Anniversary in Mexico, Part 1

Josh and I went to Mexico for our 25th wedding anniversary in April. As spoken of in a previous post, the Leadore School District schedules their spring break in a strange way. Instead of having one entire week off, they split it up with 2 days off the first week of March, and then another 2 days off surrounding the Easter holiday. Since our anniversary this year also coincided with the Easter holiday weekend, we decided to utilize those days off I had from school and integrate them into our travel plans, so ultimately I only had to take off one and a half days from work. 

Josh picked me up from Leadore after school on Wednesday, April 5, and we drove to Salt Lake City that night. We stayed overnight with my sister Tabbi, and then she drove us to the SLC airport early the next morning for our flight, which was scheduled to leave at 5:50am. We had a 3-hour layover in Denver before our next flight that took us to Cancun. The flight was delayed, and we ended up arriving at the Cancun airport at the same time as a giant plane from Europe, so the airport was super busy and we had to wait a LONG time in the long lines at customs to get through. Plus...once we finally made it through customs, Josh was picked randomly to have an "extra" bag check, which took us even longer to get out of that airport. I'd booked a van to pick us up, but as a result of all the delays, the van had picked up other customers, and we had to wait (once again) for it to get back to pick us up to take us to our resort. Josh was extremely irritated at this point; we were both exhausted and starving and ready to be done traveling! We were grateful when the van arrived and we were both SO glad to finally get to our resort, which was the same one we went to last time. Thankfully, we arrived while there was still some semblance of sunlight so we could enjoy the sight. We checked into our room and went straight to the restaurant to eat. While we were eating, the sun set and the moon rose. We felt immediately better: eating and being surrounded by the sights and sounds of the ocean just about made up for the frustrations of the rest of the day. It had been a long day: we'd watched the sunrise that morning from the plane as our day of travel was just beginning, and we saw the moon rise after we finally reached our destination. 

View from the airplane of the sun just starting to rise

It snowed the night before we left Salmon, so the contrast
of snowy Idaho vs. warm Mexico was very apparent!

Our first view of the resort after our late arrival. 

The moon over the mountains as seen from
snowy Utah the previous night, compared to
the moon over the ocean as seen from
the beach in Mexico the following night. 

This was our second time at this resort
because we loved it last time so much!

Day 2 of our anniversary trip was our first full day in Mexico. We slept in, and then spent the rest of the day relaxing in the best ways possible: eating at the onsite restaurants whenever we got hungry, getting drinks from the poolside drink station whenever we felt thirsty, and laying on beach chairs by the pool or on the beach to read books. We also broke up the monotony of all that laying around, reading, and eating by getting an hour-long couple's massage in a large tent by the beach and swimming in the ocean for about an hour (which got us sunburned as a result, which surprised us both because we'd been to the tanning beds for weeks leading up to our trip so our skin would be prepared to see the sun!). 

The poolside bar is the building adjacent to the
pool with the thatched roof. They served drinks to
people in the pool as well as people on the patio.

I read 3 books on our vacation. This was my favorite!

The big circular building is the main restaurant. 
Downstairs is the buffet which serves 3 meals
 a day. Upstairs are the fine dining restaurants with
Italian and Japanese dinner options. 

Day 3 of the vacation was another beautiful day in Paradise. It was much like day 2 for us...eating & drinking, laying around reading, getting another massage...except this time, instead of swimming in the ocean, we took a mid-day stroll walking to the nearby town of Playa Del Carmen. We walked down the shop-lined pedestrian cobblestone road and did some souvenir shopping. We were smarter this time not to get pulled into shops by salesmen begging us to come in or saying they knew us from the resort (once they saw our resort wristbands) or saying they had amazing sales ("nearly free!"). We only went into the stores we were interested in. When we got to the end of the street, we walked back to the resort along the beach, which was SO crowded with spring breakers! This was our first time going to Mexico in the spring, and we couldn't believe how unbelievably busy it was! We were so grateful to have a semi-private beach at the end of the hotel row, because it was SO much quieter there! Also, another difference this time was the appearance of armored guards perusing the beachfront all day long on 4-wheelers. There had been a few recent murders of Americans in Mexico due to gang-related activity, and as a result, the Mexico National Guard was in full force on the beach and in popular crowded areas, in order to be more visible and help the tourists feel more safe.

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The resort's buffet restaurant had a differently themed menu each day, so the food was never the same, which is nice, especially if you stay at the resort for a week and choose not to leave. The items would be labeled in English and Spanish, but sometimes the translations from Spanish to English weren't correct. It took Josh a couple days to figure out that "jam" items, were really "ham" items! 

The assortment of appetizers, fruits, veggies, side dishes,
and especially the dessert spread was always visually pleasing!