Day 1 - Wednesday, March 27th, 2002
It had started snowing on Tuesday and it was still snowing when we woke up at 3:00 AM. Everything outside our appartment window was covered white. There was 20cm on the ground and they were predicting that it was going to continue until mid-morning. We left and dropped off the keys to the cat-sitter and headed to Montreal's Dorval airport. The drive was not too bad. The highway was covered with snow, but we were still able to make good time. We got to the airport and parked the car in a newly vacated spot between 2 snow drifts. I had a hard time opening the door to get out of the car. It was finally starting to get bright outside. The lady handing out the boarding passes couldn't believe the prices we had gotten for our tickets. She went to check with her supervisor to see if the tickets were real. Passing security went faster than I had anticipated. While we were waiting for our boarding call, fatigue started to set in. Before I got time to get comfortable, we got on the plane. Flying in business-class was good (lots of room for my legs and little hot wet towels to wash my hands), but not worth 4 times the price of economy-class. At least not on Air Canada. We caught a connecting flight in Toronto. The demographic of people in the plane was quite different between the first (business) and second (vacation) flight. We watched the movie The Others, which was alright. Before you know it, we touched down in Cancun around 12:30 PM local time (Central Time). The hot weather was quite a shock - going from -15 in a snow storm to +33 C. In the airport terminal there were two lines to go through customs: one for people with passeports and the other one without. If you had a passeport, it went 10 times faster. While going through customs, they made you press a button which would either light up a green or red light. I'm supposing that this button would randomly light up the red light. This would mean that they would search your baggages (I guess). After customs, we set out to find some transportation to the resort. We tried finding information on public buses in the terminal, but everybody would direct us to taxis or shuttles. We finally gave in and took a shuttle ($$$). It took about 30 minutes to get to the resort. The shuttle had some touristic promotions running on a loop on the small television in the van. All along the highway, on the side of the ocean, were many entrances to all sorts of resorts. Some of these were new and others still in construction. They all had huge entrance gates. The driving in Mexico was not the best I've seen, but not the worst either (see Costa Rica). We passed next to a van that had just rolled over. The police was on the scene. Our driver was topping 130 km/h. I buckled up. There were not many overpasses on this 4-lane highway, but there were designated U-turn strips instead. We made a U-turn and drove a few meters to enter the resort. The driveway to the resort was a rough dried up dirt road. It was about a kilometer long before we hit the bricked road surrounding the reception/lobby area.
We got out of the minivan and entered the lobby area to checkin. The lobby building was a big hut with a grass roof and not many walls. Since we had gotten there before checkin time, the rooms weren't ready. We sat down in the lobby and started enjoying the refreshments. During our wait, we were quite entertained to see a young boy's younger sister get bitten on a finger when trying to pull the local parrot's tail feathers. Sweet karmic justice! Soon thereafter, we were assigned to room 1113. This, IMHO was simply the best room in the resort. On the second floor, this room was the closest to the beach and had a wonderful view to the ocean. We proceeded to unpack and start exploring the grounds. One of our first destinations was the beach bar, which was pretty good. As some newsgroups had correctly indicated, there was a nice sandy beach at 10 minutes south of the resort. After our first buffet experience, we went back to the room and passed out.
Day 2 - Thursday, March 28th, 2002
Ten hours later, we woke up to the sound of waves crashing on the beach and a most beautiful sunrise over the ocean. Thursday was dedicated to exploring what this resort had to offer. Breakfast was good. Lots of selection. Went snorkelling. Problems with Rachelle's mask fixed with knots. Didnt' spend that much time in the sun. SPF 30 wasn't enough for this sun. This evening was Mexican theme at the buffet. I put some sauce over a taco. Beware of the green stuff. It was hot!!!
The bartenders were extremely friendly, but I was expectedly disapointed with the diluted bar drinks. Fortunately, bribery will help you drinks. Or you could just use your bribery money and buy a few bottles of tequila in PDC.
Day 3 - Friday, March 29th, 2002
Every high tide, there was a guy who cleaned the beach Saw flamingo Day 4 - Saturday, March 30th, 2002
We booked the shuttle to go to Playa del Carmen. AC didn't work in van. Fucking hot. Met people from Gatineau, Montreal, Kanata. In PDC, everybody is trying to sell you something. It's a huge tourist trap. Bargain for everything! Nice beach. Saw ferry. Bought a few things. Came back. Went snorkelling. Saw nice fish, erchin, sea anemone, sponges. It was weird to feel hot currents from bottom. Playa del Carmen, great beaches, fun nightlife. Also a nice place to be based out of when exloring the coast.
Day 5 - Sunday, March 31st, 2002
Paques. Gros coup de soleil sur la bedaine. More topless than usual. Few dudes with spearguns and snorkelling gear. Good vermicelli. Lots of wind. Little morning dip without sunscreen was cause of burn. Crashed soon after supper. Watched part of Dude where's my car. thank god for the aloe
Day 6 - Monday, April 1st, 2002
Scuba
Day 7 - Tuesday, April 2nd, 2002
Tulum. 2 lanes from XCaret. Barcello, Playa Car, Resort Spa Advanture. Diego is our tour guide at Tulum. Santo is our entertainer in the bus. Bought 40exposure film for 120 pesos. Big water 30 pesos. 6% on all credit card purchases.First dark cloud since we've been here. Tour was nice. Trolly brought us to archeological site. Santo's last words were always sloow, and ...low.
Day 8 - Wednesday, April 3rd, 2002
This was our last full day at the resort. We were determine to soak up as much sun and beach as possible. We went snorkelling after breakfast and saw many beautiful fishes. The nicest was about 6 inches in length. Cobalt(?) blue outlined with yellow lines. After dinner, we tried going a bit of hobbiecatting but we needed sailing lessons which we hadn't taken. So instead we went in the pool for some refreshment. We had to endure the aerobics instructor guy teaching a class. In the evening, we went to "la riviera" a mostly seafood joint where the food and service was better than the 3 other spots. After a bit of star gazing, we went to bed.
Day 9 - Thursday, April 4th, 2002
Woke up this morning with the plan to eat, shuttle to PDC then public bus to airport, but after breakfast, while waiting for shuttle, we saw the Go rep in the lobby. I jokingly asked him if there was a shuttle going to the airport. He asked me a few questions made a phone call then he said that a van would pick us up in an hour. Yeah! The lines for american airlines were very long. They checked our bags (all of them). Brang some food and water for trip.
