Tulum Mexico and all that we've done!!

Day 1


All nighters and early mornings:

Our vacation actually started on the night of April 29th. We were going to be away from the kiddies for 10 days, which is the longest we’ve ever been away from them…heck we hadn’t been away from any of them for over 24 hours before. As sort of an apology to them for the fact that they were about to be temporarily abandoned, we all went out to eat as a little family at the Texas Roadhouse. As far as we were concerned, our vacation was starting and eating healthy was no longer necessary. I freaking love the rolls there. Every time I go to that stinking restaurant I make sure to eat those amazing rolls, the house salad, and some chili….and that’s all the free stuff that comes with my actual meal. I know I’ve discussed my love affair with the Texas Roadhouse many times, but I still am not over it. That food is the shizzle.

We dropped the kids off at my parents’ house along with a suitcase with their belongings, and let them start spending the night over there. . Both Crystal and Seth had their beds set up in my parents room. I was anxious wondering how they were going to take their first night, but as far as we could tell they were excited and happy to be at the grandparents house and didn’t have a clue about what was happening, so we kissed them on the cheek and left . Ahhh scary!!
Our flight was at 4 in the morning, so we went back to our place to finish packing. Dan, and Kelsey just slept over and Kyle also slept over too so that he could drive us to the airport. It was already around 11:30 at night when we got there, so we figured, “hey, lets go ahead and pull an all nighter.” Not the smartest way to go, but hey, we were on vacation. We decided to watch the most marvelously ridiculous of Andy Samberg movies: Hot Rod. If you love Andy Samberg, and love random odd humor, and haven’t seen this movie, shame on you.

Watching this movie also supplied one of our favorite lines that we quoted throughout the rest of the trip:
“Who you think would win in a fight between... a grilled cheese sandwich and a taco?” “I think the grilled cheese sandwich - in a fair fight. But if it was prison rules, I'd put my money on the taco.” Wow, that's pretty racist.” This quote came up many times since we were eating tacos all through the trip.

Anyway, even though we were going to try the all nighter thing, turns out we all fell asleep about 10 minutes before we had to leave. Thank goodness we set our alarms or we’d have been branded the stupidest people who ever lived.

Kyle is ready to take us!!



Me getting my stuff in the car at the crack of dawn




Dan and Kelsey in the airport




Waiting to board the plane.




We're flying!!



I also just want to say that for me, trying to sleep in an airplane is like trying to bite my own elbow. It doesn’t happen. It can’t happen, and it won’t happen. I was super grumptastic during the entire trip, and cursing the brilliant all nighter idea. Even if you do manage to fall asleep, you look like a fool with your mouth open and head hanging awkwardly about your neck, unless your like this guy, who I completely understand, and if I could sleep on a plane I’d do it like him:



Cancun, car rentals and starving to death



Once we arrived in Cancun we had to get through customs. Remember the pic of the crowded Wal-Mart I posted two entries ago? Um yeah. Here’s what the line in customs looked like.

Lucky for me I brought a book.



Okay so after an hour and a half in line, we picked up our luggage, and went to go rent our car. I made sure to take pictures of every scratch, dent, and imperfection on the car we rented before hand, so that they couldn’t claim that we made them when it was time to return it.


Check it out, you can see my reflection in the car as I’m taking pictures!


By now we were starving. It was around 4pm and we hadn’t even had anything to eat…seriously not even those little peanuts on the plane, cause apparently they only give you drinks now. I hate flying. So now that we were all on the brink of starvation, we set out driving towards Tulum, to find a restaurant we heard about on the discussion forums online called La Floresta. La Floresta was about halfway there on our drive in a town called Playa del Carmen. FINALLY we were getting food….oh wait, no we weren’t. We got there only to remember that nobody exchanged our dollars for pesos at the airport because we were too busy being angry about standing in line for an hour and a half, and getting to the rental car place in time. Since they didn’t accept American dollars, we had no choice but to continue starving. We did however, roll down the windows and smell the authentic Mexican food smell that made us all drool, possibly bringing tears to my eyes cause let’s face it, I really, really love food. I took a picture of the sign though as we drove away.

Goodbye seafood tacos....maybe next time.

