Hola, Cancun!

My adventures to Cancun were nothing short of amazing.  I had an incredible time with 3 women that mean so much to me.  I've never had a "girls" trip, but all I can say is that I can't wait to do it again.  Spending a week in sunshine (well almost), with my mom, cousin, and aunt was an absolute blast.  Did I mention I can't wait to do it again?

Our condo

Day 1: Drive to Minneapolis

My aunt, Lynn, my mom, and I headed to Minneapolis around 4 pm Monday evening.  My cousin, Kayla, who currently lives in LA met us there (it sure was a rude awakening for her) because there were no flights that brought us into Cancun remotely around the same time so we figured it would just be easiest to travel down together.

Day 2: Arrival in Cancun

The living room of our condo

Our flight was at 10:15 Tuesday morning.  The hotel we stayed at provided a shuttle service.  I'm not sure if this is an actual thing, but I suffer from travel anxiety.  I could have a flight at 3 pm and want to get to the airport by 8 am.  It's bad.  So when my aunt said we'd take the 8 am shuttle for our INTERNATIONAL flight less than 2 hours later...well, I'm sure I wasn't too pleasant to travel through the airport with.  Of course, our plane was delayed, so everything was fine.  For some reason we all got put in different seats so I went to try and switch mine to be closer to everyone.  Thinking my family would accompany me to go do this, they simply said "We'll be in the bar"  I looked at my phone and said "It's 9:30?"  The time didn't matter, those three were ready to party!

The flight was really smooth.  I sat next to a lovely Canadian, Nicole, who had been to Cancun (and New Zealand) so we had lots to talk about.  It made the flight go by extremely fast.  Of course, we took almost 2 hours to get through customs in Mexico.  There were only 6 customs agents working with two flights coming in at essentially the same time.  Of course, I was the one who got "flagged" and had to have my luggage searched.  Even though I have nothing to hide, authority figures terrify me because I'm a "rule follower." Luckily the lady was really nice.  Here's a recap of our convo:

Customs agent: Are you traveling for business or pleasure?

Me: Pleasure.

Customs agent: Are you traveling by yourself?

Me: No, I'm with my mom, aunt, and cousin for a girls trip.

Customs agent: Oh, how fun!  Are you staying right in Cancun?

Me: Yes, do you have any recommendations on places to go?

Customs: Yes!  (she grabs paper and starts to write some things down and looks up at me) Oh, you're with your mom? (said with empathizing expression)

Me: Yes, but she's fun!

Customs: Okay!  (writes down another place)

Needless to say, things went just fine which was a relief to me.  Once we arrived at our condo and settled in, our first step was to go grocery shopping.  But wait!  We got to watch whales play in the ocean!  It was so amazing and such a neat thing to see within minuets of being in our condo.  We took the public bus to get to Wal-Mart.  My mom and Lynn were towards the front of the bus while Kayla and I found seats towards the back of the bus.  Everyone around us was really friendly and helpful to getting us where we needed to go.  My mom and Lynn had a different experience, so we never took the public bus again.  Our shopping trip to Wal-Mart was dysfunctional, long, and expensive.  It was over 3,000 pesos!  I had a minor panic attack that I had maxed out my credit card, but that ended up being around $230 USD.  Luckily, there were people around us in the line that were able to communicate to me what was going on.  Pretty cheap considering all the alcohol we got for the week...

Our bar in the condo

Our fridge

Ok, I promise that every day will not be that much to read.

Day 3: Rain, rain, go away!

After attempting to use our oven to make pizza the night before, we had had a gas leak.  Someone came to the door pretty early (due to complaints I'm sure), but spoke very little English.  Thankfully, I pulled up a translator on the internet and we were able to communicate.  I took quite a bit of Spanish in high school.  This convo was above the knowledge I received.  I mean, I never learned how to say "gas leak" in Spanish.  But I was really impressed by how much I remembered after 9 years of not using it.  And this whole trip was a fun way to test my knowledge.  I'm just thankful that I was able to think in my toes in order to communicate with this man!

Unfortunately we had some bad weather while in Cancun.  But the four of us entertained ourselves with euchre, which may or may not be my new favorite game.  I'm very thankful that everyone had plenty of patience while teaching me that game.  We literally played (and drank) all day.  We didn't let the rain get to us.  We headed out to find a place for dinner and ate at the Taco Factory.  After dinner we stayed up to the early morning hours playing games of euchre.

