Honeymoon

... to the Mayan Riviera! Wahoo! I was really excited because I've never been to Mexico or Hawaii or anywhere like that before. So Mexico sounded fantastic to me. Especially in the middle of winter. We went from Dec 19-26. But those facts aren't interesting to you. I know. But maybe some of my stories will be. Though I warn you, I'm kind of long winded and love to tell everything so proceed with spare time.

Trent and I don't like to be particularly early to airports because waiting in airports is not fun and they make you be much earlier than you really need to be. So our flight was leaving at 11am and we arrived at 10am. As we're standing in line to check our baggage, an airline employee comes by and tells us that our flight has been delayed... for THREE TO FOUR HOURS! Excuse me? Oh yeah, our plane got sent to Vancouver because they needed another plane so we have to wait for it to get here and refuel. Oh don't worry though, we'll each get a $15 meal voucher for any restaurant in the airport. Super. So Trent and I wait in the SLOWEST line ever to check our bags - I mean, seriously, was it new employee day at the airport? I think so. The silver lining to the agonizing wait? There weren't many spots left beside each other on the plane so they upgraded us to 1st class. Why yes, that will be suitable for us.

So Trent and I quickly went from "yay we're going to Mexico!"

to "when will we finally get to go to Mexico..?"

While Trent was thus sleeping, they kept calling for a couple final passengers for a flight. The attendant came up to me as I was reading and was like, "Excuse me, is he with you?" I looked over at him and laughed, "yeah... he's with me." Oh Trenty.

When we finally took off, we were already supposed to have been in Mexico for an hour. Not cool Air Transat. But first class was lovely. I'd never pay hundreds more for it, but it is amazing service. You drink out of real glasses! Eat with real cutlery off real plates, and they let you drink whatever you want, and you know all that stuff you have to pay for in business class? all complimentary in 1st class - yep, they hand you headphones and pillows, blankets, ear plugs, even socks! It was great. And they know you by name. Because they only have to learn 21 names in 1st class. It was great. It made me want to drink champagne, not gonna lie.

Anyways, we land, go through customs, get our luggage, and head out to look for our transport. They warn you not to go with anyone that isn't officially with your resort because there are always Mexicans trying to get you to go with them. So as we come out we see guys saying they're with Air Transat and we're like no, Nolitours, and the guy is like yeah yeah Nolitours, follow me! And grabs my suitcase and starts walking. My initial response was, "Uh, oh no, should I be letting him walk away with my bag?! uhhh." But then I looked at Trent and looked at the guy and thought, "Trent could take him." So we just followed. Good news is he really was with Nolitours and got us to and aboard our bus just fine.

We finally got to our resort 6 or 7 hours later than originally scheduled, but you know what, once there we forgot all about being late.

We arrived!

And our room was so nice.

BlueBay Grand Esmeralda! All inclusive, 7 days of paradise! Let's do this!


Trent and I, in my opinion, planned our week perfectly, without really planning at all. We kind of unintentionally did a beach day, excursion day, beach day, excursion day, etc. Which worked out wonderfully with the weather and so that Trent could have a day in between each of his sunburns ahahahaha.

Day 1 - Beach Day.
I firmly believe the first day of any vacation should be relaxing. We just got married, Trent just finished finals, it's the first day we've really had to ourselves. And I couldn't imagine a better way to spend it than hanging out on the beach, reading and swimming and having non-stop virgin pina coladas brought to us.

And we came across these crazy mexican racoons. Weirdos.

Our resort had 6 A la carte restaurants and buffets. So Monday night we booked at the Mexican restaurant. It only seemed right that Mexican was our first dinner.


Mexicans know how to cook.

Day 2 - Excursion Day AKA Ancient Ruins Day!