A little while later, we arrived in the adorable town of Tulum, Mexico. Tulum is awesome, because it only has a quarter the amount of tourists as Cancun, and the culture and serenity of the atmosphere is much more prominent. One thing about the town of Tulum, is that in order to control the speed limit and keep all the pedestrians and tourists safe, there happen to be speed bumps randomly spread out throughout the town, all over the roads, especially as you get closer to the beach. This was somewhat annoying the first few days, but we were used to it by the end of the vacation. Aside from the beach road where all the resorts were located, the town has one long strip for shopping and eating, and everything else is much more discreet.



The Secret Garden, Exploring, and Getting Ripped Off

We checked into our little hotel, a hotel called “The Secret garden” because you walk into their garden complete with tropical birds and small lizards in the trees as you go to your room.

This is what it looks like from the outside. Cute wooden gate with pretty pink flowers!




Pics of the courtyard:












The hotel owners name is Shaun, he’s from Texas and a cool guy. His manager was a kid named Joshua who was Mexican. We consulted them several times throughout the week when we needed recommendations of beaches to visit, places to go, and things to eat. It was a pretty good place to stay, really cheap, the maid created all sorts of cute little designs on our bed every day with the towels and sheets which entertained me more than I have dignity to admit. Not the best place if you like sleeping in though, cause the birds sing songs every morning, and they are all pretty loud, but it was hard to get mad because it sounds like you’re in a jungle so it was actually pretty cool.
Since it was already getting dark, we decided to walk around the town a little bit and explore and also find a place to eat. Shauns girlfriend was watching the front desk so we consulted her about things to see, and she recommended a few restaurants and then gave us a map of Tulum



So guess what???? While driving we saw the LDS missionaries walking down the street! Ahh! Fellow Moromons! We saw them turn down a street into a plaza, so we pulled over and chased them down on foot just to talk to them. Since 3 out of the 4 of us were also missionaries at some point in our past, it was cool to be able to ask them about what it was like serving in Tulum, how the members are, what they do, etc. Both were fairly new. The latino (who's name I can't remember) was only in the field for 8 months and the other guy, Elder Jergenson who was from Utah, was his greenie, and he’d only been out for 3 months. Anyway, they were busy guys so we let them go, but not after taking a quick picture:

Hurray for friends all over the world!!!

After walking around the mini shopping strip, for a bit, we settled on a restaurant called Mariachi’s.








Here’s what the food looked like:

Fish!



...And a variety of meat too!!


The meals came out with a bunch of corn tortillas so you can load up the meat or fish onto them and eat them as tacos. Which we did.

Scott and Dan deliberated over the bill for what felt like a half an hour. This became a nightly ritual every time we went out to eat. Most of the bills come out in one big lump sum, instead of separating them per couple, so both the boys discussed the math, including how much each person owed for the tip. So they agreed on paying the bill, and then when the waiter came out with the change we told him to keep it as his tip. His smile was from ear to ear. He smiled like he’d never been given a tip in his life before. It was only LATER that we realized that almost all the bills at the restaurant INCLUDE the tip with the total. Since this was our first time dealing with the math of Peso’s instead of dollars, we didn’t know this. That waiter made out like a bandit, and Dan was pissed when we figured it out.
That night we decided to stock up on groceries as well. This was our first of many, many trips to the local grocery store there… The San Fransisco.



It was here at the store that we learned that when it comes to Pesos, the people generally round up when it comes to the total price. We learned this when Dan got into an argument with the cashier who charged him an extra 10 cents for a chocolate chip muffin.
We went there every single day. They had really cold bottled waters there for only 29 cents each!!! This was the best thing ever since all the restaurants charged around two dollars and fifty cents for bottled waters at their facilities.
Now it was dark, and we needed to head back home, but even though we couldn’t see it that well, we still felt it necessary to take a sneak peak of the beach even if it wasn’t a good one. All four of us are slightly obsessed with how much we love the beach. So we drove over to the nearest place to see it, which is right next to where the strip of expensive hotels was located. When we found it, it was dark and really windy, but the smell and sound of the beach got us all pumped up. Dan was so excited he got out of the car to go feel the water with Kelsey, while Scott and I waited patiently in the car pretending not to notice them making out.
When we got back to the Hotel we talked to our kids on skype to see how they were doing and to see how my parents were handeling them. They were happy as clowns and my parents also said that they didn’t give them any problems at night either. We spoke to the kids every single night on Skype at the end of our day and every day they seemed just fine. I love modern technology.




Day 2. Saturday May 1st, 2010


Our first official morning as vacationers in Tulum!



