Our Last Night!

Wrote this post the last night in Cancun but couldn't get it to publish until now

It's our last night here in Cancun and it feels like after 3 weeks we've blended into the culture here pretty well. It will seem strange to only hear English from now on.


Monday December 29th
Today we did some more laundry, lounged around pool and played bingo. Trever even won a Royal Resort baseball hat and t-shirt! Tyler & Tarin won free drinks.

Tyler has been waiting 2 years to get to go parasailing since we were in Haiti and their boat was broken down and last year in Hawaii and it was too windy. He got his wish and Gary and he walked down the beach to find a ride. I stayed on the balcony to get pictures and Gary took pictures from his vantage point. He loved it! We made another shopping trip to Costco and Walmart to stock up for the rest of the week.

Tuesday December 30th

Today was some more lounging, eating, & swimming.

Gary and Tyler scheduled a night scuba dive. It was a bummer Tanner couldn't do anymore diving since Akumal with his ear infection. Gary was a bit nervous about the dive thinking it was a little freaky going into the ocean when it is pitch black and the scuba guide said the night diving is the best since that's when you see bigger fish. They loved the dive since they got to see a nurse shark, lobsters and turtles. Gary was relieved there were no great whites!


Wednesday December 31st
This was our second day venturing down to Xcaret by Playa Del Carmen. That mean't another 45 minute bus ride to then get the nicer bus that takes about 1 1/2 hours to get to there.This was the day to explore the whole park and stay for the night show so no swimsuits for today. The scariest thing for me was going into the bat cave where there were bats hanging on the roof of the cave and flying around. One came too close and I was out of there. Didn't seem to phase anyone else too much.

We did tons of walking and seeing lots of animals & turtles in their breeding program in their various stages of growth. We went on 2 tours which were great. At 6pm they have their huge night show which featured 2 hours of the Mexican and Mayan culture in music, singing and dancing. I really enjoyed seeing them play the ball game from the Mayans where they hit a rubber ball with their hips through a cement ring. When we were in Coba, we saw the part of the ruins that was the ball court where they played this game.

One of the swimming area at Xcaret

Sleeping jaguar

Hanging out in the hammocks

Thursday January 1st-Happy New Year!
Up early to get on the bus again for the ferry to Isla Mujeres. We love this island so much we had to go back for more. As soon as we got off the ferry we rented a golf cart for 2 hours and rode around the whole island on the road. Not many cars to steer clear of, only mopeds and other golf carts. It was fun to just stop whenever we wanted, hop out for pictures or roadside shops. All the kids got to drive except for Trever. You can imagine 6 of us on a golf cart meant for 4 with Tarin driving on the road! We waited till it was a pretty remote area for her.

Spent the rest of the day at the Playa Norte beach and had lunch at a beachside palapa. We decided we wanted to stay into the evening so as the sun went down, we walked around the town and explored the various shops and neighborhoods. It was such a reminder as to how blessed we are to have a nice house to live in when you see one room huts with no windows and the hammocks draped about.We got a recommendation for a restaurant from a lady we had met the week before that has been coming here for 30 years. It was called Sancocho's and it was on a street where all the restaurants are open air and their seating goes out into the streets so no cars can go on them. Great food!

Sipping some coconut milk-not as tasty as we expected it would be!

Trever buried standing up!

Sunset on Isla Mujeres

Friday January 2nd
Well Tanner's ear is no better but not worse either and with him having to fly on Sunday we thought we needed to get him seen by a doctor. Fortunately the resort has a doctor's office on site and open all day every day. We had our Selvatica Zipline excursion already set up for that day for 12:30pm so we got Tanner a doctor appointment at 11:45. The doctor said the Amoxicillan that he was taking was just not strong enough so she prescribed a stronger one along with an anti-inflammatory and a great big shot! Tanner's eyes got huge when she had him lay down on his stomach. (I think he thought he was getting it in his arm!) and she planted a big needle in his backside and he let out a yelp. We went to the resort pharmacy and we were good to go. Apparently you don’t need a prescription from a doctor for meds here. He started feeling better within hours!

