Patti's trip to Playa Del Carmen and Chichen
Itza
this is a quicktime movie slide show of the
pics for those who have quicktime and high
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Quicktime Slideshow movie of the pics
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...and here's her story
Had great vacation. I haven't developed any of my film yet, so that part will have to wait until mid week or so.
When we left Vegas it was in the low 90's, when we got back it was 107! Geesh, I hate that! Uneventful flight to LA. Flight to Cancun on Alaska was fine except it's kind of a long flight (4 1/2 hours) to not have a movie. The food pretty much sucked. Than God we brought the DVD player and some snacks.
We got through customs at Cancun pretty quickly. I had heard horror stories about how long it takes there, but we had no problems. I guess it depends on how many flighhts are arriving at the same time as yours. We met up with our driver and had a 40 minute drive to our hotel.
The hotel was great. The lobby was just beautiful. All open air. The hotel was a low rise (2 stories) spread out in small buildings over a several acre area of lush vegetation and meandering paths. Checked in and unpacked and went to dinner. I have been to all inclusives in Cabo San Lucas, Manzanillo, and Puerto Vallarta.......but this was by far the best food we have had yet! Tons of choices. Lots of on the spot cooking stations, like many of the buffets here in Vegas. Several choices of fish every night and seafood selections every night too. BBQ ribs, pork loin roast, leg of lamb. We ate way too much all week.
We mostly hung out at the pool during the day, although we did go down to the beach for a couple hours on 3 mornings. The pool was great. Really large, with sun beds built in. The pool area also had tons of shade from all the tropical foliage and numerous palapas. I hung out in the shade except when I was in the pool.
The hotel is not really very popular with Americans. It was probably at the very most 15-20% Americans. Probably about 40-50% British. Lots of Italians and Dutch also. Some Canadians, a couple French, a few German, and one family from Poland. It was really neat to have such an international flavor to it. There were lots of families, especially the Brits. Usually I hate being out at the pool with lots of kids, but......these Bristish kids have to be the most well behaved kids I have ever encountered! So polite, so quiet while they played in the pool. They snorkeled and played all the usual jumping and splashing games that kids play in the pool, played ball, and catch and stuff, but they did it so quietly. No yelling and screaming and screeching. It was just downright amazing. And I just loved the way they said Mum and Dad. It just sounds so......so British!
Probably about 1/4-1/3 of the women at the pool and the beach were topless. I didn't go topless, but after seeing some of those bodies, it gave me new confidence to go back to wearing a 2 piece bathing suit! LOL! I've been wearing a 1 piece for the last several years, cause I'm too vain to let my folds and flabs be seen in public. But my goodness........LOL! Actually it is really neat that so many women are so comfortable with their bodies and aren't ashamed of them not being in perfect shape anymore. More power to them!
On Monday we went to see the ruins at Chichen Itza. Some good friends of ours (the same ones who were just here in Vegas) went to Cancun the same time as we did. But they wanted to stay in Cancun rather than Playa del Carmen. But we all wanted to go to the ruins together, so we hired a private van and driver to pick them up and the pick us up and take us to Chichen Itza. Going by private transportation beats the heck out of going on a big old bus full of people. More expensive, but a much nicer time. They filled up an ice chest for us with the water, soda and beer we requested. So that made for a comfortable drive both ways! We also had a private guide just for the 5 of us for 2 hours at Chichen Itza, that was great!
For whatever reason, when we got to Chichen Itza, I got sick. Probably no more than 10 minutes out of the van. I don't know if it was the heat and humidity of the jungle, or the excitement of seeing something I've dreamed of for 25 years, or the sun, or what. But I felt like I was going to puke my insides out and pass out. I had to sit down on the ground every time the guide stopped. That feeling would just come in waves. I'd be sick for 5 minutes and then feel okay for 2 or 3 minutes, and then another wave would hit me. Sipping water helped a little bit, but not completelely. I was barely coherent enough to even hear what the guide was saying. I know Paul got really scared and thought they'd have to bring me back to the van. But for what ever reason, after about 45 minutes, I felt better. After the guide finished his tour, we set out on our own for 1 1/2 hours. Terry bought me a gatorade to drink, and that REALLY helped alot. I felt good enough to climb to the top of the pyramid. I would have just died if I had come all that way and not been able to climb it because I was too sick. It wasn't too too hard climbing up. I just focused on one step at a time. I didn't look up, I for sure didn't look down! Although my legs (which are not in hiking shape) started to give out about 3/4 of the way up, I managed to make it up in less than 10 minutes. The view from the top is just spectacular. The view down is downright frightening! It is STEEP!!!!!! We spent about 10-15 minutes on top resting and taking pics before we started down. OMG! It is so steep to see where you have to go and how you have to get there! I decided to take the butt approach going down. Sit on your butt, hold onto the rope and slide down one step at a time. Lots of people do this, so many, in fact, the steps are getting quite a slick polish on them in the rope area. LOL! Paul and Terry did the manly man trek down....standing and going back and forth diagonally down. Lorna and I opted for the safer butt slide! I didn't have to worry about looking down, because there was a whole line of people in front of me doing the butt slide, so once I sat down I couldn't even see in front of them to see how steep it was.
