Long vacation post

I alway feel the need to explain our vacations...

Yes, it seems like we go on a lot of tropical vacations compared to other people.

We do.

And I feel kind of weird about it.

But Frank needs them and he works really hard to make sure he gets a vacation.

We usually go twice a year.

This year though, I talked him into going to Bear Lake instead.

He still talks about that vacation and how it wasn't much of a vacation.

So last week, we went back to Cancun.

Wasn't I just complaining about our money pit house?

Why, yes, I was!

Since this vacation was planned (and hotel and plane tickets purchased) before we bought the house,

we were already locked in.

We had to make it work on a very small budget.

We managed to make this our cheapest vacation ever...

and we still had fun.

I will never live down the Bear Lake debacle though.

Here is a run down of what we did on vacation:

Day One

Arrived fairly late in the day (maybe 3 or 4? I can't remember)

Pick up rental car 

(Frank was very proud to get a rental for a week for only $23...yep for the whole week!)

Grocery shop

Part of the plan for a cheap vacation was to eat in the room as much as possible.  So we stocked up on breakfast and lunch foods.

Check in to hotel.

We then went and sat on the beach for a bit.

Here is a view from our room with a nice "welcome" written in the sand.

Day Two

We arrived on Saturday so our first whole day was a Sunday.

We try to go to church on Sundays and not spend money or eat out.

So, we got up and got dressed in our church clothes

and headed out to church.

Frank in his white shirt and tie...a picture he sent to his mom

We've been to church in Cancun before but it's been awhile.

And, well, we got lost.

We drove around for over an hour and finally gave up and came back to the hotel.

We spent the rest of the day just lounging on the beach and reading.

The typical toes/beach picture.

That's Frank headed into the ocean.

Day Three

We decided to go back to a little beach that we found on our last trip...

it is north of all of the hotels and is more of a locals beach.

We drove up and found it easily (whew!)

but the little restaurant that was there is now only open on weekends.

So that was a bummer because we had only brought a little bit of food

and had no chairs or anything like that.

Last time we were able to "rent" a table and chairs with an umbrella as long as we bought lunch there.

But we set up our camp under some shade and had a nice day there.

Just like last time there were a few local families there but overall very few people.

There is a lagoon there and it had a bunch of pink flamingoes!

We waded out to get close to them...and I swear it felt like we were close

but the pictures are sure far away! haha

We got close enough to make them nervous and they started leaving, so we backed off.

One of our favorite dishes in Mexico is called a Molcajete.

It's a cheese/meat dish served in a big stone bowl.

It's amazing.

The hotel we had stayed at on previous visits was nearby and we knew they had this favorite dish of ours... so we stopped in for lunch and were excited to get a molcajete!

Sadly, they had changed their menu and no longer served it.

So sad!

We ate lunch there anyway and headed back to our hotel.

On the way back, we got pulled over for speeding.

Which is a story in and of itself.

We survived that experience and our lives and marriage are still intact.

Dinner was ritz crackers, cheese and meat from the grocery store.

We live it up!

As usual, we were tired early...and instead of enjoying the night life of Cancun we went to sleep.

But, hey, it's our vacation so we can do it the way we want.

Day Four

We thought maybe we would splurge a little and go on a tour to some Mayan ruins

but after calling the tour company we decided it just wasn't worth the cost.

So we spent the morning on our hotel beach.

Around lunch time we decided to give it another try on finding a molcajete.

We took our kids to Isla Mujeres (a small island near Cancun) years ago (before we moved to Boston) and the hotel we were in there had a great little restaurant with a really delicious molcajete on the menu.

So we decided to drive to the ferry and go to Isla Mujeres.

It started raining pretty heavily and the road actually had quite a bit of water.

We thought it was sorta fun and took pictures to send to Frank's parents.

Well, that was just the beginning!

It rained!

And the streets became more and more flooded.

Cars started stalling from the water.

People were pushing their cars and motorcycles along and walking in knee deep water at times.

It was crazy.

Our 5 mile trip to the ferry took a good long time and we were just hoping our car wouldn't stall.

We made it eventually and took the ferry to Isla Mujeres.

It kept raining.

We rented a little golf cart to drive while we were there

and, even though it had a roof, we were completely drenched in no time!

Here we are after we ran from our golf cart to the hotel entrance.

We straggled into the hotel which had been renamed and completely remodeled!

And, you guessed it, the restaurant did not serve molcajete.

We left without eating and drove around a bit before choosing a little road side place to eat.

It was tasty but not what we had hoped for.

And we were so wet.

Back to the ferry and back home to still flooded streets, slow traffic and a near empty tank of gas.

I complained of being too hot the whole vacation but we were both quite chilled after being wet for hours and then riding home on an air conditioned ferry.

Good times.

Day Five

On Wednesday we decided to have another relax-on-the-hotel-beach day.

We did some investigating and found a restaurant in downtown Cancun that supposedly served great molcajete.

Yes, this became the theme of the vacation.

Find some molcajete!

We went to this very nice place and they did, indeed, have an entire page of their menu

for various types of molcajete.

I got a chicken one and Frank got shrimp.

The food was so gorgeous.

Frank's bean soup:

Guacamole, freshly made at the table side:

My molcajete:

I hate to say it but...it wasn't quite right.

Good meat and a nice hot stone bowl...

but the spices were different and there was no cheese!

Just a dip that tasted a lot like italian dressing.

So sad.

Day Six

We got up early and drove to Coba, which is the site of some very cool mayan ruins.

We decided to just be our own tour guides!

We had been there once before but it was when Frank was still recovering and he was pretty weak and tired so we didn't see the whole thing.

This time we spent the whole day and saw everything.

We walked a lot!

Coba is in the jungle and it was really hot and so humid.

I do not sweat a lot generally but I felt like my clothes were totally wet.

It was disgusting.

You can still climb the temple in Coba

so that is one reason we love it there.

We made it to the top!

A gorgeous view

(and my thighs were a bit sore the next day)

See how wet we look?

 gross

But, don't get me wrong, we had a great time.

We were just gross.

Day Seven

Friday was our last full day in Cancun so we threw caution to the wind a bit.

You see, I really do not go in the sun.

This is one reason that these tropical vacations don't make a lot of sense for me.

I wear spf 50 sunscreen and sit in the shade the whole time.

The. Whole. Time.

I get a skin reaction when I get in the sun and it gives me a terrible, itchy rash.

So I am very careful.

If I get the rash early on it really ruins the whole week.

But on the last day I actually went out into the ocean for a significant period. 

I was probably out there for a couple of hours overall.

The rest of the time I did my usual and stayed in the shade...

but both Frank and I got a bit sunburned

and my rash made a grand entrance!

That's ok...headed home to my medication tomorrow.

Here we are sitting in the restaurant for our final meal.

Day Eight

Saturday morning we slept in and then packed up to go home.

We had a bit of an eventful time filling the rental car with gas before returning it

(Another story...no cash and credit cards not working after we had already gotten the gas!)

but we worked it out and were on our way back home.

Real life awaits.