Once in the ocean we were SOOO happy! It made our red eye flight and crying child worth it! We were in heaven! The water was crystal clear, and warm! We were admiring the jet skis near by, and thinking of springing the $30 for a 30 min jet ski ride, when a random man came cruising up on a jet ski and asked if we wanted a ride. UM YEAH!!!! We were a little hesitant of course, and Jill said she would do it, and Carrie and I concluded that if she came back alive we too would do it! We are so glad we did! Juan was our new friend, and he drove us around, then let us drive, and even had us hop in for a little swim in the middle of the ocean! It was quite the experience! The only problem was water constantly splashing in your face! It would have been much more enjoyable with googles! The salt water burned!
After our fun little jet ski adventure we wandered back to shore to start in on our free drinks and snacks! Then once we found a great spot on the beach we were immediately accosted by Renaldo asking us to go on a sail boat excursion the following morning for $80. It did sound truly amazing, and I'd been dying to ride a sail boat, but we managed to talk him down to $55 a person, and we gave him a down payment. We had no idea what a great adventure we were in for!
We wrapped up our first day with the weirdest dinner at Dos Lunas. Every course was strange, and FYI Mexican version of Italian is definitely not American!!! We were stunned and slightly disappointed! The drunk people behind us kept us entertained though!
After a significantly early night, and getting serenaded to sleep by a sax player we woke up early, ate breakfast, and were off on our sailing adventure! We walked two hotels down, and had our first Mexican bus experience. They were also crazy! He started driving before we even had a chance to pay him and sit down!
We made it to our meeting point alive and definitely ready to party!
The boat was so fun, the crew was awesome and helped us in and out of the boat all day, and about every ten minutes would come around offering us drinks...we quickly became the "agua girls" everyone in Cancun loves getting plastered and drinking all day, this was the first of many experiences with people trying to get us tequila Mexican water.
The first thing we did was snorkel! So fun!!! They set us up with gear, and a guide took us around and we saw amazing fish!!!
Next we continued our voyage to Isla de Mujeres (Island of women). We went shopping in the flea market, which was a fun experience!
It was a tiny little island, and we could see clear across the whole thing from ocean to ocean. We Walked around and enjoyed the cultural experience!
We then went to lunch and napped in hammocks! AMAZING! This was the point we really realized what an amazing vacation we were going to have!
We got to swim with and hold this HUGE catfish shark thing! It was a little terrifying...but fun!
Carrie cam away with a 15 year old boy in love with her! He kept telling Jill in spanish to tell Carrie that he loved her and he wanted a kiss from her. She declined once I asked how old he was. haha! He really liked her, and it was humorous for the rest of us! We also made friends with one of the workers named Edgar from LA. He had his mom's name (Gladys) Tattooed on his neck. He was quite interesting! He really loved us though! haha
Next was paraswinging! It was definitely a unique experience! So fun! Slightly terrifying to realize we were literally in the ocean in the middle of no where, but it was pretty fab! I loved it! Basically they just tied this sail to the boat, and let the wind take you right up!
I had a love of my own on this trip. This guy in the picture, (who I didn't even realize until after was him) LOVED me! I really didn't even catch on until the very end of the trip, but he did subtle little things that we connected at the end. Whenever he helped me on or off the boat he would hold my hand a little longer then everyone else. I literally would walk away until we were too far to keep holding hands anymore. Then he helped me ever so slowly put on my life jacket. In this picture he had just attracted tons of fish right to us with some fish food of some sort, and he kept hanging around us, which we thought was perfect so he could take our picture for us! haha. Apparently while I was up in air on the paraswing he was convinced my name was Claudia, and kept telling Jill I looked like a Claudia. Jill kept correcting him, but he wasn't convinced, he wanted me to be Claudia. It was pretty funny to hear about it after. Anyway at the very end of the trip all of the crew stood in a line and shook our hands and told us thank you, and when I got to this guy he grabbed my hand, pulled me in, and kissed me on the cheek, told me I was beautiful! haha! Quite the experience! Renaldo had promised us we would find boyfriends on the excursion...apparently he was right!
