Cancun, Mexico

Oh Mexico, I am glad I gave you a second shot.

(First shot: college girls road trip to Rosartio, Papas & Beers mechanical bull riding type of trip, gross hotel, gross nightlife style of trip that led us to leave on day 2 days into our prepaid 5 day trip.)

This trip was so much different, thank goodness.  The hotel was all ocean view rooms, and the view from our patio was breathtaking!   The food was great and they even had amazing vegetarian options!  Tim and I tried to work off all the food by playing tennis ever day at the resorts rooftop grass court, swimming in the Caribbean Sea, and a Spanish led yoga class at the resort Spa (Tim's first introduction to yoga),.... a tough daily regiment.

The highlights of the trip were two snorkeling day trips we took, first to Cozumel Island and the next day to Isla Mujeres.  In Cozumel I am glad it wasn't my first time snorkeling because our small boat consisted of a local Spanish speaking family on vacation and our guide was only speaking Spanish for them.  It was Tim's first time snorkeling and since he is really into tropical fish, so I was glad he could understand (some of) what our guide was talking about.  We went to about five varied snorkeling spots off Cozumel and it was incredibly beautiful!

The second day trip to Isla Mujeres (Spanish for Island of the Women) was also a trip that I will never forget (and this is where I want to stay on our next trip to Mexico).  This little white sand island in the Caribbean has very shallow waters surrounding it, therefore no tourist cruise ships can dock here, which makes it uncrowded, sleepy, naturally beautiful and very authentic.  Its was refreshing to to visit a place where the guacamole, pico de glallo, and margaritas are made using fresh local ingredients from passed down family recipes.

We travel around the entire island via rented golf cart and we stopped to visit the Mayan ruins on the south end of the island.  The remaining ruins are of a temple dedicated to Ixchel, who is the Mayan goddess of fertility (which is very ironic knowing now what my status was at the time of visiting) in the middle of a beautiful garden with walking paths right along the water.  There is also a beautiful sculpture garden along the walk with brightly colored steel structures commissioned by artists all over the world, the bight colors against the green of the plants and blue of the ocean was just spectacular.

The snorkeling was a bit more "thrilling" then Cozumel.. mostly because of the number of barracudas that we ran into.  Tim and I ended up taking a private snorkeling tour on Isla Mujeres, and our guide would drop us off and have us make our way to his boat down the coast.. so Tim and me were pretty much alone following the underground coral reefs and fish (and a few times I may or may not have have jumped on Tim's back when I could see a barracuda's sharp fang teeth).