Got to the lobby to meet our tour and off we went. It was about a 45 minute ride down to Puerto Morales. We were so excited to be going on Mexico's longest ziplining course and to swim in a cenote. We got our instructions, helmet, harness and demonstration and it was time to go. We climbed up a large series of metal stairs for a “practice” run. I thought maybe that meant lower to the ground and shorter. Not so. It was really high off the ground and long. It felt really safe since you were always clipped to a safety line for all 11 ziplines. We were never disconnected from the safety line even on the stairs. Tanner & Tarin went first no problem. Then it was Trever’s turn and he was all hooked in and ready to go and he said he didn’t want to go. The guide and I talked to him a bit and showed him how much fun Tarin was having and off he went. After that he was eager every time to jump off the platforms.

After we finished the course, we all got bikes and biked a mile to a freshwater cenote in the middle of the jungle. It was really big and looked great after a hot bike ride. They had a zipline over the water that you could go over the water and fall in or you could just jump off the cliff. It was pretty high up and Trever was one of the first ones off the cliff! We spent about 30 minutes there in the cold water that in some places was 150 feet deep! I’m glad I didn’t know that when I was in there. Maee the bike ride back to the beginning and then we were served a nice chicken fajita lunch.

Tarin ziplining into a million year old cenote

Trever waiting his turn to jump off the cliff!

Tonight we decided to go to a restaurant called Mocambo that was recommended to us by someone at the front desk. It was on the northern part of the hotel zone and was an outdoor restaurant overlooking the water. When we got on the bus to go, we could hear singing on the bus before we got on and all the passengers were singing! They were probably all drunk but they were happy. So we had fun singing(OK listening to) La Bamba and various other Spanish songs. About halfway there, 2 guys got on and one played his guitar and the other one was leading the songs.

Saturday January 3rd
Today Gary & Tyler had there final scuba dive that was going to be a wreck dive. They got to explore an old war ship that was sunk. This time they saw lots of nurse sharks, a “flock” (as Tyler called it) of eagle rays & schools of barracuda. It was always a thumbs up from Tyler when we asked him how the dive went. On every dive they went on, somebody else would get seasick but neither of them ever did.

Tarin, Tanner, Trever and I checked out of the Royal Islander (boo hoo) and got a taxi with all our luggage to move up to the Marriott Casa Magna. It’s a beautiful hotel with beautiful pools. Gary and Tyler met us there after their dive about 1pm. Had lunch by the pool and took it easy the rest of the day.


Sunday January 4th
Decided not to venture out again to try to find the church building. Nobody could verify that it was really where we thought it should be and we didn’t want to go through what we did the week before if we couldn’t find it again.

The boys flight was at 3:30 so Gary and the boys got a taxi to the airport and all went smoothly there. Got an email from them about midnight our time letting us know they were home safe and sound and the house was fine with no broken pipes.

Monday January 5th
Slept in and decided to go have brunch downtown at a place that Gary’s sister recommended called Pasterilaina. It was very good and my favorite were the breakfast crepes. Went back to the hotel and spent the afternoon and the JW Marriott hotel right next door to try out their pools. Funny sidenote-when Trever was reading the names of the hotels as we passed them, he said “that’s the Jew Marriott”! Makes sense with the JW.

Carlos 'n Charlies & Hard Rock Cafe at the Forum by the Sea mall.

Tuesday January 6th
Dreading this day but somehow we have to support our family and can’t stay here forever. 21 days with no rain (except for a 5 minute shower) and blue skies is hard to leave.

Feliz Navidad!

It seems the further we get into our trip, the less time we have to blog about it!

December 24 - Christmas Eve

We spent the day at the resort and took the shuttle up to the Royal Sands for the afternoon. It is one of the 4 sister resorts to the Islander here in Cancun and they provide shuttle service between all of them. For dinner we went to a fun place that had awesome shrimp "El Shrimp Bucket". The coconut shrimp was to die for. At the end of our meal they had us write our names and where we were from on a plastic bucket to hang up.

Playing in the pool at the Islander

Pool at the Sands. A great lap pool for Tanner and Gary!