The next day was our lazy day. We leisurely woke up, Carrie watched the Today show, then we headed to breakfast, then to lay out (Jill and I in the shade, and Carrie in the sun). Seriously that day was the best! We just milled around I read my book, enjoyed the warm weather right on the beach, and when we got hot we'd go take a dip in the ocean, then come back and dry off and continue reading. When we got hungry we'd go get a snack, or lunch, or a drink, all free! SOOO amazing! Jill's turn came for a Mexican boyfriend. He was definitely the cutest and most eligible of all of our Mexican boyfriends (Mine way old, and Carrie's way young this guy fit right with our age! And he was cute!) He came and talked us into doing water aerobics in the ocean. It was actually sooo fun! I would totally do that again! Then we did a little dance lesson on the beach with the hot boy. Of course he asked Jill to be his partner. It was way fun! We layed around, and swam some more, then ended up in our favorite pool, then off to shower. That became our way to end the day-pool, shower, eat dinner. That's the life man!
That night we went to Mexican...I think I prefer Mexican-American! haha. The waiters were so fun and nice though! They made the environment awesome! One of them offered me ice cream with my dessert, then when it came out without ice cream we were like hey! What the? and he went to another restaurant to get us ice cream! So nice! They were way fun!!! They also had a live mexican band which we imagined was like the movie Selena. They were awesome!
We managed to make it to all the resturants to try them. This was the super fancy one! What we are eating is soup, which they poured right in front of us. It was pretty cool. This night was also night two of the sax man. We were pretty excited!!!
We were late to the fire show because the service was so slow at the fancy restaurant but it was quite the show. We also watched a hip hop show the night before. They could really shake it!
This random guy showed up in the morning, and we are still wondering if they keep the peacocks, or if they are just wild and roam the peninsula! Pretty unexpected, but awesome!
I cannot tell you how lathered up on sunscreen, and after sun lotion I was. I cannot imagine if I didn't have a base tan how burnt I would have been, but although I did burn, it really didn't last but a day or two. I am so happy about that. Although as I write this I am peeling like crazy! I just hope I get to enjoy my tan for most of the summer! I've never been this tan before! This was our favorite beach spot!
Oh, you know, just in our private beach in Canccun!
We loved this tree! Super out of place, but awesome! We decided the only thing our resort was missing were hammocks! That would have definitely improved it!
Another view of our fave spot! On Saturday we layed out in the morning, then went to the flea market down the road. We thought it wouldn't be that bad of a walk, but it SUCKED! So hot, we were so sweaty, and it was really far! We found some great treasures though! Then we accidentally found this huge Mexican outlet which turned out to be WAY better then any of the flea markets, it had everything imaginable! Pretty legit! I also discovered a little shop in the airport that I loved!
After that hot sweaty experience it was time for pool, then shower and dinner. This was our fave pool. The view was amazing, the water was perfect, and this little ledge was awesome!
We went for a little night beach walk one of the nights too. So fun! Girl talk on the beach...YES PLEASE!!
We splurged and we to Xel-Ha on Sunday! It was definitely worth it! Fun way to spend the day!
They had unlimited food and drinks, and a hammock villiage! We were in heaven!!!
livin' it up in Xel-Ha!!!
So pretty!!!
We had to walk through this beautiful jungle-esqu area to get around the park! So pretty, and so real to the culture!
We were a little scared to do the rope swing into the cold abyss, but it was super fun, and we are glad we did it!!!
This was the cool cave we ended up swimming up after the swing!
Who knew, but there are lizards EVERYWHERE in Cancun, just roaming free!
We did the cliff of courage multiple times, The second time I did not keep my legs straight and paid the price with a HUGE bruised feeling! We decided it was approximately 25 feet high
These Were weird little monkey fox things that were running around. The closest resemblance to a monkey we found the whole trip.
We tubed down this cool river! So pretty!
Then we held these parrots! That was awesome!!!
So cool!!!
We snorkeled in this cool cave! The water wasn't as clear, and there weren't as cool of fish as the time we snorkeled by the Island, but it was fun!
Don't worry, my life jacket was way too big! I exchanged it very quickly for a smaller one! We enjoyed our little outing!!!
