Mexican vacation

So, the basic rundown of my vacation is this: I went to Playa del Carmen with my friend, Dawn, and was there for a week. As soon as I walked into our room, I freaked out! We were literally staying right on the beach! Here's me on our balcony, which I could (and did) jump off and walk 10 feet to our chairs. The other view is our room from the beach... we were the balcony to the left of the woman standing on the sand. To the left of our room was the spa where we had massages while we listened to the ocean.

Mostly we stayed at the resort by the pool or the ocean. I had my 45 sunscreen at the ready and plopped myself under an umbrella for most of that time. Tuesday, May 13 was Dawn's birthday, so to celebrate, we took the ferry over to Cozumel and went snorkeling and then took a taxi to some ruins on that island. The whole area is full of Mayan ruins, and we decided to visit one of the sites during the week. We chose the site on Cozumel due to the fact that it is called San Gervasio, which reminded us of Ricky Gervais. When we approached a taxi driver and asked him to take us there, he first gave us a blank look, then realized what we were asking about and said it properly in Spanish. I guess we said the name just a little too close to the Ricky pronunciation. He took us in his taxi, waited for us there, and then drove us back to the ferry, offering up lots of facts about Mayans, which he proudly told us he was. He said over and over that he was born on the island and planned to die there. I said, "Well, I live on an island, too, and I'll probably die there, too." I thought it was something we could bond over, but he didn't think that was very cool. When we got back to the resort, we bumped into some men that we had befriended earlier in the week. They had just gotten back from a fishing trip and caught 20+ fish and asked us to join them for dinner. So we had fresh, delicious mahi mahi for dinner, and it was the best meal we had all week! We celebrated with a cake after dinner (I wanted birthday flan, but I wasn't in charge) and then went back to our room and watched a few episodes of "Freaks and Geeks" on DVD. A great day!

The other trip we had planned was to an ecopark called Xcaret. We walked around for a while in the heat, looking at plants and animals. Then we ran across a little "river boat ride" and thought this might be a nice way to cool off. We got on this boat that had about 4 rows of Mexicans, one row of British old people in front of us, and we were in the back. The Brits had bad BO and every time the tour guide opened his mouth to speak to the mostly Spanish-speaking audience, one or all of them yelled out, "ENGLISH!" I hid myself in the back to avoid being associated with these ill-mannered Anglos. Finally the boat was released from the little dock and moved at a snail's pace around a little circle so that we could be one with nature... we saw two birds and a turtle.

After this impressive display of nature, I was starting to lose it. It was so freakin' HOT and I was getting in a worse and worse mood. I was trying to be careful because Dawn has not seen this side of me before, but I think she was feeling the same. We decided we didn't give a crap about seeing any more animals if it meant walking more in the dust and the heat and we went and changed into our bathing suits. We headed to the underground rivers that run beneath the whole park and jumped right into the 60 degree water! It was glorious! We drifted and swam for about 30 minutes or an hour--I don't even know how long. There were a few points that we were in almost complete darkness, but the top of the caves were high enough that it didn't feel claustrophobic or anxiety-provoking. It was so soothing, I wanted to go to the beginning and start again! Once we had cooled off, we ran to see a few things before the evening show.

The show was Dawn's reason for wanting to go the park. However, after going to similar shows based on local culture in both Brazil and Thailand (think: depressing baby elephants), I was prepared NOT to be dazzled by the spectacle. After watching a hockey game with a ball of fire instead of puck, which is supposedly a Mayan game, and another soccer-like game where they bump the ball with their hips instead of their feet through a goal, I was starting to think "I KNEW IT!" The second act, though, was full of Mexican music and dancing. The thing that struck me most were the beautiful costumes. So, I was pleasantly surprised to say that I was wrong and the evening was totally worth it.

The next morning, we got up, I went for a dip in the pool, then packed my wet suit in my suitcase and it was over! All in all, I only got a bit sunburned and was disappointed after going for scuba diving lessons but was told the water was too rough to take the boat out. Other than that, it was the perfect relaxing vacation.