Oh, and remember those "whales?"  They turned out to be rocks.  You had to be there, but trust me, you would have thought they were whales too.  With high tide and low tide, you couldn't always see the rocks in the ocean so it was completely  legitimate that we thought they were whales.

Rain in Cancun

Our view of the ocean with the rain. I thought it was still beautiful.

Day 4: Raining on our parade!

Another day of rain.  So we played euchre, drank some more, and checked out our condo's pool and hot tub during the evening hours since it stopped raining for a little bit.

Day 5: A Mayan village, a cenote, and Chichen Itza!

My mom and I in the Mayan village we visited

The cenote I swam in (a limestone sinkhole)

Where we had lunch

Chichen Itza at sunset

I had to take this picture

The Chichen Itza pyramids are one of the "New 7 Wonders of the World" so it was definitely something I wanted to do since they were under three hours away from Cancun.  It was an all day tour, and it did get long at times.  We visited a Mayan village and swam in a cenote (which is another reason why I wanted to visit the Yucatan Peninsula for this trip) before finally visiting the pyramids.  All I can say is that they were absolutely beautiful.  I'm blown away by how much thought and detail were put into their construction.  If you ever have the opportunity to see these pyramids, definitely do it!  The hardest part about this day for me was seeing the conditions in which people live.  We drove through some small towns and there were lots of abandoned animals.  Eventually my mom had to tell me to stop looking out the window.  I still can't get these images out of my head.

Day 6: A day by the pool

My mom and I in the infinity pool at our condo

A little view of our "play" area for the day

We finally got to fully enjoy the sunshine on this day of our trip. We packed a cooler, headed down to the pool, and sun tanned and swam all day long.  We came back in, relaxed, and got ready for a nice dinner together at Macambo Restaurant.  The food and service was excellent. The server even quizzed me on my Spanish knowledge, which I thought was really neat.  We had an early night because of our plan to be up early the next day.

All of us at dinner at Macambo

Day 7: Isle of Mujeres

My aunt, Lynn, and I on the ferry

Hey there, Crush!

Sunset from Isle of Mujeres

This day was very exciting!  We were up early and took the ferry to Isle of Mujeres, or "Island of Women."  We had breakfast, which entailed tacos and pina coladas, before renting a golf cart to drive around the island.  We went and saw tons of sea turtles, came across a random bar called "Zama" that let us swim in their pools as long as we were drinking (done), and visited North Beach where I got a massage along the ocean and enjoyed the clear, beautiful water.  We returned the golf cart, went to one more bar, did a little more shopping, and headed back to Cancun.  I loved this tiny little island, but it was heartbreaking to see the poverty and homeless animals.  I would have abandoned all of my belongings if it meant I could bring just one home with me.  We went to dinner at Carlos 'n' Charlie's.  It was such an amazing experience.  The waiters there really create a fun and goofy dining atmosphere.  A random person was making balloon "masterpieces" so of course, we got some.  Our waiter asked if we wanted a photo.  Without hesitation, we said yes and he shouted "PHOOOTTTTOOOOO!!!!" and all of the staff of the restaurant came running to be in it.  It was such a fun time and we really didn't want to leave.  We taught our server, Angel, a few more words in English and learned a little bit about what it's like to live in Cancun.

At Carlos 'n' Charlie's

Day 8: One more day at the pool

Our pina coladas at Zama

Our last day in Cancun consisted of more beautiful weather.  We were supposed to have rain the entire time we were there, but luckily the sunshine came out for us.  Not to sound like an alcoholic or anything, but I was down at the pool by 8:30 with a drink in my hand.  I barely drink and I probably drank more in the last week than I did in the last year of my life.  Anyways, I had to work on my tan because it would have been embarrassing to come home from a tropical vacation without a tan.  Unfortunately, we were all going to experience the bar scene of Cancun that evening, but I think all the Mexican food caught up with me.

Day 9: The flight home

Our flight back home went smoothly.  Apparently there was a bad storm, but it didn't impact any of our travels.  Winter definitely felt quite a bit colder than it did before I left.  I am so thankful for this vacation.  Mexico was such a wonderful country and I hope to be able to visit other parts of it at some point in my life.

As always, thanks for reading!