These guys helped us tube and they were super funny. They boy taking the picture named Edgar referred to the guy in the middle as his monkey who would do whatever he said haha
We also rode bikes which I was actually not really looking forward to, but what they say is true, it really is "just like riding a bike". I don't think I've ridden a bike in 15 years, and it all came back, and was super fun!!!
I could feel my skin burning by the second, so don't worry I got fully clothed, and we rode the little "train".
The Myans have a legend that if you write your wishes on the tops of trees the gods will answer them, so we wrote our wishes on this wishing tree! Their gift shop was pretty awesome!
ZIP LINES!!! These were pretty fun!!! Our day had to come to an end sadly, and we had to catch our bus home for the 1.5 hour ride back to our hotel. Of course we swam, dinner. showered it up, then off to bed.
Somewhere along the way our maid threw away, or lost our receipt and number for our already paid for taxi back to the airport. Luckily Jill came to the rescue again with her spanish, and got it all sorted out and scheduled our taxi for the airport the next morning.
We were terribly sad to leave! We chilled in the ocean in our favorite spot the next morning, then did our favorite pool, breakfast, and showered and were all checked out by our noon deadline. We still had time to kill so we sneaked some lunch by faking our snipped bracelets. We took some departing pictures, and had a departing pina colata, and kissed our paradise goodbye! The next 36 hours were not fun! We got to the airport like three hours early, then our plane was delayed. We finally boarded, and had to deplane, and wait another three hours, while they tried to fix some spoiler problem. It was about 10 by the time they told us they were canceling our flight and our completely full 200+ people flight all had to get shuttled off to a free hotel stay.
Of course my mom was freaking out facebooking my friends thinking I had died, after a huge process trying to call her, and having it not work, then having to rush out of the airport and to our hotel, I just bit the bullet and paid the .50 per text to let her know what was going on. We slept in the hotel two down from our Oasis. This was called Riu. It was NOT impressive! They had a better drink selection, and more water bottles then our hotel, but the beds were hard, it was hot, and the alarm clock time was wrong and we couldn't figure out how to set it. Quite annoying! We woke up at 5:50AM to start our journey home. We got shuttled back to the airport, and had to start all over again. Our flight was once again delayed, but this time we actually made it to Phoenix for our connecting flight home.
We did not have enough time in the Phoenix airport, and rushed through customs and emigration then raced across the entire airport to our terminal, only to get all cozy with our first meal of the day, and realize they changed the terminal and they were now boarding our flight ACROSS the airport. So we booked it to our new terminal, and made it on the plane eight minutes before take off. It was quite crazy and tiring. The flight to Pheonix was long and exhausting, but luckily this flight was super short, and at this point we were happy to be home, and able to use our phone to text and check the internet! It was crazy!!! We finally landed in SLC, and Michael picked us up, and we told him all about our amazing trip minus the last 36 hours.
The trip was definitely the trip of a lifetime! I loved every minute of it, and am so grateful for the memories! I am SUPER happy about all the pictures! LOVED it!!!
Just in case you were curious what I bought abroad here it goes:
A pen/highlighter at xel-ha, a mini Nativity inside a cactus, a hot pink skull in isla de mujeres which I originally bought for a friend, then decided i loved it, so I kept it. an anchor key chain that says mexico.cancun. I had a ton of pesos left, and just made them into magnents, I bought a littel monkey key chain for Ciara who wanted a monkey, and a mini pink skull for Jeni as well as a funky pencil for her to write her appointments with. I also got dad a fish keychain that says cancun for Father's day (shhh), and for myself a Cancun Mexico tee shirt with neon letters and splatters which is super trendy right now.
7 days, 36 hour travel back home, 2.5 books read, and 1 sunburn later=AMAZING trip to cancun!
A few realizations I came to on this trip: 1. Mexicans love women, and drinking. That's about it. As loving and caring as they are they are rude and pushy in lines, and if they don't know you. 2. I do want a boyfriend/husband to go on trips like this with. We saw numerous couples cuddling, and it just looked so amazing! Fun times had by all, and now it's my birthday! Happy quarter of a century to me!
