Day 2

Hola mis amigos! Buenos noches. Day two has been great! This morning we woke up and headed down for breakfast. The variety of food was almost overwhelming and it tasted great too. One thing I found particularly interesting was the variety of fruit juices. So far the pineapple mixture that Eric referenced above is still my favorite, but we sampled some unique blends. We tried a coconut juice with milk (it reminded us of bananas actually), orange juice mixed with melon (cantaloupe maybe?), watermelon, orange juice mixed with celery (perhaps the strangest), and at least one other without a name, only a picture (it looked like grape juice by tasted like nondescript watered-down juice). They make the best fruity drinks here. In the pools they have swim-up bars that offer drinks of all kinds – even slushy drinks for kids. My favorite so far is the San Francisco, a sin alcohol cocktail (without alcohol). It is a blend of pineapple, orange, cranberry, papaya and grenadine. After breakfast (in between all that juice sampling we ate, I promise) we decided to walk around a bit and explore, take photos and then head down to the beach. While exploring we saw two huge iguanas on the grounds! They were neat to see so close and I was quick to snap a few pictures. Next we checked out our towels (you have to turn in a card to check out your towel and then you must return a towel or card or get charged $30 USD – yikes!) and found a place on the beach. The beach here is gorgeous. After being there for a few minutes we had to come back to our room for a quick shoe change. The beaches here have rocks, so before wave jumping we changed into our sandals. While rougher beaches with rocks scattered around can prove to be a bit dangerous with crashing waves, it adds a great deal of beauty and character. We jumped in the waves for about 20 minutes and escaped with a minor scratch on my leg and a small but deep cut on Eric’s finger. We rinsed off and hit one of the many pools for the first time. The water was refreshing and the pools weren’t crowded at all. Eric and I were talking today about the level of occupancy. Our guess would be that the hotel is operating at 50-55%, so we haven’t encountered crowds or lines for anything really. 

Next we came back to our room and showered, put on fresh clothes (and new swim wear) and headed down for lunch. We did the buffet again (the other restaurants are only available for dinner). I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t have the spread of fruit they had for breakfast (you name it they had it – starfruit, papaya, grapefruit, apples – both green and red, pineapple, watermelon, cantaloupe, etc.), but they had a great salad bar, a grill for steak, fish or chicken, plenty of bread and sides. When we left for lunch we headed over to put in our reservation for dinner tonight. Unfortunately the restaurants we either full or closed when we spoke with the lady for reservations. We didn’t have too much time to be disappointed as we had to hit the road for our dolphin adventure. 

Eric did a fantastic job finding a great deal for swimming with dolphins. We went through Dolphin Discovery and they ran a special on their website for half-off a certain number of tickets. At first I was a bit hesitant about the experience when I read a few negative reviews about the place nickel and diming tourists at every turn and one person was bit by a sea lion on a different tour (they’ve since stopped offering sea lions encounters). I was also concerned about the way the dolphins were treated. I was really impressed with our experience today though. We walked the half-mile over to Dolphin Discovery’s center. It was a bit hard to find from the street, but we happened upon it and a staff member pointed us in the right direction. We checked in, were shown to our lockers where we deposited our belongings, put on our life-jackets and then waited. We waited almost long enough to get fussy, but were able to watch some of the trainers swim with the dolphins in the meantime to pass the time. Then Marlon introduced himself and sorted us all out by the experience we had chosen. The bracelets assigned at check-in were marked with stars, stripes or squares which correlated to each experience. We signed up for the Royal Swim, which is the longest and most in depth of the experiences they offer. We were taken to a small center where we watched a video about the positions and gestures we would need to make for the tricks and rides. It also covered general information about the dolphins. During our walk into the center the guide told us that the two babies (calves) with their Moms in one area were 5 days and 2 weeks and 3 days old. We were also told that they had 35 dolphins total. The calves were adorable and never left their Mom’s sides. 

