Day 5 Chichen Itza day

The alarm went off once, but we didn't hit snooze, so it was absolutely panic stations this morning doing the mad dash to get up, dressed, breakfast and get to the transfer on time for our trip to Chichen Itza. Thankfully we made it and peace was restored within our duo. 

It was over 2 hours to make it to our destination, which was quite inland of Cancun. They gave us drinks and snacks on the way there, so that was a great part of the service. It was an incredible sight to see in person and definitely a must for visitors to Mexico. Like our guide Raol said "when going to China, you'd visit the wall, when visiting Eygpt you go to the Pyramids, when coming to Mexico, you have to go to Chichen Itza." We're so glad we made the journey! 

There were so many market sellers spruiking their wares. They weren't really pushy though and our tour guide warned us off a few areas. At the Chichen Itza sight, there were many building ruins with 'big banger' featuring below! First walking up to the area and seeing it for the first time was actually quite an awesome feeling. Mexico is also home to many cenote or sink holes / blow holes. They're always round and you can swim in them if they're maintained. The cenote on the sight was good to see, but certainly not maintained.

We cruised around Chichen Itza for a couple of hours with the guide giving us lots of interesting information and then left for lunch. Yet again another Mexican buffet, but it mainly contained food from the local area. Very, very delicious! At lunch we realised that one of the couples on the tour were also married last week, on the same day as us! That's the third other couple to date! 

We chatted heaps to some others on the bus on the journey home and have made some new Facebook friends from England. Four older people who were easy to talk to and one of them even helped us out with mosi repellant. Before heading back we stopped at another cenote, but as it was on private land it was definitely well maintained and very packed with tourists. It was very impressive. See the pic below. We only had a short stop, so we decided not to bother, but took pics instead.

It was a massive day and we ended up getting back, getting dressed for dinner and luckily they held our booking even though we were 30 minutes late. Tonight we ate at the seafood restaurant called The Marina. It was a fabulous meal, but lots of it, so we flicked dessert. 

There was a lot of noise around the pool before 10, so we headed over and after only 5 minutes in, we all got booted. Damn, it was so refreshing and woke us up a bit. We finished off the night badly in need of mosi spray and ended up with some souvenirs and a cheeky dress in our purchases. 

We're not yet too sure how tomorrow will pan out, but it is our last full day here, till we head off to the cruise! 

Day 4 Relaxing a plenty

Tan: A nice late start today, meant missing breakfast. It didn't help that my squash team was in the grand final. I knew that they were going to email me through the results, so I was awake eagerly waiting. Alas I closed my eyes just near the start time - 5:00am here and 8:00pm in Melbourne but did not wake up again till 11:00am Cancun time. It was a shame to see the results, all matches lost. Nevermind boys it was still a great effort against a consistently strong team! 

The afternoon started with a run at the gym (obviously not Richard), then out for a delicious lunch at the restaurant by the pool. The waiters are terrible with the alcohol, always encouraging you to have tequila shots and various cocktails, at seemingly anytime of the day! So so funny. They really love seeing people having a good time and we have been really impressed with the service here.

Next it was off to find some gaters! Apparently in the lagoon there are some small alligators, although we didn't end up seeing one. It was however a great opportunity to test out the new lense. No gators, but we did see a couple of turtles and an iguana. The are a few large iguanas that live on the resort grounds, very cool to see. People here are really quite scared of them. 

Next we had a few hours in the pool starting with trivia. Of course! When we were heading down to the pool area, we could hear the Maguivar theme music and realised it was trivia. Awesome. By the time we were organised and down there we missed a crap load, but waltzed in late and took equal second. Woot. We won a mini ukulele! So many people said that we would've smashed them if we'd started at the beginning, including the winners. We do love trivia. After it was over we stayed on chatting with the trivia winning team and enjoyed a few cheeky beverages, which was nice.

At 6pm we headed off to the jacuzzi area and there were heaps of people in there all keen to chat. We staying in there for an hour and a half and then had to head off to get ready for dinner. We didn't manage to get a dinner reservation till 9:00pm, although when we got there the restaurant was quiet and it seemed that we could've gotten there earlier. It was still fine as we'd had a very late and large lunch.

Tonight was a divine Mexican feast. It was so so good. As opposed to the night before, which was a buffet, tonight was a four course a la carte delectable meal. We had a nap before going out, so both of us were initially quite lethargic when we got there, so the Coke and Diet Coke came as a nice change and seemed to pep us up a bit. Again the waiters encouraged us to have some shots, so we had to say yes. It was the polite thing to do. When the first round came out, they brought out a sombrero for us to wear whilst getting amongst the Mexican spirit! Viva Mexico!!!