Scott and I slept in all through the birds singing until Dan came and pounded on the door and woke us up. We got ready, and talked to Joshua who recommended the beach at the Mil Amores resort as an awesome beach to visit, because the beach was not only beautiful, but that at the most you won’t see more than 5-10 people at a time. While we drove toward the beach road, we turned the corner and the same beach we peeked at the night before magically appeared in our faces and we all took in a huge breath of amazement. The water was turquoise, the sky was extremely blue, the sand was powder white and it looked like the beach you only see in movies. We were all already freaking out about how excited we were the second we saw it in the daylight. After driving all the way to the south end of the beach road we managed to find the Mil Amores resort. The resort road is cool because it’s surrounded with trees and plants and jungle atmosphere, complete with lizards crossing the road as you drive by. (One which Scott accidentally ran over, and we had to mourn it's little death). The little guy darted out of nowhere.
Check out where we parked! Everywhere you go in Tulum there's jungle. It's unavoidable.



So we got to Mil amores and spoke to who we thought was the owner, who told us we were welcome to enjoy ourselves. Mil amores was every bit as georgeous as Joshua said it would be, and we were the only 4 people there.












After a few hours, We realized that we were hungry when Scott and I bought some French bread stuffed with vegetables from a Mexican girl who was selling food as she walked by on the beach. So we packed up our stuff, and went looking for a place to eat lunch. Lucky for us, Scott frequently researched the discussion boards from the travelers who had visited Tulum in the past, so he knew exactly what to try. We went to a taco place called Urge’s. For 8 bucks we got fish and shrimp tacos, complete with a salsa bar, where we could put any kind of sauce on our food that we wanted with our tacos. Scott and I especially loved a “bittersweet” sauce they had. The shrimp tacos were especially delicious.






Later we went back to Mil Amores since it was so beautiful, and chilled out. A thought occurred to Scott that maybe they were expecting us to buy something from their restaurant for staying on their beach. He brought up the fact that while we were laying out earlier in the day that the workers came out a couple of times and asked us if we wanted anything to eat or drink. He was starting to worry about weather we were being rude or not and me and Dan blew it off and told him he was worrying too much. So we just relaxed and enjoyed the rest of the day out there on the beach.





This is Scott's worried face. He was worried about weather we needed to buy their food in this pic.


Dan sleeping in the swinging bed.

It got really windy though, which is awesome if you love the waves, but not so great when you’re sitting in the sand. We finally got sick of it and packed up and left.
When we got back to our room, I was delighted to see this little design that the maid created out of our sheets on our bed after cleaning our room!



Which didn’t last long cause Scott was exhausted


Since it’s so hot in Mexico, we never needed more than one blanket and one sheet the whole time we were there, even with Scott cranking up the air conditioner as high as it would possibly go. I’ve never understood the need for the Itri boys to try and make it snow with the air conditioner whenever any of us go to a hotel or beach house. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that they don’t have to pay for it and are trying to get their money’s worth, though freezing to death is hardly worth anything in my opinion.


Dinner, Smuggling water, Devil Murals and Overpriced ice cream


After showering and getting ready to go, we ran into Shaun, who was there at the front desk, and we asked him about cheap places to go that offer free salsa. (We discovered earlier that day at Urge’s tacos that you have to pay for guacamole with your meal, and that many meals come with pico de gallo, but not salsa). He recommended a place called “El Asadero” (Which translates to “The Grill”). They’re symbol for the restaurant looks like a yield sign with a bull on the front.









Kelseys chicken, fish, and steak tacos.

The most delicious steak tacos ever!!

Grilled cactus with cheese and potatoes.

This was the first time Dan decided to smuggle in his own water instead of having to pay for theirs. In order to save face he kept it in his backpack and would occasionally steal a swig when he thought nobody was looking…sort of like an alcoholic hiding their flask in public.
We kept telling the hostess/waitress how good their food was, and she must have liked us, because she presented us with a free Flan for dessert which we shared. I’ve eaten flan many times but I really think that this little flan in that little hole in the wall restaurant was one of the best ones I’ve had. Scott agrees.