Our trainer (I’m not sure of his name) went over the positions with us one more time before asking us to join him in the water. The short staircase led to a platform where you could comfortably stand while experiencing most of the tricks. Eric and I were at the end which meant we were the first to swim out for the rides. We did two rides each – a dorsal ride and a toe-push. For the dorsal ride you float (you have your life jacket on) with your arms out to your side (like a capital “T”). The dolphins come from behind and slide under your hands and you gently, but firmly grab ahold of their dorsal fin. Then they pull you across the pool area. The toe-push requires that you float on your stomach with your legs spread shoulders width apart and locked out, making sure your toes are pointed down. The dolphins come up behind you and nose around until they plant their nose firmly into the center of your foot. You have to be careful not to bend your knees or move your legs or feet. They’ll push you across the pool, causing the top half of your body to rise up out of the water, so you look like you are gliding across the water in a standing position. Eric did the toe-push first and I did the dorsal ride and then later we switched. The entire time they are video-taping and taking photos. My first thought was that the force of the dolphins pushing me had caused my bathing suit bottoms to come down to a point where I was going to be exposed on film. I didn’t dare put my hands down because they told us not to, but I was really worried. After the next girl went (there was one other couple from Wisconsin and then four family members from Colorado) she said the same thing. The last girl that went actually grabbed herself and then bailed off the dolphin’s noses because she said hers came way down. Afterwards they have you watch the video and we were all making jokes and laughing about what it might show. Fortunately for all of us it didn’t expose anything at all. In fact my toe-push turned out to be one of the best. I credit the success to my experiences with cheerleading (locking out my legs and staying stiff)… and maybe just following directions. In addition to the rides we did the dolphin kiss (where you kiss the dolphin and guide his mouth to your cheek, so that it looks like he is kissing you); the smile pose (where the dolphin lays in one arm and then you place your other hand on his belly and you both “smile” for the camera; the hug (where the dolphin swims across both of your arms, to lay for a minute sideways for your “hug”; and then the free time. For our free time they had us swim out in a line and we did gestures or signs to the dolphin for what we wanted them to do. For instance, we floated on our backs and kicked our legs and they splashed us with their tail fins. When we held our hands up in the air and wiggled our fingers they made noises through their blow-hole. Then at the end they gave each of us a fish to throw to our dolphin. It was a really neat experience. The dolphins seemed happy and well cared for. The trainers and staff were all very helpful and courteous. After coming out of the water we went back to watch our video. It was dramatic; with slow-motion dolphin jumps and the opening read “Starring” and had each of our names. They charge $50 USD for each DVD and it wasn’t that well-made. We went back and looked at our photos and while they all turned out good we chose one each (they were $15 USD apiece). We had taken a disposable waterproof camera with us but were told early on that we couldn’t take photos. Afterward I used the camera to take a few pictures of the dolphins swimming in the area before we headed back to our hotel. 

When we came back we swam for about 45 minutes and just relaxed. Then we returned to our room to rinse off again since we smelled like fish and stinky water. We decided to dress up a bit for dinner (well as dressed up as you really get for vacation). Before dinner we decided to walk along the beach for a bit. We discovered a beautiful area just north of our hotel area. There is was a protected lagoon area for kayaking and a small rocky island with rock steps jutting out from the beach. I really wanted to get out to the island, but there was a gap where one or two steps would have been to reach the island. We decided instead of returning for our sandals tonight that we would wake up and try to experience the sunrise from the island tomorrow morning. It is such a beautiful area!

After leaving the beach we walked around the grounds again (there is so much to explore!). We found a few of the restaurants, the suites, the tennis courts (on top of the resort), and the theater. During our exploration we found several more beautiful flowering plants/bushes and a couple of speedy lizards. After our walking (it was after 8:00pm) we had worked up quite an appetite. Time to return to the trusty buffet! We tried several new things again and had dessert for the first time (we’ve always been too full before). During dinner we noticed out away from the hotel that in the same area we had walked before that was a lit up path with a tent. We thought there might be a wedding and decided to walk out and investigate from an appropriate distance. Turns out it was a romantic dinner. We proceeded to walk along the beach with the tide a bit higher. We stood in the waves for a while and enjoyed the sound of the waves and the moon reflecting off the water. It is sad that we will be leaving here tomorrow… but I know we’ll stay at some other beautiful places. 

Once we returned to our room we discovered that we couldn’t get in. For some reason our key wasn’t working, which meant a trek back to the front desk to retrieve a new key or figure out the situation. The clerk ran our key again and we successfully gained entrance to our room this time. 

Now we are off to bed so we can wake up early for that sunrise. We’ll let you know next time how it all turned out! Love you all! Buenos noches!

Day 1 pt 2

Alright, I’ve slept I’m on a different computer. So after we got the car last night, we were plunged into a very new experience of Mexican driving. I had a blast, Amy… not so much. Amy did some reading about getting pulled over by cops, which I think freaked her out. Needless to say we went the speed limit (which, by the way, no one else did). The road felt at times like a regular four lane highway where we could go 80 to 100km/hr (50-62ish mpg), but other times it slowed down to 40km/hr (30ish) for a few hundred yards or so before speeding back up. The speed bumps here are wild, they call them topes and they consist of about 50 concrete knobs sticking about 5-6 inches above the pavement in a staggered pattern. My non-powered-steering auto, has difficulty staying straight when passing over them. So between the dozen or so topes and speed zones, we didn’t make very good time to the Hotel. Plus I got turned around once and totally missed Puerto Aventuras (which I’ll get to later) but managed to find a sister hotel, also called the Catalonia. It ended up taking us about two hours from the car rental to getting in our room.
Now, about Puerto Aventuras… I’m not sure how I feel about it. We took a right-hand turn at the Puerto Aventuras exit and found ourselves in what I call the REAL Puerto Aventuras, which was a fairly typical Mexican town. Once we regained our bearings and took a left turn (which BTW was obscured by the Highway which was raised about 30 feet from ground level) we were able to enter this huge security entrance into the “gated community” of Puerto Aventuras. I’ll try to get a picture of that today. We got lost in here too… but after about 10 minutes, we managed to find our bearings, get checked in, Amy found a pineapple juice drink that she loves and we had a Buffet (which was pretty good). We went to bed at 10:45. I’ll try to find out about internet today. We ended up cancelling our ruin plans for today in lieu of our exhaustion and to spend a bit more time exploring this place.
All for now.

