Clothing Optional ?
CANCUN
Day One:
After an uneventful flight from Denver to Cancun the fun began when we got into the hotel's shuttle. Kelly bought a time share years ago at a resort that was at the time called Blue Bay but after the last hurricane they chose to rebuild it as the Sea Adventure resort. It is a family friendly resort with a big water park. Not exactly where we would choose to stay, but it's free. They also have a sister property called Desire, that is an adult only, clothing optional resort. While we have the option to stay there, that is definitely not our type of resort. Although apparently we look more like Desire people than Sea Adventure people.So, when the shuttle zoomed past the exit in Cancun that we thought he should have taken, we started to question the driver to determine if he knew we were staying at the Sea Adventure and not the Desire. Apparently our attempt at Spanish to verify we were going the right way failed. Sure enough we pulled up to the Desire resort. After being assured we did not have a reservation there and offering to switch our reservations for us (no thanks!). We are back in our shuttle hopefully headed for Sea Adventure... Wish us luck...We finally made it! Not as bad as we thought, they have done a lot of upgrading and it turns out the water park is across the street, they put us on the quieter side :)
Day two:
Today we went SCUBA diving with SCUBA Cancun. It was actually decent diving, and Lars, Francois, Hugo and the rest of the crew made it thoroughly enjoyable. We were surprised that there were quite a fellow Coloradans on the boat with us, so there was lots of good conversation all around. Even though Todd is still using twice as much air as everyone else he still managed to get 25 minutes of down time per dive. (Kelly got over 30 and still had 1200 psi in her tanks after each dive and Todd is convinced that the reason for this is that is Kelly is just naturally full of hot air and gas). We saw a ton of fish including a barracuda, stone fish, angel fish, lion fish and Kelly got to see a turtle (Todd had already surfaced as he did not have the natural reserves of hot air that Kelly did). All in all it exceeded our expectations and we will be doing more diving in Cancun for sure!The rest of the day was pretty lazy. We checked out the swinging beds on the beach and took a nap. We bought a DVD of our dive trip and went to pick that up around dinner time and wandered into a nice waterfront bar that had amazing food, called the Paradise bar at Playa Tortugas. The mixed ceviche was yummy and the chicken tacos were the freshest we have ever had. They had a spicy sauce they warned us about continuously and even ran over to make sure we realized how hot it was when they saw us reaching for it. It actually was not that hot (at least for us former Texans), but it was good. It appeared to be simply puréed jalapeños. As we ate, we had entertainment as just across the dock, was a bungee jumping tower. We watched as the first jumper decided not to jump and made the walk of shame all the way back down the tower. As the three remaining jumpers made the leap and jerked around like a fish on a line, we concluded that bungee jumping was definitely not for us. It looks horribly painful on the ankles and the thought of hanging upside down like a fish waiting to be filleted really isn't all that appealing. I'm sure most people assume that bungee jumping is on our bucket list, but it's not. Todd and Kelly agree, it just doesn't look fun and we like our ankles and don't feel like causing them any undo stress :).
Day three:
Today is a beat down day of touring. We wanted to see Chichen Itza, so we decided to join a Mayan Gate tour. The day started with them showing up 30 minutes late to pick us up. Apparently they were on Mexican time :). Our tour includes English and Spanish speakers and the tour guide has done an amazing job of giving the Mayan history in both languages, but it has been very difficult to understand as he jumps back and forth between the languages. The first stop was to see a cenote, which is a sinkhole filled with crystal clear water. It rained when we arrived, so the cavern provided a nice break from both the rain and the heat. Next was shopping for Mayan crafts (a.k.a. the eighth ring of hell) and lunch.After lunch, we finally made it to Chichen Itza! It was very much worth the shopping torture! We were given a wonderful tour of the site and learned about the Mayan history and culture. We then wandered on our own for another 30 minutes. It was the perfect weather, overcast, no rain and quite steamy, but bearable.In the midst of the majestic ruins and ever-encroaching jungle, Native Americans had set up booths everywhere and were selling t-shirts, carvings and more trinkets than you could shake a carved wooden jaguar head at. Todd of course ignored them, but Kelly batted her pretty blue eyes and Todd had no choice but start negotiating with one of the vendors. He got them down to half their price and as a result, we will be bringing Kelly's nephews some Jaguar callers when we see them in two weeks!
Day four:
Today is all about relaxing. The perfect way to end out vacation as we get ready to head back to Los Estados Unidos. We woke up to the sun shining into our room at sunrise, but managed to ignore it for a couple more hours as we snoozed. We put our swim suits on and headed to the beach where Kelly enjoyed some beach yoga and Todd read a book.We both tried paddle boarding for the first time. Thanks to Kelly's yoga class she was a pro. Todd wobbled around a bit and after his second fall, quickly decided that a seated position was the best way to approach paddle boarding.Now we are relaxing, enjoying a cold drink and soaking up as much humidity as we can before we head back to dry Denver. 