mexican vacation!

After last year's cancelled vacation to Cabo due to the swine flu hysteria, we were ready to make it up. We had a 6am flight, so we left milo at 3am with little sleep logged and headed to DIA. After an odd layover in Charlotte, we arrived in Cancun on saturday, 4pm-ish local time, but then had to suffer through an unorganized immigration line for 2 hours or so. Luckily our ride was still waiting, and we were off! Our resort was in Playacar, the gated portion of Playa del Carmen. Our room was spitting distance from the beach, and we were greeted with a bottle of champagne. After showering, we headed to the main buffet style restaurant for dinner. On the way back to the room, we caught the end of the Madonna tribute show at the outdoor stage area, and called it a night since we never really got much rest the night before.





Sunday was a beach day. Great weather, although it was a bit windy and the sand got kicked up a bit. The waves were good fun, though! I threw some darts with the woman who played Madonna the night before while steph got in a run. Later in the afternoon, we checked out some bikes and rode into town, did a little shopping, and stopped for a cervesa & some calamari at a beach bar. We got to bed pretty early because we had booked an early morning expedition for monday.







Monday we were up early to go on a tour of Chichen Itza, which are some old Mayan ruins a few hours inland. The tour bus picked us up at around 7.30am, then we kind of drove down the coast picking up people at other resorts before we finally got under way. This part was kind of annoying (especially on the way back), but the ruins were pretty swell. After the tour, we had some free time to shop - we scored a really cool wooden mask. Then we bused a few minutes away to get some lunch. It was close to 3pm, and having had only a sweet bread and apple for breakfast, this lunch was superb - slow cooked meats, rice, veggies, etc. After lunch we went swimming in a fresh water cenote - this particular one was 150 feet deep and about 50 feet wide. Super refreshing - I could have jumped off the high ledge all day long. After we returned to the resort, we had a dinner reservation at on of the fancier restys on site - the Portofino, which was mediterranean styled cuisine. Pretty much passed out from exhaustion after dinner.











Tuesday we started the day with a morning run through Playacar, and some smaller ruins near a park. The we hit the beach again, the wind had died down, but we still had some strong waves - we both got our sunglasses knocked off & swallowed by the ocean. Rode bikes back into town and got some new cheapo sunnys & other assorted items - a cool painted porcelain skull, bottle of sipping tequila for the room, jewelery, etc. Returned for dinner, then caught the second half of the Moulin Rouge performance.







Wednesday we went to Xplor - a water & jungle adventure park. It was a much closer expedition, only a short cab ride down the coast. We started the day with ziplines, which varied from high above the ground, to ones that wound up underground and in the water. Over 2 miles or so of zips total took most of the morning, then we broke for a delicious lunch - all kinds of international buffet foods to choose from. And killer fruit juices - sour orange, guava, etc. Next we took it easy with some cave rafting, then some cave swimming, before driving around the jungle, over bridges, and underground through water with the amphibious vehicles. A full day! We had dinner at another one of the swankier eateries - Don Diego's hacienda. Randomly enough, it was cinquo de mayo, but we really had forgotten about it until later.







Thursday was our final beach day, and the ocean had calmed down considerably since our arrival - we took a short snorkeling expedition by boat, went sea kayaking, and just chilled. The entertainment that evening was a musical comedy review, which was much funnier than we thought it would be.



Friday we left the resort around 10am and headed to the cancun airport - we were a few hours early for our flight, so we had lunch at Bubba Gumps - real authentic mexican fried shrimp! Landed in cold & rainy denver around 10pm - and were home not too long afterwards.

Y la cucaracha: