Ok, so after that opening photo, do I even need to say that our trip to Cancun was AMAZING!?! Well, I'm gonna say it anyway. It was AMAZING!
So, for the past couple years, I had been planning and saving for a Hawaiian cruise (which is still on my vacay wish-list, by the way.) But by last spring, we decided that to fly to Hawaii, then do the 7-day cruise (the shortest offered) and then fly back home was just too long. That will have to be something we do when I don't have toddlers. Not only is it hard for me to leave my little ones for that long, I pity whoever has to watch them for over a week straight! It was also going to be pretty expensive since there isn't much competition for Hawaii cruises to help bring the prices down. We knew we had enough travel points saved up to fly just about anywhere for free, so we decided to go out on a limb and try a resort vacation. We have wanted to go to the Yucatan for awhile and started looking for resort deals there. In July, we found a screaming deal--5 nights at an all-inclusive resort for only $250. Not per person. TOTAL! One catch. We have to attend a 90 minute sales presentation. Now, I was pretty leery of this at first. Too good to be true. If you don't buy, they're going to stalk you the rest of the vacation. It could be a big hoax. Anyway, we looked into it a little more and decided it looked real, so we went for it.
It was real. Now I'm not gonna lie . . . I absolutely HATED the sales presentation, but we got out of there without buying anything and never heard from them again. I figured in the end, it was a small price to pay for the incredible deal we got. Now for $250, I went into it ready for everything to not be exactly perfect. And it wasn't, but it was pretty darn good! The Krystal Resort was one of the first resorts ever built in Cancun, back in the 70s. The upside? PERFECT beach location. We walked down the beach a ways one day, and nothing beat our spot. We were located right at the northeast tip of the hotel zone. There was a small barrier, which you can see in the distance in the photo above which blocked the waves coming in from the north. So over near that barrier, there weren't any waves, just crystal clear turquoise water that was shallow for a long ways out. But then as you walked down closer to our hotel tower and pools, where the photo was taken from, you could play in the waves (which we spent a LOT of time doing). Also, the sand is all white (like everywhere in Cancun) so it isn't hot at all. Also, based on our walk, our strip of beach was the cleanest. No garbage or even seaweed. Just perfectly clean, white sand. Beauty.
The downside of being one of the first? It's old. Our room wasn't the greatest. It smelled musty and old. But it was clean and we had a comfortable king-size bed. And? An ocean view from our amazing balcony! So all in all, we liked our room just fine. This pic is taken from our balcony.
So of course, with all-inclusive, we got all our food and drinks. There were three restaurants at the resort: a buffet that served mainly Mexican food, and Italian restaurant, and a sushi bar. But the resort had also contracted with a Mexican restaurant just down the street, so it was included as well. We ate there the first night, and were SOLD! We did the buffet for breakfast (good, made-to-order omelets and fruit), then ate at the Mexican restaurant each night. We loved the decor, the live mariachi band, the non-alcoholic margaritas (SOOO yummy!), and pretty much everything about that place. I felt a little guilty though, when we would sign the receipt each night that they sent back to the resort for payment. Our meal (which of course included a couple drinks apiece, an appetizer, maybe soup, our main course, and dessert) cost over $100 each night! So we ate more in food than we paid for the entire vacation. I'm still not sure I'm over the guilt of that, but it was SOOOO yummy!
Actually, there was one night that we didn't eat there. At Tina's recommendation, we headed to downtown Cancun, away from the hotel zone and checked out a night festival. It was all locals except for us, and it was a lot of fun! They had entertainment--a stage with various singing and dancing groups performing, a carnival, vendors, and food. We got the best empenada and quesadilla we had ever had for about a buck apiece. We also had horchata, which we both LOVE, and then finished it off with some churros, again recommended by Tina. Thanks, Tina! It was such a fun night!
