the beck family: Cancun part 1

Byron & I will have been married for 15 years on August 11th. We try to go somewhere big every "5" years. Byron wanted to go to Cancun and see the cool Mayan ruins. We started planning back a year ago and were so excited to go. Sharon/Grandma Beck was awesome to watch the kids for us while we went. We chose May since it isn't so hot in Cancun at that time and less crowded than the summer months. I was sad to miss the kids last week of school, but luckily they didn't have much going on in the form of homework. As the time drew closer, Bradley couldn't quit talking about his Grandma coming to play with him. I think we were as excited for a break from them as they probably were from us:).

We ended up going from May 21st to May 28th. Below are my journal entries from our trip.

May 21, 2010 - Friday – Our long awaited trip finally has arrived. These past few weeks have been so busy for Byron & I that we have been looking forward to this trip with so much excitement. Mom Beck is so nice to watch the kids while we go for a week. I think they are actually pretty excited to get rid of their parents and enjoy their grandma. Bradley has hardly been able to stand the wait – he is so excited to have her come and play with him.

We got up early and headed to the airport for our 9:50 a.m. flight. We were so excited to not have any layovers and being able to travel straight to Cancun from Salt Lake City. The flight was 4 hours. While we were coming close to Cancun, we could see the water from the airplane – just so beautiful and almost having a turquoise look. We landed and then had to wait for our luggage.The immigration line was very quick, but the custom’s line took forever. They checked every piece of luggage. As we were walking out of the airport, we were stopped by very persuasive people who were trying to sell us different things if we watched a presentation for a resort.Luckily Byron is pretty good and was able to get away from them. We took a shuttle to the “Mayan Palace” which is located about 40 minutes away from the airport.

The vegetation is pure gorgeous – there is green jungle looking brush everywhere and it is very humid. The last few days they have experienced a lot of rain so hopefully we are able to enjoy some nice weather while we are here.

After checking into the resort and getting to our room, we headed to Playa del Carmen to get some dinner and go to Wal-Mart. It took us about 30 minutes to drive to there on a Colectivo (a shuttle van.) We found a little taco shop where we were dropped off and ate dinner there. We had some really good chicken, steak and pork tacos with corn tortillas. We ended up walking around a little bit and saw the ocean – it is just beautiful. The weather was windy and pretty wet, so we decided against walking along the beach and headed to Wal-Mart. It was like most of the Wal-Marts in the United States, except for having a lot of Mexican branded foods and having the labels all in Spanish. Upon entering the store, we take escalators to the top floor where the shopping area is located. The escalators are so cool. I had never seen one at a grocery store before. The carts can even go on them without requiring you to hold onto it. There is something on the conveyor belt that grabs the wheels of the cart and stops it from moving. It was pretty cool. I had to take some pictures of Byron with our cart on the escalator.

We took a taxi back to our resort since we didn't want to carry our groceries the 10 minute walk to the shuttle van. Our taxi ride cost $20 US dollars. As we were walking to our room, which was a 5 minute walk, we saw a very interesting animal in front of us. It looked like a fox or part anteater – it had a long tail and was the size of a large cat. It started walking towards us until Byron scared it away. We have no idea what it was, but didn't exactly want to see it up close since it was so dark and we don’t know if it is dangerous. We came back to our room and enjoyed watching “Twister” that was on TV. About half of the stations have Spanish channels and the rest are in English. We have had a very eventful and full day. I have been up since 5:10 a.m., so bed sound great right now.

From the airplane window we could see the beautiful clear blue water as we neared Cancun.

As we were walking to our resort room - the vegetation was just gorgeous.

Our first mean at Playa del Carmen at a taco stand. The food was really good. Probably not the most sanitary place to eat, but the food and price was just right.

In Playa del Carmen with the cool shops in the background. It had just been raining pretty hard so the sky was pretty dark.

In Playa at the ocean. We never went very close in Playa. Below we were at the Wal-Mart picking up food for the week. These cool escalators were magnetic and would catch onto the wheels somehow so it wouldn't move if you took your hands off of the cart. Byron was excited to see this again since he saw these types of escalators in Chile on his mission.

May 22, 2010 – Saturday – We woke up around 7:30 a.m. to be out the door at 8:45 a.m. to catch the shuttle for Xcaret. We arrived at the park around 10:00 a.m. Xcaret is a park similar to a Sea World and a water park combined. We had fun looking at the cool animals first – we saw some cool water turtles, butterflies, a jaguar, and other really cool things. We ate at an International Restaurant for lunch. It was a buffet with delicious fruit and Mexican food. After the show we changed into our swim suits to enjoy some water activities. First we did the river run. We got snorkeling gear and headed down these cool cenotes that took about 45 to 1 hour to float down. We snorkeled and also just enjoyed floating with life jackets. The water was very clear. There were some really cool fish along the way and especially at the end. We also went to the beach inlet and enjoyed snorkeling there for a short time. We relaxed and enjoyed dinner while watching some cool chimes being played with wine bottles. We watched a really night show that lasted about 2 hours. It was all about the Mexican History from the early beginning until the current time era. The dancing and singing was amazing and very cool. We ended up leaving the park around 9:45 p.m. and then had about 30 minutes to drive until we arrived at our destination.

These iguanas were everywhere - especially in the morning when we arrived in Xcaret. There were a few times we would have stepped on them if we weren't watching closely.

Don't we look cute? Here we are before entering the water at the cenote. The water was pretty cool, but felt awesome since we were so hot and humid.

This is the sink in one of the bathrooms. The water comes out of a conch shell. I was not sure how to turn on the water at first, but then figured I pull down the lever above. It was pretty cool.

A beautiful view from our boat ride.

This bird flew next to us during our boat ride. What brilliant colors! I was so excited to take a picture since it flew away about 1 second after I took the picture.

We watched these entertainers perform while we ate dinner. Who ever knew such beautiful music could come from bottles filled with water.

These men were part of the evening show. The costumes were amazing!

May 23, 2010 – Sunday - We started out the day by going to a 90 minutes sales presentation for the Grand Mayan. We had a delicious breakfast and were shown around the grounds of the resort right next to ours. The guy that helped us, James Bond, was really nice. We enjoyed talking to him.

After the presentation, we enjoyed eating lunch back in our room (crackers, cheese, & chicken). We headed over to the beach at the resort. It was so beautiful. Byron enjoyed getting into the water. I didn’t care too much to have salt water get all over my face, but enjoyed going out to my waist. I saw some cool crabs in the rocks and snails. The beach is very rocky with very little sand directly next to the water. Luckily we had our water shoes or it would have been hard to walk. There was a really cool pier that we went out on and could see some fish that were so awesome. I had never seen anything like it before – it looked like something I would see on “Finding Nemo” or in an animated cartoon. I am so excited to go to do real snorkeling on Tuesday to actually see more fish. We hung out in the regular swimming pools for a short time. We enjoyed some pop and a pina colada drink by the pool. Nothing is more relaxing then laying out in the sun right next to a pool with drinks. The water felt really warm also.

We ate dinner at a cool outside restaurant next to the pool. Byron had a really yummy tostada and I enjoyed some chicken tacos. The food was so good.

Now we are back at our room and relaxing. This has been a very relaxing day all in all. We are very excited to have some cool ruin tours tomorrow and Wednesday. The morning will start very early.

I have sent some emails home and am anxiously awaiting news from there. I am not able to call home since the phone charges are outrageous. Hopefully somebody will check email soon.