So we are recently back from Cancun, about a week ago. It was nice to get out of the Iowa weather but we came back to sleet and snow. It was a balmy 85 degrees while we were in Mexico, with 50% humidity, so while not really hot, very steamy. At night, our sheets felt a bit damp and I always woke up feeling less than ideal but it was mostly fun because it was totally free.
Ben and I both agree we would only go back if it was another free trip. Don't get us wrong, we are not ungrateful or unappreciative of the reward, I just think we are not really "beachy" people. Something about the things crawling and swimming around under the water that I can't see, makes me avoid the ocean and my light, easily sun fried skin makes a quick enemy of the sun. Applying sunscreen for 1/3 of the day makes for a lot of work.
The first day, we were delayed in our flight out of Dallas to Cancun due to weather, so the flight was delayed by at least 30 minutes and then we sat on the runway for an additional hour. Never fear, the airline provided the movie Enchanted for us. Glad to see it then and not waste a perfectly good movie for the Netflix. Finally arrived in Mexico, were bombarded with crazies trying to get us to sign up for their vacation clubs and made it to our bus to take us to the resort. A short bus ride later and we were checked in, got to our room and our room keys did not work. Another hour later, after standing in line at the service desk, we finally got into our room and were greeted by a local gecko. Ben was not thrilled about the idea of sharing with this local, but we ignored it for the time being as we wanted to change out of our "Iowa" clothes and into some more appropriate sub tropical attire. Three hours later, and several trips back and forth from each of the two lobbies, which was a fifteen minute shuttle bus ride across the resort, our luggage arrived, all four pieces within 20 minutes of each other, outside of our room. We were finally, officially in Cancun.
Each morning, Ben had a "meeting" that he had to attend. The first morning was the motivational speaker who was an amazing guitarist, playing many songs on only the neck of the guitar, two handed. Then it was out to the beach for the different departments to battle it out in beach games, including tug of war, magic carpet ride and beach blaster. Check out our photo website to see pictures. Our first disappointment came next...food. Despite the multitude of restaurants on the resort, we struggled to find semi edible, non-fried, tasteful food. It was not an easy feat. Every restaurant claimed to have a theme, Brazilian, Mexican, Italian...none of which seemed to follow their theme. They were all buffet style, with many greasy, fried old food that had been sitting for most of the morning under hot lights and warmers. This unfortunate food theme continued in all of the restaurants and breakfast was our only decent meal of the morning. We found La Gondola, a restaurant on resort, but it served and INTERNATIONAL breakfast, which included scrambled eggs, french toast, belgian waffles, bacon, fresh fruit, yogurt...and we gorged ourselves, glad to finally have a meal that didn't trip the gag reflex.
That morning was an award ceremony type meeting for Ben, so I took the opportunity to lay by the pool and enjoy some time reading and relaxing, which is not Ben's idea of fun. While enjoying the sun, sitting in the shade, a large iguana meandered past me and headed to the pool for a quick drink. While I write this calmly now, I could not read or relax for that matter, until this beast of a lizard had continued on his journey far, far away from me and my strawberry margarita. After some time digging through and around a bush, Mr. Lizard finally went back to where he came from and I was able to sit and enjoy myself once more. Ben's meeting was finished and he met me pool side and we again began our search for some sort of decent meal to enjoy. We found a grill near the pool that was cooking, none other than hamburgers, french fried and chicken. We were back to eating decently. It was mostly normal tasting. I think our biggest disappointment was that being in Mexico, we couldn't find chips and salsa, a staple of all Mexican food known to us in the U.S. Come to find out, they ran out of chips, presumably because it was the only decent tasting food in the whole place, and were not getting more for the day.
There were more random events throughout our stay, including Ben getting sick with a cold, causing us to miss the lead singer of Train, but we enjoyed the whirlpool tub in our room and got a good night sleep. Another evening included several carnival games where you could earn prizes, "exotic" animals such as parrots, snakes and iguanas and a DJ who had an enormous drum kit that he played. I held one of the parrots on my arm, which was pretty cool and petted a lizard but refused to hold it. We won several prizes at the carnival games, most of which were wooden flutes but no Jacob's Ladder, much to Ben's disappointment.
Our last full day, we went on a mini speed boat and snorkeling tour through the mangroves in Cancun. They touted this as a jungle tour. Now, jungle it was not, but it was a lot of fun to drive the boats and I managed to actually snorkel in open ocean. We saw a huge, dinner plate sized parrot fish and many different kinds of coral. One of the tour guides actually caught a small octopus and was pretty dramatic, chewing on it's tentacles and calling it his dinner. He wanted each of us to hold the octopod, which everyone clumsily tried to run from in their awkward flippers from snorkeling, but I did eventually touch the suction cups on it. Soft and slimy. Snorkeling was a lot of fun, with the exception of all the salt water that ended up in my mouth and freaking myself out about being in the middle of the ocean with nothing in sight but more water.
On our last morning, we got room service for breakfast, which looked like a egg and potato omelet, which turned out to be ham, as we had ordered. It tasted good, but was definitely different. We should have gone to the buffet, but alas, did not. That was the end our our Cancun trip and we flew home, enjoying only an hour to go through customs and security, while reclaiming and rechecking our bags in Dallas. Another short delay, again in Dallas and finally home to Des Moines and the sleet and slush.
We can't wait to take another vacation, but maybe will head to a different part of the world.
