It started with a relatively short flight from Calgary to Houston. It was my first time on United and I was duly impressed by how they presented the safety info (expected from the biggest airline in the world if I'm not mistaken...). They had a video demonstrating the safety tips on the plane rather than a flight attendant announcing it on the intercom.
After arriving in Houston (at around 9ish), we looked around for a bite to eat. Unfortunately, a lot of places were closed for the night. We finally found an Italian fast food restaurant. All they had left was expensive stromboli, but when you're hungry... you're hungry.
Did I mention that we had a 9+ hour layover? So after dinner we played cards for a couple hours. Skull and Roses actually took us up to about 1:30 AM. After playing a couple of games, we went to look for a place to sleep. Unlike Narita International, I couldn't see any benches where we could sleep; everything was connected chairs with armrests. That meant it was nearly impossible to lie down comfortably.
After a couple hours of restless sleep, we woke up and grabbed some breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts. We were all feeling quite miserable from the lack of sleep, but it was only a couple hours before paradise. Very soon, it was time to board the plane from Houston to Cancun.
Upon arriving Cancun, I noticed that the airport was surrounded by a lot of trees. My initial impression was that of a cozy, yet unknown environment. Getting through security wasn't as bad as I expected and we were soon looking for a ride to our resort. There were a ton of salespeople outside of customs trying to attract customers to purchase a taxi/shuttle with them. We were approached by a lady and she got us a taxi.
And off we go to our resort! It was a very interesting 30 minute ride. It was a different environment than what I was accustomed to in Canada (or Japan for that matter of fact). I didn't see a lot of people walking on the streets, but I did see a lot of "crazy" drivers. I have to say that I wouldn't be able to drive down in Mexico.
The last leg of our trip was surrounded by beautiful palm trees. We went through two gates and arrived at the front of our resort: Excellence Playa Mujeres. After our bags were taken from the taxi, a bell boy came up to us with cool towels to pat down our faces. Another bell boy came out with a tray of champagne. I was extremely impressed by the service!
Unfortunately, we couldn't check into our rooms yet, but we were able to use the facilities they had to offer. We dropped our bags and proceeded to eat lunch at Toscana, an Italian restaurant that served a wide variety of buffet food for lunch. The food was extremely tasty and the waiters were extremely courteous. After stuffing our faces, we proceeded back to the main lobby to relax. We were approached by a waitress and she got us drinks. After chatting for a bit, a couple of us fell asleep. It has been an extremely long day so far.
At around 2ish, we were informed that our rooms were ready via a buzzer (the type you see in restaurants). We had our bags carted to our room. My initial impression of the rooms were that they were at least 5 times the size of the hotel rooms in Japan. It was huge and extremely comfortable. There was also a delicate aroma of... mint and citrus in the air. (I can still smell it in some of my stuff that I brought to Mexico).
We all crashed for a while and woke up at around dinner time. For the first night, we decided to try out the Asian Fusion cuisine restaurant. I don't recall what I got there, but it was an interesting experience nevertheless. Shortly after dinner, we went down to a outdoor stage to watch a fire performance. (We went to a bunch of these performances after dinner on most nights) It was amazing to see these performers perform such acrobatic feats with fire! I definitely don't have the guts to try what some of these people were doing!
When it was nearly half past 10, a couple of us went down to the pool/river-stream that was outside our room. At that time, we didn't know that we were not allowed in the pool at night since that's when they do their maintenance, but I guess we should have known due to the absence of people.
Either way, we grabbed some floaters and floated around the pool/river-stream. It was perhaps one of the most relaxing moments I had in Mexico. There weren't a lot of lights around the pool, so the night sky had quite a bit of twinkling stars.
And that's how I ended my first day in Mexico. To be honest, I can't recall the other days as well. Essentially, we had the same routine: wake up and eat a buffet breakfast at Toscana, eat lunch at The Grill (western cuisine I would say), order room service, or go to any other open restaurant. Between meals, there would be time at the pool or beach where we would go swim or soak up some sun. (I stopped sunbathing after the 2nd day since I got sun burnt =(. )
There was a day where we went scuba diving. It started really early where we had scuba training in a pool. It felt a bit weird breathing through an apparatus, but the feeling was overtaken by my new found ability to keep my head underwater for 40 minutes! After our training course, we waited a couple hours before we boarded a boat that took us to a spot where we would have our "full dive".
It was only 10 m deep, but I had a foreboding feeling as we were going down. Every couple of feet, I had to pop my ears from the water pressure. I had to say that at all times, I was feeling anxious. My biggest concern was if I were to accidentally inhale water (in which I did swallow a bit of ocean water which was extremely salty of course), I would choke and drown. =( Fortunately, that didn't happen, and I was level-headed enough to control my own breathing.
Due to the anxiety, I didn't focus a lot on sightseeing, but for the sightseeing I did see, it was simply stunning. There were tons of corals spread out on the floor and schools of fishes swimming past you. At certain locations on our trip, you could see certain statues of people. I couldn't see the nameplate (as blind as I am without my glasses), but it was enough to see fishes swimming around the statue like how birds flock around... ground based statues...
But enough of lame similes, the day after, we had our private tour to Chichen Itza, a famous Mayan city with a large pyramid. We were picked up by our driver, and he drove us for two hours to our location. Along the way, we conversed and he told us the wonderful history of the Mayans and the people living in Mexico. Upon arrival at the ancient city, we met our tour guide that showed us around the place. Upon arrival at the pyramid, he demonstrated the cool acoustics/echos that came with the limestone that was used to build the pyramid.
For example, when you clapped your hands in a certain location near the pyramid, it would make a bird sound! Not only that, if you clapped your hands in a different location, it would respond with an echoed version of your claps!
Besides the pyramid, we had the chance to explore other aspects of the town. We saw a stadium where they played a Mayan ball game where the first person to score was sacrificed. There was also a tomb/burial mound where archaeologists discovered skulls of the past ball game winners. And there was so much more!
After touring the city, we went to a cenote, which is a sinkhole filled with water. A bunch of us had the chance to swim in the cenote for half an hour. It was interesting, but not as cool as the Mayan city. After the cenote (and lunch... but I can no longer recall if we ate before or after the cenote... I want to say before), we went to visit a small town that was influenced by the Spanish. It was a neat little town with a nice park. They also had a jewelry store nearby that sold extremely cheap silver! Having no need of jewelry, I didn't purchase any.
And so we returned back to our resort afterwards! It was a long day, and we went to have french cuisine. The duck I had was alright, but it was the beef tartar that really caught my attention. It was extremely tasty!
And then it was Friday... which meant back to Calgary! The airport in Cancun was extremely busy. We had to wait an hour to get through security. The flight back to Houston was alright, and we thought that the two hour layover was enough time to grab a bite to eat.
Unfortunately, it took us nearly two hours to get through security to get onto our next flight! We grabbed some quick McDonalds and boarded our small plane back to Calgary.
And so ended our trip! It was nice to be pampered, though the lack of sightseeing made it kinda boring for me. I guess I'm more of the exploring type when I go travel!
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