After dinner we decided to look in some of the little tourist shops at some of the handmade decorations on the town and I came across this little gem:


Seriously, when I’m shopping on a beach vacation and looking for a memory to take back with me, the first thing I look for is a demonic wall hanging of a bunch of devils about to eat a baby…wait WHAT?! This seems too good to be true, and I knew nobody would ever believe me, so I had to take a pic of the random devil wall hanging there, and on sale for 120 bucks no less. Has anyone seen the movie “Drag me to Hell?” This wall ornament totally reminded me of that movie. Scott was a little embarrassed because I got the giggles about it in front of the shop owner and even told him how much I loved it. He offered to give me a deal on it since I spoke Spanish, but I had to turn him down. Seriously, click on it so you can zoom in. Look at the huge goblets of blood on their dinner table!! Hahahaha!! It STILL makes me laugh.
Anyway we kept walking and they had a little ice cream shop where Scott, me and Kelsey all got a scoop of ice cream. Dan refused because he said three dollars was not worth a scoop of ice cream, and he was right, but we were caught up in the magical atmosphere of walking along the romantic little streets of mexico at night. We never ate that ice cream again though, cause once the spell wore off, we too, realized that 3 bucks for a scoop was a little ridiculous.
We went back to the hotel room and played the fabulous card game called Rook. A classic among the Itri men. Then we went to bed cause we had plans to go snorkeling the next day.



Day 3, Sunday May 2nd


Jumping in caves, Fish that eat Nipples,and Dang we look cool under water!


We got up and packed our backpacks with our snorkels and got ready to head out to a cool place to snorkel called “Dos Ojos” Which translates to “Two eyes” They are basically two underground freshwater pools called "Cenotes", that were left there from mother nature. At first it was a little intimidating to jump into a dark cave of water, but the feeling was dissipated quickly when we realized how cool it was. The fishes in the water would occasionally nip the dead skin off of us like they do in the spa, but every 20 minutes or so one would get a little eager and it felt like a pinprick. Scott got bit in the nipple which I thought was priceless, especially because every time the fishies got too close after that, he would cover up his little nipples to protect them.

The Dos Ojo's Cenotes!



Walking to the cenote



Still walking...



Stopping to figure out where the crap we were.



Found it!!!



Check out this scary place...






Dan and Kelsey


Me













I felt like "Gollum" in "Lord of the Rings"...






I was trying to give a tough, "You wanna piece of me?" pose while Scott held me back. Didn't work so good. I don't look tough at all.



















Eating diseased fish, getting in trouble and three dollar cokes:


On the way back Scott and I got the munchies unlike Dan and Kelsey we didn’t pack our own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that day. Scott and I found a tiny taco stand on the streets of Tulum with these excellent chicken and pork tacos for only around 50 cents each. At that price, Dan couldn’t resist and bought one for himself, even though he already ate, and he too agreed that they were delicious. Well Scott and I wanted more food. The best way to get to know a culture is to eat what they eat. We found a fish place that let us choose our own freshly caught fish from a cooler and they would deep fry it for us. The dead fishies in the cooler along with how it looked when it was fried pretty much terrified and disgusted Dan and Kelsey, though we did convince them both to have at least one bite.


"I didn't deserve to die!!! Don't eat me!!"


Honestly, it just tasted like fried fish. Nothing special.



Well, nothing left to do but get ready and go back to bumming around on the beach, so we went to the Hotel to grab some last minute things. Today on our bed the maid left us a cute little bunny!


Gotta love the little sticker eyes and mouth she added. You can almost feel the tender love and care she put into folding it for us.