Probably the most unique experience we had on our trip was our tour of two ancient Mayan cities. We did a private tour with an LDS tour guide. It was an all day tour: 7:30am to 7:00 pm which included all our transportation in a nice, air-conditioned minivan, snacks, water, a Mayan buffet lunch with entertainment, and tours of two Mayan cities: Chichen Itza and Tulum. The tour cost more than our hotel, but we figured that with our hotel being so cheap and our flights being free, we could splurge a little on an excursion. And we are SO glad we did! It was amazing. With the LDS tour guide, he was able to point out so many things that we would not have ever known or made the connections on our own between the Mayan history and the Book of Mormon. But there were so many parallels. For example, the temples in these cities are constructed in the same format as Solomon's temple. In the book of Mormon, Nephi points out that they built their temples after the manner of Solomon's temple. I wonder how other archeaologists explain the incredible similarities between the Mayan temples and Solomon's temple? Also, the Mayans worshipped many Gods in their later history, but there were always three primary gods: the all-knowing god, the descending god, and the wind god. In one depiction, the wind god has no body. This sure seems a lot like our belief of the Godhead: God the father, who is over all, His Son, Jesus Christ, who descended to earth, and the Holy Ghost, who can be felt but not seen. There were many other parallels, but I'm not going to write them all out.
A couple other interesting things from our tour: The ball field. Apparently sports have been a big deal for a long time. In this field (pictured below) they played a game with a ball. There were "box seats" for royal families built atop the walls of the arena. The crazy part? The winning team's captain was sacrificed, which was a great honor. Human sacrifice was really big in Chichen Itza. They believed in sacrificing their best, and to them this was often people, including children. I really hated learning about that part of their civilization, but it was interesting to realize how important their religion was to them.
The observatory. The Mayan people were incredible astonomers. Many of their buildings, temples included were also calendars. They were built so that at every solstice and equinox, the sun would shine through a specific point of the building, creating incredible lighting and/or shadowing. The exactness used in their architecture was incredible. They understood the planets, the rotation of the earth and phases of the moon, and how it all worked together. In the Book of Mormon there is a scripture that talks about the earth and other plants moving in their orbits. I was always amazed that they knew about that in Book of Mormon times. But yep, they did. It is obvious from our tour.
Tulum was very different from Chichen Itza. While Chichen Itza was inland, and a military city, Tulum was a beautiful, peaceful city built right on the coast. They didn't do human sacrifice here. They sacrificed pure animals instead. This was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen! I wish the pictures could do it more justice. Anyway, if you ever go to Cancun, I highly recommend seeing the Mayan ruins. And if you are LDS, I think you would love the LDS tour route. There are a few different companies, but we went with Heleman Tours. Our tour guide was Heleman's son-in-law, Jonathan, and he was great!
The ruins tour was really our only excursion. We did have a wild adventure on Sunday trying to find a church. We got to one building just in time for the 1:00 meeting time, but found out that they had just had stake conference. The mission president and his wife were there and offered to take us to another building across town where another ward in a different stake was meeting. The ride across town was really fun, visiting with them and a set of sister missionaries. At church, I couldn't understand a word, but was able to experience for the first time being able to feel the Spirit without understanding what is being said. I'm really glad we went.
Other than our tour, and our Sunday (sales pitch, church, then downtown festival), we mostly enjoyed the beach! This was my personal favorite. A bed on a beach! I took a book and absolutely loved just reading and relaxing (and having a waiter bring me a non-alcoholic pina colada :) )
We also must have come at a great time of year, because this is about how crowded our beach was the entire vacation. LOVED that!
Cancun was amazing. But so was every other vacation we have been on. Mostly, I just love vacation. I love family vacations, too. But there is something so refreshing and rejuvenating about spending 5 days with Tony. We just love that one-on-one time, completely uninterrupted and stress-free. If you've never done a "couple vacation", YOU NEED TO GO! I feel like it re-charges our marriage every time we take one. You can find ways to make it inexpensive, you can save for it, a little each month, and I can't imagine that in the end, it wouldn't be SOOO worth it (unless, of course, you and your spouse don't like each other much and would find things to fight about even in paradise). Anyway, time to start planning our next one. Suggestions anyone?!?
