All good things...

Luis making our flaming volcanos

Well, as wonderful as a week at the Blue Bay Grand Esmerelda on the Mayan Riviera has been and it HAS been as we are well and truly spoiled. Take note of Luis at the Italian a la carte restaurant making our dessert for us. I had to ask "does your mother know you play with fire?" The a la carte restaurants were good with the steak house, Italian and seafood being our top three favorites. All good things must come to an end and thus we are contemplating a return to reality tomorrow. Sigh. Sounds like we have at least spring like temperatures not winter as some provinces so we'll have to take it. Flight out tomorrow afternoon but as anyone who has vacationed knows that means a morning checkout, bus ride to the airport, check in and wait before a five hour flight then three hour drive home. So close and yet so far when it will take over 12 hours to accomplish all that. But as I said to the travel partner today "we've found the solution for the post vacation let down with a second trip coming up but what are we going to do after the cruise?" His answer was that it may be close enough to warmer temperatures that we can handle it. We shall see.

The weather has been warm - high 20s and low 30s with the Mayan Riviera having high humidity so I'm surprised that I haven't had cankles this week but no I do have ankles and calves. A few tropical rainshowers one evening and Sunday afternoon it did shower for quite a while so we took in our coupon for the spa and indulged ourselves in hydrotherapy, drank iced tea, ate grapes and then had naps as if we were Greeks or Romans. All in all it has been a week of relaxation which has passed much too quickly. This place even has a large group of coatimundis who make the rounds begging for food from the guests.  I tried to convince the travel partner to do some other excursions but he says we need to leave something for our next visit so I'm not going to argue with that concept.

On Thursday we were taken to Playa del Carmen by one of the resort staff for a few hours and we did the tourist thing where we checked out 5th avenue with its t-shirt shops, negotiated for jewelry I didn't buy and finally picked up some clear vanilla which I had promised a friend and some tequila because I think this summer may have some margueritas in it. It is a small seaside place which has grown over the past 20 yrs from a fishing village/backpackers haven to a tourist town. It reminded us of small towns in Cuba with the colonial designs, Spanish signs and construction.

Lighthouse at Tulum




Sea turtle Akumal reef



Manta ray who visited us snorkeling


We took an excursion to see the Mayan ruins of Tulum yesterday morning in a small group with a wonderfully informed guide named Rueben (the guides in Mexico study for four years and then intern) where you can see how beautiful it is above and then to snorkel at Akumal on the reef where we saw lots of fish and some really large ones too with the shore captain seeing a 4 ft. grouper. 

Today we spent the morning on the beach and even with the SPF 30 sunblock we managed to bake ourselves just a tad bit more than we intended. The Cool Aloe I.C.E. has been procured from the hotel store which should help a bit. My excuse in part was that I was watching the wedding taking part on the beach where the bride wore a white bikini (her bouquet was bigger than her outfit) and the groom wore white Billabong embroidered shorts and no shirt (they had to put more clothes on to go in and have the wedding lunch) although the attendants were more traditionally attired in sundresses. Lots of champagne, photographs and kisses all around. That explains the resort employees struggling down the cobblestone pathway with a cart full of chairs, poles and shovel this morning - apparently this is how the gauzy gazebo and covered chairs appeared at noon time.

Well, the after sun lotion has dried so we are off to source some supper and will check out the buffet as we've tried all the a la carte restaurants we were interested in. A later post when we return to the 'real world'