Spencer and I took our first real vacation together just a few weeks ago. By "real" I mean not our honeymoon (which was to St. George anyway...), and not one that included staying with family or having to adhere to any kind of schedule. :) It was marvelous. I highly recommend it. Thanks to my amazing sister Ellie, brother-in-law Bryan, and the rest of the wonderful Warnick clan, the vacation was also baby free. This worked out wonderfully well as I can't imagine that Grace would have found much joy in snorkeling. Or an airplane ride. Or tropical, blood-thirsty mosquitoes. Again, thank you guys--so much. It was such a blessing to be able to leave her with people that we knew we could trust completely.
We stayed at a resort along the Mayan Riviera just 45 minutes south of Cancun and five minutes north of Playa del Carmen. This was both Spencer's and my first time staying in a resort and it was quite the experience. I would say that staying in a resort on the beach is very like unto going on a cruise, but without the sea sickness. They are definitely both part of the same cultural genre. Free and fattening food were everywhere to be found (as well as all things alcoholic--I can't even count how many times we were offered tequila...) and there was some kind of show every night--generally of questionable content. The one show Spencer and I actually went to was so crude and ridiculous that we walked out after less than ten minutes.
But the food part...was great. :) All the ice cream cones and fresh salsa you can eat. What's not to like about that?
I do think, however, that we won't do the resort thing again. It's very restricting. After a few days, we kind of felt like we were prisoners of the resort. Prisoners in a tropical paradise, but prisoners all the same. We couldn't get out and see "real" Mexico without paying a lot of money. Now doesn't that sound a little bit like bail? :) But I'm glad we did it. And now we know. We like our vacations to be a little more...free, I guess.
But...there were some very wonderful aspects of the resort, besides just the food. They had snorkeling equipment, kayaks, and sailboats that were available for our recreational pleasure. And we definitely used them.
Pictured below are Spencer and our sailboat. We took the sailboat out three times. Thanks to the scouting program, we were able to go out by ourselves. Hooray for random sailing merit badges! Even though Spencer earned his sailing merit badge like ten years ago, he still did an amazing job remembering how to work the thing. But, alas, the second time we went out, the wind died immediately and we had to be rescued by a friendly wave runner. My wind dance, which Spencer openly mocked, was surprisingly unsuccessful. But our disappointment was completely forgotten after we saw a sea turtle on our third sailing excursion. We didn't get to ask him how old he was, but we're pretty sure he was at least 120.
However, I think snorkeling was my favorite activity. And we didn't even go to any fancy snorkeling spot. We just snorkeled along the hotel beaches. It was wonderful. To be able to swim through the water without plugging my nose (which I have to obsessively do...don't judge) or closing my eyes made me feel so free. Like I was flying. I loved it. And we saw an amazing number of fish. They were small for the most part, but pretty. We came across quite a few schools of fish that included hundreds, maybe thousands, of pupils. :) It was quite the sight and quite the experience. Spencer and I were both a little nervous about it at first and had to hold hands while swimming under the water. But that, of course, only added to the appeal. We had a blast pointing out each fish we saw and admired to each other. We did see one big fish that looked very shark-like. As we got closer, it didn't even budge or seem intimidated by us at all. So...we swam away quickly.
We went kayaking twice. Once in separate, single rider kayaks and once together. The first time was fun, but the waves were really big and made both of us seasick. The second time the ocean was much more calm which made things much more enjoyable. I think it's safe to say that if given the chance to kayak again, we'd take it. :)
The resort was covered with these amazingly carved melons. What can I say, I'm a sucker for decorative fruit.
We tried to play chess on this gigantic board twice. The first time, we were intimidated off the board and into our hotel room by a hoard of blood-thirsty Mexican mosquitoes. Spencer says he was about the win in two turns anyway, but...it's always easy to claim imminent victory without proof. :) I, however, did conquer the second time we played.
Spencer participated in a pick-up beach soccer game one afternoon. I politely declined and spent the time lounging on a beach chair instead. Spencer found beach soccer surprisingly frustrating (he kicked a lot of sand...) but fun. :)
Now, tell me, how can one truly say they've been to Mexico without wearing a get-up like this at some point? We wandered into a beach shop one day, and the very attentive owner suggested we take this picture and provided the ensemble. Pretty sure he was just trying to get a sale...it worked. :)
A view of the beach at our resort.
A stormier view. Isn't the Caribbean amazing?
For one of our days there, we decided to rent a car for the day (and got a great price, if you ask me...), and go see as many ruins as we could. I am so glad we did. Refer to the above paragraph discussing "paradise imprisonment." :) And our little car was so cute! I want one.
This picture was taken on a hike to some of the ruins in Coba. Tarzan makes so much more sense now.
The ruins at Coba weren't as well preserved as those at Tulum...we thought. Or maybe they were just older. Sadly, we couldn't afford a tour guide so we just made up stories about what went on there. We really liked the jungle atmosphere, though, and were happy we were able to climb on and explore these ruins more.
More Coba.
Before Coba, we headed to Tulum. Tulum contains the only Mayan ruins (that we know about, I suppose...) that are situated along the ocean. My oh my, was it beautiful there. And HOT. They are also the only ruins to be completely enclosed by a wall. And I'm not making that up. :) I read that in the tour book. But once again, no money for a tour guide. Sad. However, an LDS guide smelled us out and approached us, trying to interest us in a Book of Mormon tour of the ruins. We told him we had practically nothing to offer him, but he wanted to help us anyway. He asked what we had and ended up giving us the two dollar, or 50 peso, version of the tour. So, that was nice.
Spencer, of course, found a cave and needed to explore it. But he had to scare out a plethora of iguanas first. Man, those iguanas are everywhere!
When we first got to Tulum, we took a picture of every iguana that we saw. We stopped that practice quickly. We saw at least 100. Probably more. Iguanas are to the Mayan Riviera as squirrels are to the midwest. EVERYWHERE.
While everyone else was living it up with their tequila, we decided to do a little sand artwork.
Yeah, this is our turtle. A Spencer and Anna creation. We were quite proud of it. We also made a sand castle, but the turtle was definitely our crowning masterpiece. In fact, we're certain that this is why we were able to see the sea turtle while sailing. It had heard of our work and wanted to meet us. :) As we walked away from our turtle after finishing, we saw a couple stop by it and begin to take pictures with it. It cracked us up. And made our heads grow nice and big as far as our sand art skills are concerned. :)
A shot of the inside of the resort.
And...the most beautiful beach I've ever seen. I had no idea that beaches could really look like this. And the water was warm! Actually warm! It was fun to swim in instead of painful! The Caribbean totally changed my schema of oceans and beaches.
Our room. Every night when we got back, there was a cute little towel animal waiting for us. I would've expected no less. :)
Our gigantic tub. It took up most of the room.
Eating at a Chinese restaurant inside the resort. Bad idea. Who goes to Mexico to eat Chinese food anyway? That should have been our first clue.
All in all, it was a wonderful trip. There were some bumps along the way, but we're glad we did it. I got to speak lots of Spanish and we were able to make some really wonderful memories together. In the end, we'll always have Mexico. :)