Trever hanging our bucket at the Shrimp Bucket

December 25- Christmas Day

Riding the public bus. We are getting to know these VERY well but they are cheap at 6.5 pesos (45 cents) a trip for as far as you like.

We knew this was going to be a long day. We headed out on the bus for a 45 minute ride to the bus station downtown. We then got on another bus that would then take us a little south of Playa Del Carmen to a place called Xcaret. It is a huge place that is similar to a Seaworld. They have lots of animal exhibits, shows and water activities. We have tickets to go 2 days so this first day we were going in our swimming suits to do all the water things. The first thing we did was get on life jackets and drift and swim a down a looooog underground river that goes through all kinds of caves. It was a really fun and different experience. The water was so clear and was a mix of fresh and salt water. They have you put all your towels, sandels, etc. into a big bag and they transport it for you down to the end so that when you are done at the end, you have all your stuff.

Bad quality picture-it's a picture of a picture of us going down the river.

We then went down to the snorkeling inlet and had a great time. Some of us went out a little furter and saw tons of yellow and black striped fish, trumpet fish and some dolphin fish that were huge! At first I thought it was a shark! Did some lounging in the hammocks and saw a short show showcasing some dancing. Had to leave the park about 5 as we had dinner reservations back up in Cancun for 8pm at Captain's Cove.

We had a great dinner outside on their patio and watched one of their resident crocodiles in the lagoon over the railing. We think he gets fed pretty well there.

Friday December 26th-Day trip to Isla Mujeres

Slept in this morning and decided to spend the day at a small island off the coast of Cancun. It is only 4 1/2 miles long and .4 miles wide. We had gone there 20 years ago and remembered how wonderful the beaches were there. On our way to get on the bus we were walking on the sunny side of the street and tons of iguanas were sunning themselves. It was really fun to count how many there were and there were so many we stopped counting. We hopped on the bus and headed to the ferry terminal. Boy, have they upgraded their ferries here! It only takes about 15-20 minutes to get there and it is a catamaran express ferry so I didn't have to deal with the sea sickness this time but Tarin didn't feel so good.

Walking around Isla Mujeres

View from our spot laying on the beach


Kids are the ones waaaay out by the boats.

When we got there we walked along the beach till we found a good shady spot under some palm trees. The sand here is like powdered sugar and the water stays really shallow for a long ways out. The tiny people a long was out are the kids and the water only came up to their knees. We ventured into the downtown and what a fun town. Lots of street vendors and places to eat.

Saturday - December 27th

Tanner's ear has been bothering him since yesterday and this morning he woke up with a likely ear infection. Gary and Tyler were heading out for a scuba diving trip and he left me some money to go find antibiotics. Tanner was bummed he couldn't go on the dive but it's important that the ears are clear to be able to equalize when going 90 feet down. I went down to the market that is in the resort and they have a pharmacist and a pharmacy on site! It was so great to not have to get a prescription for Amoxicillan and he gave me the directions and bought enough for the neighborhood for the next 5 years! They came in a bottle of 120 capsules of which we only needed 30 for only $14!

I got him started on the meds and some pain killer and we were good to go for laying at the pool till Gary and Tyler got back about 1. Had some lunch by the pool and relaxed the rest of the day.

Tyler and Gary had one of their best scuba trips ever. They said they saw more fish than they've ever seen anywhere and they have done diving a lot of places. Schools of huge barracuda and BIG puffer fish. One of the guys on the boat with them is an actor on "Bones" and "Gilmore Girls" of which none of us has seen so we don't know his name. Someone asked him what he does cause he looked familiar to them and now they know why!

About 7pm we decided to head down to a place that we had seen called Chocolate City. Just the name was enough to get us to go. It was a fun sports bar type of place with huge screen TV's showing American's Funniest Home Videos and college football. They had lots more than just chocolate and had a great dinner. Of course we saved room for dessert and knew just what we wanted when we saw the chocolate fountain on other tables. We could barely finish it!