Joshua was there at the front desk, and we took the opportunity to ask him if we were actually required to buy the food there to sit on the beach. He said that the idea is that since the beach was on their property that in order to use their beds and bathrooms they like you to buy something from them. Whoops. Okay fair enough. We decided to buy something small and then spend the rest of the day of the beach. We went back to Mil Amores, they remembered us from the day before and we went straight to the bar thinking that if we ordered something light that everyone would be happy. The prices on the menu were pretty high, and we don’t drink alcohol, so finally Dan bought a coke. A can of coke which cost about three bucks, which he wasn’t too happy about. The bar tender looked annoyed too, because in their eyes the only reason we didn’t order any beers or alcohol were because we were cheap wads, not because of our religion. He didn’t flat out say it, but his look said everything and since we didn’t feel it necessary to explain our religious background to him we just let him keep thinking that we suck since we already bought his stupid three dollar coke.
...
After about 20 minutes on the beach they came out and told us we had to leave. Actually, they told us that the coke wasn’t good enough and we should go inside and order a hamburger and they promised to leave us alone for the rest of the day if we did. We just freaking ate so we said no, and the desk manager said her boss would yell at her if she didn’t ask us to leave. We told her that their beach came recommended by the people at our hotel, and she said she’d call Shaun and explain to him that he needed to explain to his guests that we need to eat a full meal if we want to stay on their beach. As if getting lectured from the hotel manager wasn’t embarrassing enough, Dan asked if he could get his money back for his three dollar coke and she gave him a super dirty look. And replied with “What?! No way?! In English no less. Looking back it was pretty funny. So we got kicked out. Then as we walked out, we listened to Scott lecture us all on the fact that he was right to freak out yesterday and we shouldn’t have all blown him off. Another bonus.
We decided to drive up and down the resort strip and ask if the same deal applied to all the restaurants beaches, and apparently they did. This would have been a good thing to know earlier, but unfortunately, nobody really mentioned it on all the travel forums. I guess, unlike us cheap wads people just naturally bought stuff at all the restaurant beaches they were at without being asked to, and never had problems like we did. Oh well, now we knew and we were sure to buy something next time. However we never went back to Mil Amores because we hated them and they hated us after that. It was after this day, however that in order to save a couple of bucks Scott and I decided to jump on the peanut butter and jelly bandwagon with Dan and Kelsey when it came to lunchtime so that we could spend some money on the beach the next time we go out. Dan suggested that we just get kicked off a different beach every day so that we could save the money, but we decided against it.
When we went back to the Hotel, Shaun was there so Scott and I talked to him and we asked them if they called and if we got him in trouble, and told him the whole story. He said it was no big deal and he was friends with the owner and they wouldn’t be mad at him, and not to worry. Then he explained that the main deal was that the restaurants make their business off the people who lay out on their beach, not necessarily the people who stay at their resort, and even though technically the beaches say “public” on their signs, they want you to eat their food. He also apologized about Joshua not mentioning that to us before and then listed us a whole bunch of other places that we can go lay out that are nice.


Ceviche, Dan gets called a woman, and we demand chocolate cake:

That night we found a cheap place (thanks to the forums) called “Los Pepes” that specialized in seafood, specifically ceviche. Ceviche is seafood cooked in lime juice and it was delicious.







This is what Ceviche looks like. Shrimp, Squid, and fish cooked in lime sauce:


Scott's food


Dan's food...Mmmmm grilled shrimp.


They gave us a ton of free chips and salsa and the dreaded habanero pepper! A Mexican habanero pepper is about ten times more hot than a jalapeno and burns like crazy…however if you have the guts you gotta try it!





Everyone tried it except Dan, who thought we were all idiots for burning our own tongues for fun. Scott told the owner/server that Dan decided to be the only woman on the table for not trying it and the owner thought that Scott was hilarious for saying so and after that kept offering the habenero to Dan and asking him if he really was a woman. Hahahaha!! This guy was our favorite server on the whole trip. (Note: Later on that night back at the hotel I happened to rub my eye with the same hand I used to touch the habenero pepper. Not smart. Don’t EVER do that.)

Outside in the streets there was an outdoor party of sorts with people dancing and having fun. Kelsey and I were dying to join the party and dance. Scott refused, saying that even if we dragged him to it, he would sit in the corner with his head down and not participate at all. I took the opportunity to mention that he MET ME at a dance and that he knew how much I love dancing when he married me, to which he replied that going to dance parties was not for married folk who don’t want to “rub up against strangers”. I told him that he would rubbing up against ME, but I guess that wasn't good enough. Oh well. We balance each other out. Without him to reign me in I’d be all over the place. Dan decided not to go either in support of his older brother. Anyway, my argument of, “BUT WE’RE IN MEXICO!!” wasn’t a very convincing one, so Kelsey came up with the brilliant idea that the boys had to supply us with a chocolate cake in order to compensate for their being party poopers and depriving us of going to the dance party. They did, and the cake made us feel a whole lot better. Kelsey, you’re brilliant.




Day 4, Monday May 3rd
In the morning we got ready to go visit the ancient Tulum ruins, since we were in fact, in Tulum and we didn’t want people asking us if we saw the Tulum ruins and to reply “uh, no…” like loosers. On the way out, Joshua saw us and instead of running out to greet us like he used to, he just gave us a half smile and looked down. It seemed like Shaun must have talked to him the night before about how he should have let us know about the hotels wanting us to eat at their restaurants. I tried to gave him a big smile to portray without words that we weren’t mad at him and we hoped he wasn’t mad at us, and his smile got a little bigger and he waved at me. That made me feel a little better.