Both very full and tired from the hot jacuzzi, we stopped after two shots and headed home for the evening. It is a great resort but after dinner there isn't anything much to do. There is a night club, but our mates from the pool went last night and said that it was bad, just Spanish techno. We decided to skip it, as we have another big tour day in the morning to Chichen Itza to see the Mayan temple. 

Day 3 Adventure day Mexican style!

Up early today to be ready for a yummy breakfast before embarking on our adventure day. It was off and away at least at the reasonable time of 8:30am.

The first stop was south of Playa Del Carmen, to an absolutely gorgeous beach area to swim with giant sea turtles. Our guide Limbert was a funny guy and very easy to get along with. He took us out quickly, not too much time spent on safety crap and over teaching. The seawater was unbelievable. It was warm, to a point where you could just go straight in. No need for slowly introducing section by section of your body. 

Almost instantaneously we saw our first big mamma turtle and continued to see them and many other fish varieties after that. It was fantastic and truly breathtaking. Maybe that was the snorkel. Lol. Either way this was the best snorkelling that we'd done to date. The Mayan Peninsula is home to the second largest reef in the world. They were asking us what the Great Barrier Reef was like, but unfortunately our Australian travels to date have been a bit limited. It is at least a four hour flight, so that was reasonable. I think those more local holidays will come when the kids arrive. Otherwise if they don't, Australia can wait till we're old and grey.

At the second and final stop for the day, we started off visiting a peaceful and tranquil stalactite cave that had water inside of it. We were actually able to swim and explore the cave with our snorkel equipment. It was so calm and no wonder the ancient Mayans thought of this place as spiritually enlightening. Unfortunately the water was fresh water, so extremely cool. We were pretty much forced to get in, as the place had specific photo points for us to adhere to! To borrow a phrase from Jimowen, "it's nice.....once you're in!" Thanks Captain Obvious!

It was great after all the swimming activity to head off for a very tasty Mexican lunch at the adventure complex. Next we learnt how to repel, although it was only Richard who took the massive plunge and twice by the way. He loved it...I was too scared, but did have a crack at the mini learning height. The final part of our tour were 3 rediculously massive zip lines. It was friggen high, but exhilarating and well worth the pre jump off jitters. 

Tonight for dinner we weren't able to lock in one of the a la carte for dinner but we surprisingly had a great meal at the buffet restaurant tonight which was a Mexican theme. The food was very very good. 

The waiter was even better. Serving us a few cocktails and tequila. We were both loving the 70s style grasshopper cocktail that he ordered out for us to celebrate our nuptials. 

Day 2.....Luggage....FINALLY!

Even though our clothes had not yet arrived, it was necessary to get our butts out of bed early to get breakfast. We always love a buffet when we're on holidays. Who can't handle eggs, smoked salmon and various other delights on a daily basis, especially when you don't have to cook or clean for that matter? 

Today was an extremely relaxing day, but half of it was filled with waiting in our room for the luggage. It was actually quite hot, so when we did get out, it seemed even hotter for the both of us with our black jeans. I reckon people thought that we were goths, or nutters, or ever gothic nutters! 

It was the best feeling to have our clothes and so once all that debarkle was sorted it was off for some relaxing in the pool. It is absolutely massive. We really enjoyed ourselves and it was hard to tell if the drinks or the 80s tunes were putting us in good spirits. We gave the waterside a crack, but tended to mainly hang by the swim up bar area. We tasted some shot called a Scoobie Snack - very green but very tasty. 

We love chatting with randoms when we're on holidays. This trip has been no exception. After leaving the pool area, it was nice wandering along the beach and taking a few happy holiday snaps. We took some pics for a nice family and they of course reciprocated. The water in the beach was very mild, although the resort goers seemed to be more inclined to gravitate to the pool area more than the beach.

We met some of cool holiday makers in the communal adults only jacuzzi area. No that wasn't a euphermism for swingers party! This is after all the G rated honeymoon blog. One of the couples had their wedding on Saturday too, but theirs was some crazy 5 day event with different theme days and almost 500 guests!! They didn't know some of their guests, which we thought was weird, but each to their own. 

After about 3 hours in there, it was time to get ready and glam up for our dinner reservation. The resort has 3 alar carte restaurants and a buffet for dinner. Dinner for this evening was spent at the Mediterranean, which was utterly delicious. We couldn't come at all four courses though and flicked dessert! Unusual different! 

Still feeling the affects of jet lag, or just general holiday splender and relaxation, an early night was on the cards. We had a massive tour day coming up and so asleep at nanna time was ok.