I'm leaving on a jet plane

Beaches of Isla Mujeres.

The thought of taking a vacation started to take shape clear back in June.  When we had our destination set and passports came in the mail, I was in countdown mode for December 28th.  I have never been outside the United States before and the idea of going somewhere warm and tropical was beyond my wildest dreams.  We planned our vacation for the second half of the Christmas break for three reasons.  1.  I wanted to get away during winter.  2. Nathan and I didn't go anywhere for our honeymoon, we didn't have the time.  3. It would be perfect to make this trip our "honeymoon" because our other kids would be with their other parents for those eight days making it possible for just me, Nathan, and Meow-meow to go play and have our honeymoon.

The plan was to fly out on Sunday, December 28th and fly home on Sunday, January 4th, giving us eight glorious days in the sun.  We planned two tours of Mayan temples and left the rest open to choose whatever we wanted to do.

I had help packing.

Our flight left at 9:45 am on the 28th and landed around 2:30 pm Utah time, 3:30 Cancun time.  We woke up early Sunday morning, packed the last minute things and my mother-in-law drove us to the airport.  It had started to snow when we were driving away from the house.  It was lightly snowing when we took off, and we had to go through deicing before taking to the air.

Sitting at the gate waiting to get on the plane

Getting all settled.  Meow-meow wasn't too sure about it all.

Meow-meow wasn't sure what to make of the whole thing.  He enjoyed watching the plane get deiced.  He was fascinated with taking off.  We watched some of his favorite Youtube videos and he played with his toys happily for the first half of our four hour flight.  Then he became Captain Cranky Pants.  We managed to get him down for a nap, but he woke up as we were making our descent into Cancun.  It may have been his ears popping but he didn't have any issues on the trip home.

Watching Youtube.

Here are some pictures out of the plane.

Lots of clouds

That's ocean under the clouds.

Cool cloud formations.

More ocean.

We just landed in Cancun and were taxiing up to the terminal.

We arrived, got through customs and made our way out to find our ride to our hotel.  I was in absolute heaven stepping off the plane and feeling the pelting waves of heat.  

We didn't stay in Cancun, we stayed in Playa del Carmen.  It was about a 40 minute drive from the airport to our hotel in Playa.  The sun sets early down there like it does here in winter.  I was a bummed at first, but in the end, didn't mind so much because it was so nice and hot during the day.  The sun was well into setting by the time we arrived at our hotel.  We stayed in the Casa Eijdo.  It was close enough to have a 15 minute walk to the beach but far enough away to not be horribly expensive.  

These are in the courtyard of our hotel.  Nathan was getting the keys and checking in when I snapped these.

We got into our room and relaxed for a bit, then worked on unpacking a little.  We asked the people at the front desk where to go for dinner.  They gave us a map and some directions but we went the wrong way from what they said.  We eventually found a  taqueria and I ate my first ever "real" Mexican food.....It was AMAZING!!  It was hard trying to communicate with the owner of the taqueria so we could order our food.  There was a really nice guy who spoke English that helped us.  He came over later and talked with us, we kind of got the feeling that he was practicing his English on us.

When we were out adventuring around for dinner, I was really scared.  In America, walking through a neighborhood like that would get you killed.  It was very humbling for me to realize that I have lived a very privileged life.  There was trash everywhere, graffiti on walls, and abject poverty.  We walked past a piece of property with trash everywhere and several make shift huts....and it hit me like a ton of bricks when I realized that it was someone's home.  Where in America somewhere like that would get you killed, in Mexico it's just life as normal.  The people were great and we were perfectly safe.  

After dinner we walked back to our hotel and crashed for the night, or at least tried to......the bed was as hard as a rock.  We had originally had a tour scheduled for Tuesday but some event was planned and our tour was changed until Monday.  We went to bed early in order to be ready for a day of Mayan temple tours.  But that's another story for another day.