Scott wants to stab his brains at the ruins, and dirty pond water destroys our camera:



Tulum is actually named after these ruins that are in the city. Cool fact: Tulúm is also the Yucatec Mayan word for fence or wall,(or trench). The ancient ruins were a pre-Colombian walled city right on the coast of the beach. It had a huge wall going around it. Because of the murals and stuff on the walls, it is also believed to have been a sight of worship, to what some referred to as the "Diving", or better translated, “Decending God”.

This is my favorite picture of Scott and Dan. Gotta love the Itri scowl.
















Shade!!



















The only problem is that instead of coming earlier in the day, we came in the afternoon, when busloads of tourists from Cancun like to show up, and we all know how much I love crowds. I like crowds so much it makes me want to stab the nearest person in the rib and kick them in the throat. Not only that, but it was really really hot. As Scott likes to put it, he sweat his “balls off” and he wanted to stab his brains. His words, not mine.
Cool stuff? There were tons of huge iguanas just wondering around the whole area minding their own business. Some were as big as Chihuahuas! Oh and yes, I took a bunch of pictures of them because, seriously...when else will I be walking along minding my own business and constantly almost stepping on a giant iguana along the way? Probably never.









That afternoon, Scott and I were feeling adventurous and decided to look for another freshwater area to snorkel in. We found this place:





I was basically a huge pond in the middle of nowhere. The pond itself was full of alge, making it hard to see clearly. Once again, it looked a little intimidating. We asked the guy who owned the land if there were crocodiles in his pond, and he laughed at us and told us that we had as much chance of getting attacked by a croc as we did of getting attacked by a mermaid. So we jumped in.


















Coming here was a bad idea though cause our underwater camera BROKE.... Our underwater camera broke, because it got water in it. I’m not joking. Even though it was supposed to work fine in as deep as 30 feet under water, it broke at about one and a half feet. Thanks Olympus. This is why we usually only stick with cannon. Luckily we already returned it and got our money back when we got home.
When we got out of the water every mosquito in Tulum tried to eat us and we had to run back to our car as fast as possible.



Nudity, Don Cafeto and his pickeled Vegetables, and Pooping During Chick Flicks:


Kelsey was tired, so while she went back to the Hotel with Dan to lie down Scott and I went exploring all the resorts to see if we could find a good deal of a place to go that would let us use their beach for free. It worked! We found a small campsite called “La Selva” (Translation meaning “the Jungle”) It was a campsite with a bunch of little cabanas for the adventurers and naturalists to camp out on by the beach. Since they didn’t own a restaurant we asked him if he charged to use their beach and he said no, but that the beds were for the guests. We were fine with that so Scott and I set out our towels and layed out on the beach together. It was sort of our own little beach date, and he even convinced me to go out deep in the ocean with him, which I hate doing because the salt water irritates my contacts and I hate getting it in my mouth. That may make me a wuss, but pain in my eyeballs for an hour isn’t my idea of fun. I like sitting in the water or on the beach and reading my book. We did however realize a little too late that it was a nude beach when a whole family came out to play in the sun. I found it really funny because later on in the trip we saw the same family in town at a restaurant and I giggled because I totally knew what they all looked like naked.

When we got back to the hotel the maid left us a cute little doggie!!



I took one of the flowers that the maid left on the bed and put it in my hair. Check me out, I'm a Spanish princess!!



Dan and Kelsey were feeling well rested and we all got ready and went out to a restaurant called “Don Cafetos” which featured live music and excellent food, and they placed us right next to the ceiling fan, which was awesome cause none of the restaurants have air conditioning there and we were nice and cool the whole time.

Chips, Salsa, and pickled vegetables.


Enchiladas de Mole


Burger and fries...wait, what?! (Scott was sick of Mexican food)


Dan and Kelsey's food...


Live music. Complete with bongo drums!



When we went back to the hotel, Scott hooked the speakers up to his laptop and we all watched a movie. Unfortunately for all of us, the movie we picked was “Dear John” based on the Nicolas Sparks romance novel. It was the best crap ever if by “best” I mean “most abhorrent” and “crap” I mean “insulting hogwash”. Somebody gag me. Seriously, worst. Movie. Ever.



The best part of the whole movie was when we had to pause it during the sex scene because Both Scott and Dan had diarrhea attacks and had to run to the toilet. Being married to the Itri men is never ever dull. They saved the movie for us for that one reason and that one reason alone. Funniest moment of the night for sure.