Sunday - December 28th

We knew church started at 10am so we headed out about 8:45 on the bus with the address and map of where they meet. We got off at the cross street and looked for at least an hour until 10:45 and we finally gave up. We were in a pretty scary area and one guy told us to be careful "about the boys" in this area! I think I asked at least 10 people from a taxi driver to a security guard to a shop worker and nobody could tell us where it was. We'll see if we can get more info and try again next week.

Catching Up

Internet service is kind of hit and miss here as we have to go around the lobby to maybe find the connection.

Saturday December 20th

Before checking out of our hotel in Akumal, we went early this morning to Yal-Ku lagoon for some more snorkeling. We pretty much had the place to ourselves and it was so peaceful. We caught a taxi back and packed up and our van arrived right on time which is unusual for Mexico since nobody seems concerned about time which is nice most of the time.

Goodbye Las Villas Akumal

Yal-Ku Lagoon

It took quite a while longer getting back up to Cancun as there are a lot of police checkpoints that slow the traffic down. Our driver said they must be looking for someone since they were being more thorough with their car checks. We've seen lots of soldiers with M-16's along the highway. Made a stop at Costco this time and their menu was exactly the same as home. Costco here is much more similar to the one at home more so than Sam's Club. We even found gallon jugs of cold 2% milk for cereal!

We were so excited to finally see the hotel zone of Cancun in the distance. Wow, how it's changed in the 20 years since we were here. We are at the Royal Islander which is more towards the southern end of the island and it's the quieter side of Cancun.

View from our balcony looking north

This is the living room. The master bedroom is on the right and the kids bedroom is on the left. They even have their own fridge on their side and all three rooms have their own sliding doors to the balcony.

Sunday December 21st
Happy Birthday to Trever! We did lots of lounging today enjoying the resort here. Our villa is beautiful and big! We have a full kitchen, dining area, living room, master bedroom with a big bathroom and a separate section for the kids with their own TV and bathroom! We love the balcony overlooking the beach just enjoying the sunrise and eating breakfast. We even have a personal concierge assigned to us who checks on us everyday and sets up any plans for us and makes our restaurant reservations. It's nice to have her to ask lots of questions about anything we need to know.

This evening we took Trever to a fun and crazy place called Perrico's. We took the public bus into the downtown of Cancun away from the hotel strip (where the locals live) and had quite an experience. It will for sure be a birthday Trever will not forget. As soon as we got there, they dressed us up in traditional clothing and took pictures. Then at our table a "little person" came by the make a balloon sword for Trever.

This is "Johnny Boy" who did some entertaining at our table.

It was a night of congo lines that went outside the restaurant, singing a Christmas song in spanish and breaking a large pinata. Then they brought Trever up to the front by the band and a girl danced with him and we all sang happy birthday. They let him blow out a torch of fire then put a fork of cake and frosting up to his mouth. As soon as he was going to bite it, they smashed a bigger piece into his face! It was pretty funny.

Monday December 22nd

Mmmm...Hung around the pool some more, played bingo for sodas and did some laundry. Susan, Tarin and Trever all took an intro to Scuba lesson in the pool. It was easier than we thought it would be. Made a trip to Walmart downtown. Are we crazy? Yes, the week of Christmas in Mexico is a zoo just like in the states but it was fun. They even have a tortilla factory in there and a wonderful bakery where you walk around with a large platter and pick the breads/pasteries you want and then they bag them up for you. Saw our first Santa here-a little scary looking.

Tarin getting the hang of scuba diving.

Tuesday December 23rd

Took a van provided by the resort down to Playa Del Carmen where they have a resort there called the Royal Haciedas. It is a brand new resort with lots of fun things.

Have we mentioned that the weather has been absolutely perfect here? It's been about 80 with no humidity. Nothing better than sleeping with all the sliding glass doors open and listening to the crashing waves. It is also really nice to be able to drink the water in Cancun with no worries unlike Akumal where we had to use bottled water to brush our teeth. The city has a purified water system here plus the resort purifies it again.