The ruins are just amazing. If you ever go to Cancun, it is a must to go experience this site. It's a pain in the ass 3 hour drive to get there and worse, a 3 hour drive back. It's really hot and really humid, especially in the summer. But it is so worth it! Words just cannot describe what you see and what you feel seeing it! Simply amazing!
Other than going to Chichen Itza, we didn't do anything. Eat, sleep, drink, read, swim. That pretty much covers it! We did do a little bit of shopping in Playa del Carmen one afternoon, but that was nothing to write how about. We had a really cool, really large iguana that came out to the pool area every day around 11. He was quite entertaining!
I managed to feel like a complete idiot the first time we went down to the beach. I knew the island of Cozemel was right off the coast of Playa del Carmen. So when we got to the beach, I looked for it. But I couldn't see it. I have always been able to see the islands off the coast of California, the islands off the coast in Hawaii, so I'm looking for this mountainous thing popping out of the ocean on the horizon and can't figure out why it's not there. It really wasn't too overcast or cloudy or anything. It should be just a few miles off shore! Then I see off in the distance, little white things out along the horizon and realize they are hotels.......THEN it kicks in my brain that Cozemel is flat, just a few feet above sea level, not a big mountain like I was looking for. DUH! Did I happen to mention that I was not only a GEOGRAPHY major in school, but I took several classes and did several term papers on the Maya and the geography of that area! DUH!!!!! I felt like a freakin' idiot!
Our return trip home was straight out of hell. Murphys Law to the max! I was slightly concerned about the plans I made for our trip home when I was making them. We flew Alaska because we had a free trip with our mileage. But they don't fly from Vegas to LA, so I had to make the connection on South West. The Alaska flight was supposed to arrive at LAX at 8:10. Our SW flight left for Vegas at 10:00. That was the last flight of the day. That only left us 1 hour 50 minute window. That had me really worried, because it left no time at all for anything to go wrong. I prefer like 2 1/2 hours, just in case there are problems. Plus we have to go through customs at LAX and the international terminal is down past terminal 3 and SW is at terminal 1 and it's a good 10-15 minute walk between them, and then getting security is a pain now. Soooo....naturally our flight leaves Cancun late. The stupid partition wall between coach and first class came loose on landing and they had to repair it before our flight could take off. This was only done for cosmetic reasons, there was nothing dangerous about the problem. But.....oh well. Sooo.....we left an hour and 5 minutes late. There went my window. But there was still a chance, especially if they could make up a bit of time flying. We get near LA and naturally because we are late, and there is excessive air traffic, we have to wait our turn to land. So we circle the airport once, then twice, then 3 times.....there went any chance at all of our making it. Then a fourth time around .......then finally we land. Pilot tells us we are going to land at Alaska Air terminal rather than the international terminal. Good sign, because it's closer to terminal one, we think if our SW flight is running late we still might have a chance. Then the pliot continues, yes we will land at Alaska terminal, BUT.... we still have to go to customs and will have to load onto a bus to drive us over there. At that point we were just laughing because there was no point in crying. LOL! Needless to say, we did finally get though customs. It was now 10:15. So we went into the Alaska terminal and they gave us a hotel voucher for the Embassy Suites, and $12.50 each for dinner and $7.50 for breakfast. We then walked down to SW and got our flight changed to Friday morning. What a pain in the butt all that was! That was the fisrt time I have ever missed a flight. Hopefully it will be the last, but it was nice that Alaska took care of us so well.
Overall, we had a GREAT time. We all loved our hotel so much, we are talking about going back there in the future instead of our usual Puerto Vallarta or Cabo San Lucas. They are both so much closer to fly to, but the hotel in Playa del Carmen was just so much nicer it's worth the extra flight time.
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