Day 1

Day 1, well... half-day really. Today started out pretty smooth, our flight from XNA wasn't until 12:02, so we figured that we needed to leave Joplin no later than 9:40. We ended up leaving at 9:50 and I wasn't able to run by the post office. I was able to get to the bank though, which was a plus. McDonalds breakfast on the way out of town and we were running late, but I went 79ish on the highway and made great time. We were on the walkway to the front entrance of XNA and Amy got the call from Orbitz that our flight was delayed 15 minutes or so, which wouldn't normally be that big of a deal except we only had 34 minutes to connect in IAH, Houston. The check-in guy assured us that he would put our names in for a backup flight 1:45 later.

The flight was a bit rough, Amy was nervous and it seemed a bit bumpy. We were both worried about catching our connecting flight. As it turns out, IAH is one of those airports that builds on terminals as the need arises, leaving weird and abnormally long routes from terminal to terminal. The good news was that were weren't landing in terminal A, where we would have to bus to terminal B. The bad news is that we were in terminal B, which was two train rides and 14 minutes of walk time away from terminal E, where our 2:10 flight was out of. When we touched down, the stewardess kindly informed all passengers to Cancun that they would need to see the attendant outside the gate, where she was waiting with new tickets in hand. She told us that we could try to make it, but if we didn't then the next flight was at the same terminal. We decided to try to make it. So we ran. We were three seconds short of making the train. We took the next one a few minutes later. We ran the rest of the way (in flip flops). We arrived at the gate at 2:05 (departed at 2:10) and the attendant dude had just closed the door. If we had made the first train, we would have made it. But, we did make what should have been a 17 minute walk in about 7 minutes. It would have been nice to make the earlier flight, but we made do. We called the rental car agency and notified them of our delay (continental let us use their courtesy phones). Then we got some Wendys and Mexican Pesos at travelex.

We were the first to board after the first classers, the plane was only half-full so we got a row to ourselves. I read our frommers Cancun book and Amy clutched my hand tight for pretty much he entire trip. About 45 minutes before landing we went over a big Island that I am wondering about, since we were surely in the middle of the gulf at that point. We also went through a fair bit of turbulence and I saw a bit of lightning outside as well, of course I didn't tell Amy this until we were on solid ground. We were handed a piece of paper that asked us about Swine Flu symptoms, to which we checked NO on everything. Customs/Migration went well, they have x-rays coming in to the country. The airport seems to be partly airconditioned. I was asked how much cash I had when I accidentally flashed my wad of $1's showing the officer my travel "pouch." Everything else was smooth. Baggage claim took no time, we walked up and our bag was there. We walked out of the airport, there were tons of tour salesmen and taxi drivers vying for our business, one guy (may have been a taxi hailer) asked what we were looking for once we got outside, I told him Carribean rent a car, and he pointed us to the kid who was supposed to be waiting with a sign with our name on it. He escorted us to a spot where we waited about 5 minutes for a shuttle to take us to the rental agency.

Dodge Atos. That's Spanish for basic transportation. $200 for a week, including full coverage insurance to cover theft, loss, etc. It's a standard, but it has cold air conditioning. The process was mostly standard fare, except for the fact that one of the tires had a bent rim, lol. The workers didn't seem to think it was a big deal, but I know that if I were to take that rim/tire to a stateside repair shop, they probably wouldn't replace the tire. So, my 30 seconds of silence and thinking sounds prompted the car-check guy to bring it up to the manager guy who called for the "other" Atos. We looked over it and the second Atos looked roadworthy. After a somewhat hurried check (hope that doesn't come back to bite us later) we were off, 18 minutes before sundown. One thing that I've noticed is that they have a lot of man power for the jobs, there were half a dozen guys at the car renal agency, when there could have been 2 or 3. I've also seen a lot of gas pumpers where there weren't any cars... maybe a useless observation, we'll see.

Ugh, I'm not going to use this EEE for blogging anymore, my wrists are killing me.

-Eric