Spending the day in Playa Del Carmen at Royal Haciendas

High Adventure

Thursday December 18th-Akumal Bay

Gary, Tyler & Tanner headed out early for their first dive of the day. They went to the second largest reef in the world and went 90 feet down! It was a pretty rough ride on the boat coming back so Tanner wasn't up for another one. Gary and Tyler went on a cave dive in a cenote (a sinkhole filled with fresh water) and saw lots of stellactites and rock formations and even some bats! Their guide told them to be sure to clean the bat poop out of their ears whn they were done!

Susan, Tarin and Trever pretty much hung out at the beach in Akumal Bay where the dive shop was and got a lesson in european sun bathing. The kids got some laughs out of it and Trever, an experience he'll not long forget. After their dive we all went to lunch at a very rustic spot named Lucy's. Very good shrimp tacos and ice cream!

Friday December 19th-Coba Ruins

Headed out early to catch the collectivo south to the bus terminal at Tulum. We were hoping to get the bus out to Coba at 9:10 but they were full so we waited for the 10:25. Spent some time wandering the streets and the local markets. Stopped at a tortilla factory where we bought a HUGE stack of fresh, hot tortillas for $1 and gobbled those down.

Their public bus system is so nice here. The bus to Coba was air conditioned and had Spiderman playing in spanish of course. It was about a 45 minute ride. Got to the ruins and rented some bikes as we had heard that it was a really long walk into the ruins. The kids loved it, riding bikes in the jungle and stopping whenever we wanted to explore. It wasn't as hot and humid as we expected for being in the jungle and no bugs!

We finally made it to the tallest pyramid in the Yucatan Peninsula and we were shocked by the size of it and that we were going to climb it! As you can see, it is one steep climb and by the time you finally make it up there you realize that somehow you've got to get down. It was blazing hot at the top, we took some pictures and went inside the little room at the top.

We thought we'd be here with many more Americans or english speaking people but we've really been in the minority when it comes to the language. LOTS of Europeans vacation here. We're finally catching onto the money exchange thing. Gary accidently gave the driver today a huge tip without even realizing it. He later said no wonder the guy gave him a big smile!

Tomorrow we leave for Cancun. We're going to get up early again and go snorkeling at Yal-Ku lagoon which is supposed to be a great spot. Today while Gary was snorkeling out in the bay, he saw stingrays, lots of turtles, and tons of fish. Our shuttle comes at 1 and I've told the kids that Cancun is a lot different than here. Here Riviera Maya you get much more of an authentic Mexican experience and lots less people. The trade off for that will be a more comfortable bed at the condo!

Tanner: is awake now, this week is pretty much awesome so far. It is super hot outside but at least i know at the end of the day i can watch my spanish spongebob and fairly odd parents. my main goal for this trip is not to be whte when i comehome like before. so today i just layed outside an d slept. today was fun thiugh cause we went to some mayan ruins and we got to climb the temple thingy, it was really tall but it was super fun to climb. it was hot at the top but it still took forever for my ice to melt. It is wierd being in mexico, it's getting hard to tell the difference between english and spanish now, everyone talks too fast, even in spongebob. they don't even make it sound like him so it's not very fun to watch. but today my parents told me that we needed to eat all of the food byy tomorrow so that was a great thing to hear. the food in mexico is awesome and we got some salsa, it's real too!!!

Trever: When me and mom were down at the beach, dad came back from snorkeling and I found some people making pottery. I wanted to paint a lizard and it was 60 pesos or $5. When I came back to the room I found a huge hermit crab and brought it inside our room. His name is Charles and is 4 inches.

Tarin: yesterday we went to the beach and we saw lots of naked people and made a somewhat of a sandcastle. But we saw some people making a sandcastle that look like a pyrimid with a moat that looked so cool! so we took a picture near it and pretended it was ours! LOL So, today we went to Coba and climbed then pyrimid things and we got to ride these cheap bikes everywhere there, it was fun. The buses we rode in to get there were so comfortable!! They were like heaven.jk they had air conditioner, reclining seats, tv's and lights in the ceiling. Afterwards we went to a tortilla place/shack and we bought a ton of hot tortillas for 11 pesos! Yummy!! My dad made yummy smoothies with all the things we had left in the fridge like watermelon, grapes, bananas, icecream and yogurt!! Today was very adventurous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First Day in Akumal

Couldn't do an entry last night as the office was closed so we couldn't get the password to access the internet. Now we're sitting by the ocean at 10pm on Wednesday with a nice breeze using our laptop with a flashlight!

