Xpu Ha, Mexico--Barcelo Maya Colonial Beach Resort--September 13-20, 2008.
This year's trip to Mexico was great like the previous years. There is just something about having nothing to do but sit on a beach, eat, swim, and play that helps us to recharge and face the world. The Barcelo resort was beautiful, huge, and had plenty to keep us busy if indeed we went looking for something to do. One thing we really enjoyed was snorkeling. By the pier there were tons of fish and they just swam around us, we assume hoping we would feed them. They certainly weren't afraid of us.
Our days mostly revolved around the times set for vollyball. Dan is easy to spot. He's the only one that ever wears anything besides a swimsuit, thong, or Speedo. We called ourselves "The Dorks." We could always be found in the shade with hats, SPF 50 sunscreen, glasses and a shirt or cover-up--even to swim in. We still got burned (not too bad). We never could figure out how everyone else managed laying in the sun all day (mostly topless) and went home with any skin still attached to their bodies.
Dan played pretty hard and sometimes he just couldn't resist the A/C reprieve.
We finally found the miniature golf course tucked away in the jungle. It was one of the best kept secrets of the resort--except from the mosquitoes.
They put on shows every night and its a great way to end the day.
The pools were gorgeous, and they even had a water park for kids.
In an effort to keep every nickel possible inside the resort, there is an entire mall onsite.
You know the saying "When in Rome"?? Well, the drinks WERE very creative, but we made them take all the fun out of them.
As you can see, I figured out how to use the timer on my camera. Hey, I had to practice SOMEWHERE.
The "all-inclusive" part tends to have a little (okay, a lot of) impact on the waistline. We enjoyed the specialty restaurants much more than the buffets. The restaurants they had were Mexican, Seafood, Japanese Tepenyaki, Italian, and Steakhouse. Yup, we tried them all!
Now, allow me to explain this little contraption called a water tricycle. You see, there is this theory that you just hop on, paddle out into the water and venture along the shoreline for a little self tour of the open waters. We fell for it. See us smiling? The little man holding my camera is also smiling, waving, and (now we know) laughing hysterically as we joyfully peddle our cute little tricycle out to sea. Now, I might mention that while, to me, it was normal peddling, to Dan, it was like peddling a little kids 16" bike, and the effort on his part was a little more than mine. However, we wanted to get a look at the island off yonder and just knew that all the effort it was taking to get past the big waves would pay off big when we turned around and could just sit back and relax while those same big waves carried us serenely back to shore.
We checked out the little rocky island from a distance, then decided we were tired, getting a bit seasick and sunburned, so we just turned that front wheel in the direction we wanted to go and sat back waiting for the inevitable relaxing ride back. Funny thing was that the vehicle from Hell had a definite mind of its own and continued to carry us further towards the Atlantic ocean. No problem, we thought, as we peddled faster and faster, then we peddled backwards, then we peddled faster and faster backwards. We began to have visions of Cuba appearing on the horizon when I decided this was getting rather serious and some instruction was in order. I looked around for any helpful message that might be written somewhere, anywhere, as a key to what would get this monster to return us to dry land, perhaps even the hidden cord that we could pull to start the non-existant motor. To our not so humorous amusement what I did find was the note tacked to the bottom of the oversized handlebars that informed us there would be a $100 rescue fee. (Didn't I tell you that little Mexican man was laughing?) At that point we began to discuss the exact definition of the word "rescue." Did it always have to include people? If we abandoned ship and swam to shore, which we held out more hope for success than dragging this ugly creature anywhere besides Cuba, could we just drag ourselves up the beach, point in the direction we last saw their mean green machine, say thanks and crawl back to our chairs on the beach? Well, in the end we fooled them all and even ourselves. We finally paddled every direction imaginable until we got close to another area down the beach, then we drove that bad-boy up on the sand and peddled on the beach back to where their next victim stood. The adrenaline rush curtailed our need to puke (barely and with effort), but we walked like we were even older than we are for the rest of the day. If you go, we suggest you try the sailboats instead.
Next stop: Alaska--October 29. Erin---be there or leave your mother stranded.
