Although the trip was fantastic, the trip photography was NOT. We saved space (and shoulder pain) by bringing only the small point & shoot camera, which doesn't seem to do as good of a job as it used to. Next time I will square my shoulders and carry the big camera, but in any case, here is what we have, and there are lots of fun things to talk about. These pictures are from my point & shoot, from Matt's phone, and Mattie's ipod.
We took an extra early flight - we were so excited to get to Mexico that we woke up at 4:00am to get going. We had a smooth trip, along with some fun hair-braiding by Mattie.
We got off the airplane in Cancun and faced the gauntlet of "tourist information", which we'd been forewarned is really all about selling us timeshares, so we pretended not to hear them (by "talking on our phones") and headed out the door to our hotel transfer.
We stayed one night in an all-inclusive resort called El Cid. (There is a long reason for this but it's not important.) We had a gorgeous suite with a balcony and a beautiful view. Pierce and Zoe slept with us, and Mattie and Casy slept with Grandma and Grandpa. We didn't take many pictures of the room - it's lucky that Matt is better than me at getting fun details (a recurring theme).
The view.
The drinks in the fridge were included! Kids drank a LOT of Fanta.
One of the best things about all-inclusive resorts are the buffets. This one was great (though the next resort's buffets were even better).
When we arrived at the resort, Pierce right away got my camera and started taking wildlife pictures. He loved the birds
and turtles
and alligator! (I did too!)
(turtle heads)
Also lots of iguanas. Side note - they hiss at you when you mess with them.
El Cid had a really fun pool with a cliff jump (mostly intended for kids but we could have jumped if we'd wanted). Now here is where my point and shoot camera really fell through. There is a delay after you press the button before it actually takes the picture. So not many of my cliff jumping pictures actually worked. Here is Mattie, about to jump.
And the jump, except it looks like she is jumping into a tree, which was not the case.
Casy jumping and Zoe up next.
I think Pierce is in the air in this one, but a little hard to tell.
Mattie - not really in the tree.
Colby getting ready.
Spencer's lower half.
After the kids swam and we enjoyed the beach for the morning, we packed up and got transported to our final destination, a little farther down the beach in Playa del Carmen. We were all a little reluctant to leave the resort but had high hopes for the next.
Mattie took a couple of pictures of the taxi-van.
And we were not disappointed! The Iberostar Quetzal was absolutely beautiful and we were so glad we were staying. There were some things we liked better about El Cid, but after some thoughtful analysis (we had nothing more weighty to discuss) our consensus was that we'd made the right choice. (And by "our" I mean Matt and me, and by "we" I mean Teresa, who set up the trip, thank you!) Here is the front lobby. It's open - most of the resort was open, including the restaurants and all these gorgeous pathways.
We had plenty of time to enjoy the lobby because check-in took forever (though there were no actual problems). They also gave us some nice drinks and there was a bar in the lobby that kept us constantly supplied with virgin pina coladas or whatever else we wanted.
Parrots in the trees in the lobby. One of these guys says "Hola" in a really funny voice.
Instead of hallways they have covered paths. Well, not all of them are covered, as we discovered during several rainstorms. But some are and they have this beautiful wood flooring.
This is in the courtyard between the two halves of the resort. The courtyard might be the best part about the resort. It was amazing!
What made it so amazing? All the animals! They are mostly roaming free and we loved them. We saw hundreds of agoutis, which are some kind of large and kind of friendly rodent. You will yet enjoy many pictures of them, mostly blurry because the courtyard was pretty dark and the cameras we had are just not good at that.
We loved the ibises right outside the restaurant - they were free to come and go but there was at least one there a lot of the time.
Of course we were hungry right away (not) and didn't want to miss an opportunity for a buffet. The buffet was even better than the last one - there were tons of amazing things to try.
Lots of fun Mayan-style artwork around the grounds.
Another thing they were awesome at is lighting! These lights were just long pvc pipes with holes drilled in them and painted silver and gold - they were so striking, we loved them. The whole resort is beautifully lit at night - kind of dim in the middle courtyard part though, so you have to be a little adventurous to walk through at night because the paths are not smooth.
Zoe especially loved the ibises - here are a couple more pictures for her.
The restaurant had a net wall around it, and a thatched roof above. It kept out many (but not all) birds, and for whatever reason we really had very few mosquitoes when we were there. I reallllllly loved having the walls open while we ate.
There were lots of peacocks.
A slightly less blurry picture of one of the many agoutis.
My favorite of the animals - the coati. They mostly kept their tails up like a question mark, and they were seen less frequently, so we were especially excited about them.
The courtyard was extensive - bridges and pathways and we wandered around for a few days before we were totally confident of which path to take to get where we needed to be. There will be more animals coming up.
Mattie took a picture of the view from Grandma and Grandpa's deck. They had the beach view - absolutely gorgeous.
There was an enclosure with giant tortoises, very cool. Notice that they have a Mayan temple which they are too large to climb.
Feeding time for the agoutis led to some fun crowds.
My favorite of the birds - the toucans. I love how they eat - they grab a berry with the tip of their beak and then toss it down their throats. I have a movie of it somewhere but it's coming on a different day.
Our first day at the Quetzal we spent at the pool, on the beach, and enjoying the animals (and food). We planned the rest of our trip - we had three adventures we really wanted to go on, and we spaced those out between relaxing days at the resort. It was PERFECT - never too tiring and never too boring. I loved it!
Our next day was a huge one - a trip to Chichen Itza, a lifelong bucket-list location for me. It was a long day but amazing!
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