We had an uneventful trip-those are the best! Our flight left on time and was pretty smooth the whole way. We were a little bummed when it was pouring rain when we landed but we were reassured that the rain doesn't last long here.

We found our driver quickly and while we were chatting and I told him we weren't here for the alcohol and he asked "You Mormon?" We laughed and I asked him if he was and he said no. We made a stop to Sam's Club for dinner and groceries. We wanted to order our hot dogs and pizza and we found the language barrier frustrating so we used our van driver for some translation. It was nice to have him along.

We arrived at Las Villas Akumal to a beautiful setting of palm trees and the ocean right outside our room. It is VERY quiet here and we haven't seen many others around. This afternoon, we had the beach all to ourselves!

We got up this morning and headed out to the highway to wait for a "collectivo" public van. One stopped within seconds and we hopped on for $2 per person one way to Tulum. It was quite a walk into the ruins but it was worth it. We hired a guide who took us into the "walled city" on the ocean which was right at the edge of some steep cliffs. We were all pretty hot and went down the stairs to the beach to cool off in the water and bodysurf. There were all kinds of big creatures at the ruins that were fun to look at.

Tarin: SOOOOO......yesterday and today were veryyy tiring. I knew that at the airport they were going to be checking our passport and everything, but i didn't know that on the plane we would have to fill out a paper for each person and show it to the mexican people when we got off the plane but they didn't really look at them! The beds in our hotel are very HARD!! They lay is on concrete! And the funniest thing ever is that on the tv all the channels are spanish except for some shows disney channel but we were watching Sponge Bob in spanish and they were singing the theme song in spanish! LOL! At sams club they dont even have cold milk there. HAHA I can't live without milk! Any time we talked to someone they were all very nice and gave us lots of information. There were these dudes with like these indian/mexican outfits on (i don't know!) at Tulum and they looked pretty funny. Well, so far this trip has been uber duber cool!

Tanner: is asleep.

Trever: I liked building sandcastles with Tyler and collecting over 20 hermit crabs tonight at the hotel and putting them in a plastic boat to play with. They are all over the place! Two of the hermit crabs were about 2 inches. And 5 hermit crabs were about 2cm. They keep escaping so gotta go!

Tyler: Star date December 16th (hehe star trek)

Oh man this day has been crazy!!! The University of Washington Girls Basketball team was on our flight. The airport is nice than I thought but right as we got out of the plane it started to RAIN!!! The sky was full of rain clouds L Mexicans drive crazy btw but they are very nice and friendly and the sams club pizza is WAY different I cant even describe, but its not like my parents are the most helpless Americans on the planet when it comes to speaking with the mexicanos. Our driver was really nice though, he told us where to visit and stuff. Tomorrow we are going to the Tulum ruins. I’m taking loads of pictures so don’t worry The room is really really nice though and its RIGHT next to the beach and the two pools here.

December 17th

I woke up at 4 o clock your time today and man it is gorgeous! My dad and I walked 2 miles on the beach to the dive shop. I need new sandals cause white cheap flip flops from old navy are friends with my feet. It looks like we are going scuba diving 3 times tomorrow woohoo!!! Tulum is sooooo cool! I took a bunch of pics of the ruins and the beach there. Ill put them on our blog tonight. The beach at tulum is so cool and breezy I wish I could send you it or bring you here somehow. The waves were really strong and Trever and I made a sand castle…. It lived… barely haha. The guy that sold us our tickets to get into Tulum was named MORONI. Agh I wish I got a picture lol. The pool is very cold here. I wore my aviators all day today jealous much?
Im still alive and I saw the stars last night and most likely tonight

Gary and the boys checked out the scuba shop first thing this morning. They are set for 3 dives tomorrow so Tarin, Trever and I will check out the little town and have a beach day.