Kort and Dust recommended an LDS tour guide they had gone with in the area, so we looked him up and booked a tour with him too. His name was Helaman. Awesome right? He was super nice and I highly recommend Helaman tours for anyone going to the Mayan Riviera area. Having an LDS tour guide just makes everything so much more meaningful and real. And true. Maybe when I have time to really think about it and write, I'll share some of the awesome insight being mormon gives us when it comes to mexican ruins. See, the Mayans history and records were all destroyed by the Catholics when they came to "christianize" and save the people, and no one on earth can read the Mayan characters. So the only real info we have is what we see and what we know from the Book of Mormon. It was a couple hour drive to the ruins, so Helaman got to teach us quite a bit while we drove. It was just Trent and I and another family from Utah.

Our first stop was at Ek'Balam. These ruins are only recently restored, 15 years in the making, and only a small fraction is actually restored.


Random Mayan Info: Mayans only built straight roads from one city to the next. All superhighways. Makes for quick transport. Archeologists say that the Mayans didn't have the wheel, they didn't have chariots, which is weird, because if you read Alma 18:9-10, Ammon prepares King Lamoni's horses and chariots. Huh. Maybe the Catholics destroyed more than we thought.

Which brings me to more random Mayan info: When the Catholics arrived and saw the baptismal fonts at the temples, they were distraught. The Mayans couldn't know about baptism. They had come to Christianize them. So they destroyed all their baptismal fonts. And Helaman says even now, they'll never be restored.

Anyways, Ek'Balam because it's so "new" there were only a couple dozen people there and we're allowed to climb and check out the ruins, which isn't common at other ruins because thy've been climbed so much and there's so many people visitting them now, they have to forbid it to protect the ruins. So we got to climb the 121 steep skinny steps up to the top. Well the pseudo top, they haven't restored the Holy Room and the Holy of Holies that will go on top. It was really cool to have Helaman there to point out cool things like the pool for washings and annointings out front and the sacrificial altar, and different pictures and things that mean a lot more to an endowed mormon than anyone else (well other than the Mayans). Oh and PS. Ek'Balam is the third tallest temple in Mexico. Boo ya.











Now perhaps on to Chichen Itza. Oh wait, you mean one of the New 7 Wonders of the World?! Yep. One in the same. And PS. It was so hot.











Aw Trenty loves the little girl dresses.

Day 3 - Beach Day AKA Little Piece of Paradise.









And for dinner... just a little steak. No biggie. So good. And the service really is impecable. Other than when they forget that our drinks are non-alcoholic. But to be fair, who goes to an all-inclusive mexican resort and doesn't drink all day? Okay, us.


Day 4 - Excursion Day! AKA Play Day! At... XPlor! (and no that is not spelled wrong)
So this place is built on and around a network of natural cenotes and underground rivers with stalagmites and such, with jungle-ish vegetation above. So we walk in, or moreso, under, and fill out wavers, and put on helmets, and then we take off! In our swimsuits and helmets we rafted and swam underground rivers, drove gators around tracks through the natural vegetation, and rode ziplines all over the park! The ziplines were by far the coolest. There were two different tracks of about 7 ziplines each. We rode zipline tower to zipline tower, over jaguar pits and crocodile pits, over 50m in the air and going up to 35km/hr. It was totally wicked! Unfortunately we don't really have any pictures of it all because we don't have a waterproof camera. Though random fact, our helmets had numbers on them and throughout the park there were tons of cameras taking our pics and collecting them according to number. So we coulda bought them at the end - but really, too expensive. But here's a look at what we did get...






Day 5 - Christmas Eve! And a trip into Playa del Carmen
Breakfast at the buffet was death by chocolate in the name of Christmas. Yes please. And we did a bunch more bartering and checking stuff out, "hey happy honeymooners!" "hey you guys want some party supplies? marijuana? blow?" bahaha I love these people. I did find a really pretty dress that I really wanted... but it was immodest... and we didn't have enough money - unless we walked back to our resort and spent our cab money... which really wasn't an option. But the sunset was really nice.


Then there's Christmas Eve dinner. A special dinner for the whole resort. Exciting.
I love Christmas.






And what would Christmas be without a little authentically Christmas entertainment?







Oh man I'm exhausted. I'll edit and comment and move stuff around tomorrow. But I'm posting this for now so MICHELLE has something to entertain herself for now. ha.

LOVE