Day 5 Tuesday May 4th



Fish, Turtles and Pissing Off Grumpy Bob the Pizza Man

On Tuesday, we set out to go to a wonderful little gem of a town about 62 miles south of Cancun, called Akumal. Specifically because we heard it was the best place to snorkel if you want to see sea turtles. “Akumal” Means “Place of Turtles” in the Mayan language.
We got lost on the way there so Scott stopped at a dirty little bar and made me go ask for directions since I spoke the best Spanish. This sucked because the bar was full of dirty men who all undressed me with their eyes since I had to go in wearing my skimpy little beach outfit. I was kind of pissed but after Scott made fun of me for 5 minutes I let it go. I still hold the emotional scars though. I was mentally violated dangit! The bartender did give us good directions though. It was a good thing we found the place, because the gas light was on, and my pissed off violated mood would have escalated to a complete freak fit if we were stranded in the middle of the highway with no gas. Thank you dirty bartender.
Scott still referrers to this day as one of the best days of his life cause of the stuff we saw. Unfortunately, we busted our underwater crap Olympus camera the day before, so we didn’t get any of our own pics, but here are some of the pics of things we saw from other peoples cameras on the travel forums who went there.





Just so you know, I’m only putting pics that looked like the stuff we saw so you know what we're talking about. There were a whole bunch of really colorful fish, and I reached down and touched some of the coral, which I found out later your not supposed to do. Whoops. After Scott and I were out there for about an hour we started to head back when we saw our first sea turtle!! It looked something like this:




Hi-Def camera version (which is what we owned before it bloody broke):


The cool thing is that it would peck around the sea grass bobbing it’s head up and down like a chicken. It was huge!!! Then it came up for air and it surfaced about an arms length away, and it’s head which was about the size of an orange, popped up and took in some air. I felt like a kid in a candy store! I was so excited! Just seeing that one turtle made the whole day a success for me and Scott!! Then we came back and let Dan and Kelsey have a turn. Kelsey saw a stingray and got a little nervous. They also dived down and were able to actually touch one of the turtles on his back. Scott and I went to a dive shop nearby and saw a deal where you can rent one of their underwater cameras for 45 bucks. We decided we would come back on Friday and take some of our own pictures.

We did, however still have our non-underwater cannon camera, and were able to take some surface pictures of our time in Akumal though.





Scott broke his sunglasses. I TOLD him that 5 dollar Wal-Mart glasses were crap.












Dan and Kelsey heading out




Now they're headed back.


What my view was like as I was laying out



When we got back to our room, I was excited to see a cute snail on the bed!





For dinner, we went to check out a pizza place that Joshua recommended called “La Nave.” We were told that they also give you free bread, which is always a plus.





When we arrived, we checked out the display menu to check out the food offered and the prices to see if it looked interesting. We complained rather loudly at the prices and decided to check another pizza place that Shaun had mentioned that was across the street. When we got to it though, it was closed, so we went back to “La Nave” Unfortunately one of the owners, a blond dude who’s name I didn’t catch so I’ll refer to him as “Grumpy Bob”, heard us complaining earlier, and reluctantly sat us down and treated us coldly for the rest of the meal. Grumpy Bob didn’t even give us the free bread. He gave it to every other table around us except us, and we were too afraid to ask for it because he kept glaring at us whenever we would make eye contact. I guess that’s what happens when you offend them by letting them know you’d rather be at the cheaper place across the street. Some people are too sensitive. Whatever Bob…I’m going to tell on you to all the travel forums. Haha!

Pizza spices!


Bartender (left) Grumpy Bob's back (right)


These boys were not happy about their lack of a bread basket




The pizza was pretty good, but the crust was so thin it felt like we were eating off giant saltine crackers. I liked mine, but poor Scott ordered a pizza with broccoli on it (What was he thinking?! Broccoli?! Seriously???) so he didn’t like is at all.



For dessert there was a little ice cream place the forums mentioned called “Los Cantaros” that gave you a free souviener so wanted to check it out, but apparently it closed down cause we walked up and down the streets for over an hour and never found it. So no dessert that night. Bummer.
When we got back we played the Monopoly card game, which is actually really fun, even though we had to endure Scott’s dumb little victory song when he won. Luckily Kelsey won the other two times we played.



Day 6, Wednesday may 5th


Breakfast and Beaches

So going to the beach this day, we had a plan. We learned that a resort called “Los Liros” offered an all you can eat breakfast buffet that included eggs, pancakes, cereal, yogert and many more little goodies and that if we ate there they would let us spend all day on their private beach afterwords. So that’s exactly what we did.

