About our trip to Cancun
jewel December 20th, 2009
Cancun was a lot of fun! We spent a week completely unplugged. No phone, no email, no weather channel, no news. The rest of the world could have been blown to bits and we wouldn’t have known (well, I’m sure someone would have told us if it had). Every now and again it really is nice to just let the rest of the world fade away. Now we’re back to our normal life and I figured I would write about my trip.
Interestingly, nearly every time I mentioned to someone that we were vacationing in Cancun the first thing they asked is “is it safe there?”. Although Mexico has seen a lot of drug related violence, most of that violence is in the border cities far away from Cancun. Mexico is a large country with quite the range in safety and violence. One of my coworkers also vacationed in Cancun a few weeks ago and he said he had been warned against leaving the resort, so they didn’t. I find that sad, because all the warnings I could find really dealt with other parts of Mexico. Cancun and it’s surrounding areas really have so much to offer. To not see any of it really is tragic. I’ve been to Cancun and the surrounding areas twice now and haven’t felt the slightest bit unsafe. We haven’t gone exploring completely on our own because neither of us speaks much Spanish. Tourist Spanish really only goes so far. So we book tours to places we want to see. And even when we have had free time to explore the areas we have visited we have not felt unsafe at all.
Ok, on to the fun parts..
Just like our first trip in 2007, we stayed at the Westin Resort & Spa. We loved it the first time and this trip was even better. Their staff is excellent and the service is impeccable. The location is fantastic, too, actually. They have a nice beach and the hotel is situated in a quiet area away from down town. Our first full day there we basically hung out in the shade by the pool. We had a long day of travel the day before and we wanted to just chill and enjoy the warm sunshine shade. They have bar/snack service all down the beach and by the pools so we just hung out and drank all day. It was a lovely way to start a vacation. Most relaxing. We even took a long walk down the beach (after slathering on plenty of gazillion SPF sun block, of course).
Then on Sunday we took a private tour to Chichen Itza (where we’ve been before) and Ek’ Balam (had not been there before). They have everything cabled off at Chichen Itza so you can’t climb on any of the ruins, sadly. The last time we were there we were able to climb one of the smaller ruins, but they had it blocked off this time. I do understand why, though. Chichen Itza is very heavily toured and all those people really do take a toll. It was good to be there again, though, as it is a beautiful site. After taking some lovely photos, we decided to take a look at the stuff the myriad of vendors had for sale. I had been looking for a large Aztek calendar that was brightly painted. I found exactly what I was looking for and a few other things to bring home. We also saw some fresh excavation which is always pretty neat.
Our next stop was Ek’ Balam, where you can climb everything. It doesn’t look as heavily traveled, so they haven’t blocked everything off like they have in many of the larger parks. We only climbed the main ruin, which was fairly high, and the view was spectacular. We hired a guide there, which honestly I wish we had not done. He was good and very nice, but he took too much time telling about the myths, which I remember nothing about (sadly, because it really is interesting) and we weren’t really able to take much time to explore. Coy enjoyed the guide a lot more than I did. I would have been happy to walk around, climb everything and take a lot of photographs. I often research sites I’ve been to after the fact, actually, and match everything up with the pictures I’ve taken. That works pretty well for me.
Tuesday, we ventured to Cozumel to take a little trip on a submarine (Atlantis Submarine) to see the reefs. The deepest depth we went to was 105 feet. We saw the edge of the island — it’s like a cliff. We saw lots of reef, fish, a few sting rays and whatnot. It was a blast. Sadly, we were kind of stuck in Cozumel for a couple hours after that before we could catch the ferry back to Playa del Carmen and get our list back to the hotel. Not a fan of Cozumel. Too many overly aggressive people trying to get you to spend money in their shops. I have never liked that. Still, the sub ride was super fun. I suspect that durring high season it’s actually better because there are more people. We tend to vacation in the tropics just before their season really starts because we like the lack of people. But it does have it’s drawbacks.
Wednesday was Coy’s birthday. We were suppose to go on a sunset cruise and have dinner on the beach, but the travel agent changed the time of our pickup and I didn’t notice and so we missed it. Hopefully they will refund our money. They said they would, but I’m not really optimistic. Once we got back and I was able to check my mail again I saw it really was my mistake, but it just did not occur to me that they would move the time up. The sunset is extremely predictable, so they really should have known more than a week out that their pickup times were wrong. They also could have called our hotel the day before to confirm the pickup (another tour we took did just that). But, anyway, we missed it and so we stayed at the resort for his birthday and the waiters kept feeding us cocktails and we had a really lovely dinner at their nice restaurant. Actually, with every meal that day (including breakfast) we got a free desert. And more than a few free cocktails. I tell you, they really know how to take care of their guests!
Thursday, we took our last tour for the vacation and we managed to really wear ourselves out with all the walking and climbing. This time we went to Coba and Aktun Chen. Coba is really spread out and there doesn’t seem to be a lot to see. Maybe there is more than we had time for, I don’t know. There is one big ruin which you can climb — The Nohoch Mul pyramid — it’s 145 feet tall. I didn’t climb that one. My fearless husband did, though. After we left there and before we got to Aktun Chen, we also stopped by a local shop (the tours generally take you to somewhere to hopefully spend your cash) and we got some lunch and did a bit more shopping. I really liked a number of the things for sale there.
Aktun Chen is a cave complete with stalactites, stalagmites, fossilized coral, fruit bats (non-fossilized) and a cenote. However, unlike every other cave I’ve been to, this one was hot and humid. I’m used to cool and damp in caves.
After our full day we headed back to the hotel for one last dinner for the next day we came home (to winter wonderland, as it turned out!).
Galleries:
Mexico Trip – December 2009 [album=26,compact]
Videos:
The view from “our spot” by the pool:
Two videos from our submarine ride:
