Mexican Honeymoon

Friday the 7th of January we had an early start to get to the airport - our alarm went off at 4am! We had plenty of time to kill in the airport as there were no line-ups at security, so it was time for a coffee and then waiting...... finally we got to board our flight to Cancun, Mexico! It's a five hour flight to Cancun, so we were there mid-afternoon, local time. We got our transfer to our resort, which was just over an hour south of the airport, in the Mayan Riviera.

The Mayan Riviera is a strip that runs south of Cancun, along the coast. Cancun and the Riviera are on the east coast of Mexico, on the Caribbean side. So the water is that gorgeous azure colour, and the sand is pale - lovely! The Riviera is all resorts along one side of the road. Driving along all you see are these huge gateways to them, all on one side of the road, and on the other side are just trees. Eventually we came to our resort, checked in and got to our room. A huge Junior Suite, with sitting area, balcony, jacuzzi bath, hydro-massage shower, king size beds, and towel animals! We also had a bottle of tequila and a bottle of champagne in our room since we were honeymooners. It's an all-inclusive resort, so all the food and drinks were all included in the price we'd already paid - so it made for a very cheap week away, I think we spent less than $100 while we were away!

The resort had a couple of pools, including one with a swim-up pool bar! It also had a "lazy river" (or "leasy river" according to the resort map. Awesome. It was a large resort, with the whole complex having around 1300 rooms or so. We did find the food to be quite greasy, with lots of oil and cheese and stuff. Apparently it's pretty typical of Mexican food, but who knows, really! Subsequently Andrew got sick on day 3, which involved getting the doctor in (it's not a vacation without an insurance claim for us, apparently). He quickly came right though but it did mean that we took it pretty easy all week and didn't actually leave the resort apart from one afternoon.

That afternoon we went to Playa Del Carmen, which is a town about half an hour north of our resort. We wanted to have a look around and do a bit of shopping. It's right by the beach (so was our resort), but whereas our resort is in a cove, Playa is on a long stretch of beach. As you can see, the weather wasn't the greatest that day! The rest of the week we had good weather, but this day was a good one to escape the resort since it was wet at times. Playa itself we found to be very touristy. A long strip of shops - mainly souvenir shops, cigar stores (Cuban ones - since Americans can't go to Cuba), money changers and pharmacies. As the drugs in Mexico aren't regulated, you can get all sorts of prescription only stuff over the counter (or in front of the counter). And it's cheap too! Lots of shopkeepers yelling at you to come into their shops. Cheap beers - 5 beers for $7. But our stomachs weren't up to it, and besides that, the alcohol was free back at the resort!

Speaking of food, each dish in the buffet restaurants had a sign above it so you knew what it was. These signs would be in Spanish, English, French and Italian. Well, the theory was that you were supposed to know what it was. When they translate it to "Tuna of a Mexican", or "Eggs of the vinaigrette", one begins to wonder...... My runner-up fave was "Gypsy arm of coconut" - very tasty - and the outstanding winner, "Popes with cracks and onions". Winner both in taste and translation. Anyone who knows me, knows I'm a big fan of Engrish, and this rung my bells. Every buffet I scanned the signs religiously, to see what other morsels could be found.

They also had shows on in the evening, and different things relating to the shows would be displayed in the lobby. Apart from, it would seem, New Zealand. Obviously, this puzzled us, but it was nothing that a cocktail couldn't make us feel better about. We did wonder if maybe there had been more earthquakes while we were gone, and maybe the country had sunk.

We also became obsessed with towel animals. When we first checked in we had one in our room - a peacock. Then every day after that we'd get a new one. The second day was a jedi-type person, then it was another peacock (different style), then a bunny, and a dog. The best part was that they stopped taking them away at one point, and just kept adding to our collection, so we had a towel animal farm. Needless to say, we couldn't help but put them in all sorts of sexual positions. It seemed appropriate at the time. As this could be a children's show, I'll keep the photo G rated.

All in all we had a great week, nice and relaxing, lots of lazing by the pool with cocktails! I love the fact that alcohol was included and you never had to think about money when ordering a drink. However, the food doesn't come close to the quality you get on a cruise. Also, the area is so touristy that you don't get any insight to what life might be like in Mexico, or even see anything of the "real" Mexico. But we still enjoyed it and came back nice and relaxed!