On Monday we made an excursion to Playa del Carmen, where we strolled the beautiful waterfront, oggled the turquoise waters and sweated out every last drop of moisture from our parched bodies. I think we're all a little surprised just how hot it is.
After lunch (tacos, tacos, tacos--what else is there worth eating?), the boys took off for a subterranean snorkeling adventure near the ruins at Tulum--hopefully we'll get a few pics from the underwater camera up here before too long. In the meantime, Kristin, Sawyer and I strolled the beautiful streets of Playa, and fell in love with this amazing textile shop--especially Sawyer; he insisted that I buy three scarves.
On Sunday night Noel and Kristen were kind enough to watch Sawyer for us so we could go out for a date night (oh rare, rare opportunity!). Various resort employees recommended a place further down the strip called "La Isla"--a huge new mall with tons of restaurants and shops, a total hub for nocturnal activity. I'm still trying to believe that we actually went to the mall for a date. The whole place is kind of a cross, design-wise, between a Venice-shaped amusement park and the Denver airport. Chris managed to get a few beautiful shots that, when we look back at them, almost make us believe we went to Italy instead of Cancun.
One of the activities available to mall-goers is this aqua-hamsterball. We watched this kid for about five minutes--he looked totally exhausted and frustrated most of the time.
After dinner and a movie (we saw 'The Hangover,' or, in Spanish, 'What happened yesterday??'), we walked along the strip until we got the the spring break-iest portion, where all the debauchery goes down. September is apparently the lowest of the low seasons--there is practically no one here. So it was kind of funny to see coyote ugly girls dancing on the bar in empty clubs.
We began our journey yesterday at 6am, en route to DIA. Once there, lines were long, the luggage conveyer belt was broken, and the airline employees were typing furiously at their computers for 15 or more minutes per customer with no explanation. In our case, they somehow couldn’t find a way to indicate on our boarding passes that Sawyer was in fact our kid, and that we were traveling together—we flashed his adorable little passport many times during the day. It took so long that someone escorted us through security like celebrities, but then we got stalled out at the gate with the same problem—I’ve never had flight attendants glare at me like that before, but we really did appear to be the ones holding up the whole planeful of people. Short flight to Dallas, Sawyer was a gem. We had the same problem at the gate there though: got glared at again by the flight attendants as the last people boarding, but then sat on the ground for about 20 minutes until the pilot came on and told us that that particular aircraft had hit a bird with its landing gear during the descent into Dallas. The mechanics were checking it out, probably nothing. He came on 20 minutes after that to announce that said mechanics had determined that the bird guts in the brakes were potentially dangerous, and that they’d need an hour to put a new brake system in. This is where things started to go downhill. Sawyer is no longer a little baby who will contentedly fall asleep in mama’s arms with a little rocking. I think we got a foretaste of what the flight to Paris will be like this winter…
Finally got into Cancun despite malfunctioning flaps. It probably took us an hour to get through customs—I don’t know if that’s normal or not. Once out we were bombarded by hard-sell tourist agents who said crazy things like, “Are you over 30? You qualify for our promotion!” We barely escaped getting roped into a 90-minute presentation in exchange for “free” tickets to some nature park. Being the A) cheap and B) adventurous travelers that we are, we skipped the various shuttles and hotel taxis, and took local transit all the way to our resort. Sawyer is in LOVE with all the big buses and how often we’re getting to ride them. Thank goodness for friendly locals—we would have had a hard time getting here without them.
This morning was our first excursion—Sawyer woke up early, we had positively no food in the condo, so we decided to go into town in search of victuals. There’s a bus that goes straight to the Walmart, but I wanted to try to find an open market, or at least something local. So we headed to the bus terminal and started asking around. We did find the open market, but most of the stalls were still closed—because it was 7am or because it’s Sunday, I don’t know which. It looked like a great place, though; we’ll definitely be going back. We eventually found a local supermarket where Sawyer made a lot of friends, including an old man who picked him up and pointed out all the meats and cheeses in the deli case. Speaking of the deli case, a semi-strange adventure was had there, while in search of sliced lunchmeat. Preface: my Spanish is really rusty. I didn’t recognize a lot of the names for the different meats, so I just told the woman that my husband didn’t like ham, to see if she had any other suggestions. “something something something turkey?” she asked. “Esta bien,” I said. “Do you want to try it?” “Ok.” She handed me what turned out to be a really fat hot dog. Sawyer loved it. “Mmm, really good. But I’m looking for….meat (pantomime slicing), cut, for sandwich.” “Oh, something something something, over here, look.” She then directed me to a package of flat hotdogs. I didn’t know that such a thing existed, but now, when I’m looking to make hot dog on rye sandwiches, I’ll know just where to go.
I approached the same man that showed Sawyer the meats and cheeses when I wanted a papaya. “Do you know how to pick out a good papaya?” I asked. “To eat today?” “Yes.” He handled a few, handed one to me and said it was perfect. When we got back to the condo—sweaty as heck and really exhausted (I don’t recommend carrying five grocery bags and a kid who is capable of walking but just doesn’t feel like it on public transit and all around a hot and humid foreign city), I started to make the most luscious tropical fruit shake, until I discovered that my “papaya” was in fact……a honkin’ avocado. So either that guy was deaf, or…..I definitely said “papaya,” so I don’t know what went wrong.
When everyone was up and ready, we made our first trip out to the beach, where I finally got the camera out and took a few pics. Here’s the little dock and swimming area right out the back door of the resort:
Our friends Noel and Kristen who joined us for this adventure.
Sawyer’s getting suited up for some major sand-play.
I could NOT get that sucker to look up from his work.
We got the great idea to bury Chris and turn him into an ear of corn, but I accidently did the husk upside down, and then Sawyer stomped all over it, and now he just looks like some creepy merman.
This old lady thought it was such a hoot—she wanted to take a picture of Sawyer patting Chris’ sand body for the Royal Resort monthly magazine.
A lot of people having been asking me to resucitate the blog. Ever since all my bitches and my hoes (hos?) got onto facebook, it's seemed a lot easier just to post pics and keep people abreast there. But, in my quest to never leave anyone unsatisfied, I'm going to make an effort to keep the blog going too. So without further ado, a heavily abridged retelling of the last 7 months.
DURING THE LAST SEVEN MONTHS WE'VE BEEN:
Getting sick. Really sick. And by sick I mean physically ill, not perverted.
Mastering using a spoon and other utensils
Getting a piano which we still haven't had tuned.
Walking the dog and her buddy in the frozen Colorado landscape
Making friends. Wait, why are we in shorts? Oh yeah, that's Colorado winters for you.
Going to Baltimore for spring break, during which we...
....................visited the Baltimore aquarium
................frolicked at the Baltmore childrens' museum
...............visited DC and felt the capitol building looming
................received communications from extra-terrestrials near said capitol building
...................enjoyed the cherry blossoms near the Washington Monument
.........................strolled the National Mall with the other tourists
............................visited Anapolis and ate huge cupcakes
...................posed by the Anapolis harbor
And we've been... Going to Sam Bates' baptism
Getting tackled
Making cakes for baby showers
Making trips to the zoo...
...this time with Grandma Bates
Making more trips to the Denver zoo
Where we oggled the gorillas
Taking loooooong car rides for family reunions
Visiting with cousins during a family reunion in UT
Playing on the tractors at Wheeler Farm in UT.
Going to the Colorado Renaissance Festival
Playing with sidewalk chalk
Growing a garden and harvesting its bounty.
And that's what we've been up to, peeps. What about you?
esort monthly magazine.
