We found our resort. The Grand Mayan. We could tell right away that this was the type of place where everyone is looking for tips. They insisted on taking us to our building in a golf cart and carrying our stuff up to our room. They wouldn't just TELL us where our room was. Oh well, I brought a lot of singles!! Our condo was awesome! Really big with a living room, kitchen, huge bedroom w/ a tub in it, and a porch with some chairs and a wading pool. Sweet!!
After getting things unpacked, we went and found dinner. Yummy Mexican food... IN Mexico!Sunday - Sunday morning we headed into Playa del Carmen to find the Wal-Mart. We wanted to pick up some cereal and whatnot. From the map, it appeared that it would be really easy to find... Not so much. We ended up in Podunk, Mexico, a place with ZERO street signs. We saw chickens in the road, tons of stray dogs, and at one point a random horse. We finally realized we had turned off too early and found the nicer area where the Wal-Mart was.
When we got back, we ate some lunch and headed to the pool. I was pumped to try out the pool bar. When we swam up to the bar, we ordered some Hurricanes. "1 is 2, 2 is 4." Oh boy! I love happy hour! There were two couples there. One of the girls, Lindsay, was HAMMERED. Mind you, it was only about 12:30pm. Shortly later, Lindsay ended up outside the pool throwing up. Yuck! So, the other couple, John & Lea, looked at us and said "You're our new couple to drink with." Oh boy... I don't want to end up like Lindsay!! A couple hours later John could barely keep his head above water. We were basically holding him up so he wouldn't drown. We finally got him out of the pool where he passed out on a random lawn chair. His wife Lea couldn't figure out how to get him back to the room, so she just left him. About two hours later, Lee in I were blacked out... We don't fully remember the walk back to our room. We were passed out at 6:30pm. I woke up at 2am. DOH.
Monday - I wish Monday had been bad weather, because we didn't do crap. Merely recovered from Sunday's pool bar incident. We were hanging on our balcony, when all of the sudden the power went out. I looked off the balcony, and a big cloud of smoke was going over. I said to Lee "I think something is on fire." We didn't think much of it. A few hours later we went to go to dinner and discovered that the lobby had burnt to the ground. We're pretty oblivious, apparently!!!
Tuesday - This was my 27th birthday. Ugh... We drove to Playa del Carmen and took a ferry over to Cozumel. We walked the streets and chilled with some awesome birds.
We bought some souvenirs and then hit up Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville. It's always 5 in Margaritaville!!! (Oh, and Lee loves these bars that have swings as seats.)
Wednesday - My dreams finally came true... We went swimming with dolphins!!! It was awesome. Their skin felt slippery and rubbery. Their whole body was like one long, lean, muscle. Their power and speed was amazing and a little intimidating. At one point, the did what was called a "foot push". This is where you lay flat on your stomach in the water. Two dolphins come up and use their noses to push you through the water. You go FAAAAST! So fast that my bathing suit bottoms came down. I caught them somewhere around my knees, but couldn't pull them back up. The unfortunate part was that there were Mexican dudes taking pictures and videos of the whole thing. Super!!
Thursday - We just hung by the pool and chilled. We steered clear of the pool bar this time and just brought some beer with us. Then we got the Mexican Dinner for Two from room service. Delicious!!
Friday - We took a catamaran trip down to Tulum. This had an open bar, free lunch, snorkeling at a reef, a GORGEOUS beach and a tour of some Mayan ruins. It was an awesome day!!
Saturday - We got up early and got on the road. We had to get gas in our rental car, get it dropped off and get to the airport. The day was full of challenges. For some reason there were like NO places to make a U-turn on the road and no gas stations on the right side of the road. We also tried to get breakfast at a Burger King & a McDonalds and failed both times. Burger King didn't have breakfast and McDonalds didn't take American $$. Argh!! But, all ended well and we got to the airport and made it back to the US of A!!Mexico was beautiful and warm and great, but it was nice to get back to the US and know that my money would work, the people would speak English (in general) and the roads would have signs!!
Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes!! This was definitely my first birthday ever wearing shorts and a tank top.
