Sunday, August 23, 2009

Cancun

Nate and I finally went to Cancun after having to reschedule 3 times since May! It was a really fast trip, but a much needed vacation. It was so nice not having to worry about Bladen since I knew he'd be happy and taken care of with my mom and Brandi watching him the 1st day we were gone and Brandi the rest of the time. My mom flew out to stay with Brandi and Tyler in Philly and toured NYC and DC the week before they came to stay with me. I got to hang out with them for 6 days before I left :) Mom had to fly back early to start work and Brandi had until Monday to start school so the timing was perfect.




This is the view of the ocean and the pool from our balcony

We stayed at the Moon Palace and it was SUPER nice!




Nate and I spend most of our nights on the balcony reading... I loved it in the hammock!

Day One - Our goal was to wake up early every morning so we could enjoy as much time there as possible! We woke up at 6:00 am and had room service breakfast on the balcony while watching the sun rise. We were then off to the pool for the rest of the day.
These things are kinda gross, but they hung out everywhere around the pool



This was after our first day in the sun haha... we were freaking whiter than a ghost and were stupid enough to only wear SPF 4 our first day and this was the result ~ fried and sore the remainder of the trip!
In the two pictures above we are on our way to a steak place for dinner. During dinner, I started feeling SO sick and the smell of the food was killing me. I had 2 bites of my steak and we had to leave! I got right into bed when we got back to our room, which was around 8. I kept waking up during the night thinking of the food we'd ate so far and I wanted to die.
Day Two - Nate ended up getting sick this morning so we both slept in until 11 and didn't eat anything the rest of the day! Once we got up and going we spent the day laying under umbrellas around the pool - no sun for us!
Day Three - We were up at 6 am again with our room service breakfast on the balcony. We then jumped on a bus at 8 for a 3 hour drive to Chicha Itza (one of the 7 Wonders of the World). I wanted to do something like snorkeling or swimming with the dolphins, but the snorkeling tour wasn't being offered and Nate really wanted to go on this tour so I gave in.
Cemetery on the side of the road

How convenient... our bus took a bathroom break at a big tourist trap, which ended up taking us another hour! The only thing I found that I liked was a really pretty necklace; however, they wanted $420 for it and I could buy a lot of clothes with that much so I turned it down haha.
They all said that their stuff was "unique", but everywhere you went everyone had the same stuff.
After 4 1/2 hours on the bus we finally made it to Chichen Itza!

The first Mayan pyramid

A tomb

Our awesome tourguide, Erik, and yes he pretty much talked over a microphone the entire bus ride there!

The second Mayan pyramid

An observatory

The last Mayan pyramid - notice that each one over the years got taller and taller... they wanted to get closer to their Gods.

This is me standing in the middle of one of their ball fields. The goal was to get the ball through that little hole above left of my head. Someone on the losing team was always sacrificed after the game.
This picture of me is SO not good, but I put it on here so that I could remember what a ronch (sorry no better word to describe myself) I was during the tour. As noted above, this was not how I wanted to spend my last day in Cancun. It was hotter than Haities and it was SO humid. I have never sweat so bad in my life. It had already rained on us once and there was no where to hide so we just had to stand there and get soaked (with a white see through shirt on no less) and then here Nate wanted to take my picture and I about bite his head off because I was miserable. After all my whining and complaining, I do feel bad because Nate really wanted to come here so I'm going to act better next time:)

A store on the side of the freeway on our way back to the hotel... not what we'd call WalMart and this was one of the nicer stores we saw.

A neighborhood - I've been to Mexico twice and both times its made me SO grateful for what I have.

After a 12 hour tour and being drenched twice by rain I was SUPER excited to be getting off this bus and back to the Moon Palace!
The next morning I was up at 3 am to catch our shuttle back to the airport at 4! Everything went smooth until we got to the American Airline counter and they asked us for our Immigration Form from when we flew in... hahaha we threw it away! Ooops... had to wait an hour for customs to open and it was only a little room in a secluded area of the airport. When the guy walked in he asked us if we knew it was $50 each and that it had to be "cash in bank" and that the banks didn't open until 8 and we had to board our plane at 6???? Hell I almost had a nervous break down... I just wanted to be home! After filling out another form, Nate asked if he should go reschedule our flight and he threw us the forms and told us to give them to the security people... WHAT?? He let us off... thank you, thank you, thank you was our response. Well once we got through security and to our gate I was sitting there reading the piece of paper we had filled out and he had stamped and in bold it says "issuance of this is free"... this guys tried to screw us over and we never even had to give the paper to anyone! If I would have paid the $100 I would have been SO angry! I'm keeping that piece of paper forever! I am so glad to be back in the US!
While we were gone Auntie and Bladen...
Went to the water park

Went to the park
and went to the mall everyday to play on the germ infested play place :) Thank you so much to my mom and sister for watching Bladen while we were gone!

3 comments:

Tyler and Brandi White said...

Oh my gosh that picture of you and nate close up is hilarious... Nate's face is like BRIGHT red!! Hahaha! That one of you 2 by the beach is way cute though!!!

Alan and Mindee said...

How nice to get away together! Even through all the mishaps, it still sounds like you guys had a lot of fun! That was sweet of your mom and sister to watch your little boy for you! We should all get together next time you are in Utah!

The Pearson's said...

How fun! It looks like you guys had a great time! Great pictures! Your hotel room and view looked awesome! I want to go on vacation now! Thats so good that you could leave Bladen with Brandi and just you and Nate go! Looks like you had a wonderful time! Good for you guys to get away!

Lier