The view from the restaurant


Discussing the bill and who owed who money....again.


The private beach at "Los Liros" resort











It was nice to bum around on the beach for an entire day. This was the day that my sunburnt forehead decided to peel, making me look like a leper from biblical times.


I had a huge craving for cereal so I ate three bowls along with the other food there. This wasn’t the best idea because I’m lactose interalent, and it was actually the latino milk in Bolivia from my mission 7 years ago that messed up my stomach towards milk in the first place. By the time we were driving back from the beach, I felt pretty sick and had to lie down. I did however cheer up a little bit to see this nun type character on my bed.


Help me out people…is this a nun? A little girl? A baby? The mystery remains unsolved.


I skipped dinner and slept instead but, Scott, Dan and Kelsey ate at “El Pollo Bronco” which gave you a great deal for a fresh, whole roasted chicken to eat. The three of them played a quick game of Monopoly deal, and then we all went to the grocery store to get some stuff we needed. We all got into the habit of buying muffins there which we would eat for breakfast or a snack on most days. We went to bed early because we were going to visit the ruins of Coba in the morning and we wanted to be there early so that we would 1) avoid the heat and 2) avoid the tourists.


Day 7, Thursday May 6th



COBA!!



Thursday was one of my favorite days. We got up at seven in the morning and headed out to Coba. Coba is another Pre-Columbian Mayan civilization but I thought this one was much cooler because it is in the middle of the jungle surrounded by trees making it a little more remote, and the site has several large temple pyramids, complete with huge tablets with inscriptions on them. It made the whole experience much more of an “Indiana Jones” adventure instead of a cheap tourist attraction. Another cool thing? Even though the buildings are all part of the same civilization, they were a little more spread apart so we rented bicycles and biked from once clump of buildings and monuments to another. (Note: if you hum the Indiana Jones theme under your breath as you bike, it makes it more exciting).













Mesoamerican ballgame court. The Mayans used to play a sports game that required bouncing a ball off of their hips into these hoops. I'm not lying. Look it up.






Dan climbing away














Ancient tablet. Too bad I have no clue what it says. Where's Indie when you need him?














More pimpin tablets.


Oh! I actually know this one! This is the head of a Jaguar. The Mayans had a thing for jaguar gods back then.








The coolest temple pyramid was called “Nohoch Mul”. At 138 feet, it’s the tallest building in all of the Yucatan. The pictures don’t even do it justice. It was beautiful, and very, very, tall.



Kelsey and I at the bottom


I made it, I made it!!




Once I climbed all the way to the top, I caught my breath and then lost it again when I looked at the amazing view. That’s when I realized that I left my camera with Scott all the way at the bottem. Well who knows when the crap I’d ever come back, so I climbed back down, grabbed my camera, and then climbed all the way back to the top again so I could get my freaking picture of that amazing view. I thought it was alright at the time, but my thighs hurt like CRAZY the next morning.


Totally worth it.





"Man, what a climb!"






Coming down you had to practically slide on your bum because the stairs were so steep, but climbing up was fun cause the closer you get to the top you have to use all fours and it made me feel like Spiderman. Too bad I couldn’t remember the music for the spiderman theme or I would have hummed that while climbing too.
We loaded up in the car just in time to see the busses of Cancun tourist freaks pull up to ruin the experience for all the people who hate crowds. Going early was the best idea ever.
It was hot outside, so we decided it was time to visit another Cenote.
This one came highly recommended by the forum groups and also from Joshua. It’s called Tamca-cha.


It was completely underground and inside a cave. You had to take these steps to go down to it.



There were bats on the ceiling!!! Bats!!! One buzzed my head on the way down causing me to almost scream. Yet I loved it because once again, it felt authentic.








The stairway down included a diving platform! Kelsy and Scott were the only brave ones who jumped off of it. It looks low in the video, but I PROMISE it was a lot higher in real life than it looked on the film, and also scary because it’s dark in there and you can’t see the bottom of the cave.



Wasn't she so so brave??? She's my effing hero!!

By the late afternoon we were all exhausted and went back to the hotel to take a nap and the maid left me an elephant!!


Cutest towel creation ever!!


That night we went back to Don Cafetos to eat because we liked it so much last time. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to sit under the fan this time. Instead they placed us next to the kitchen so it was really hot. So hot some of us were sweating during the meal. The other bad thing was that somebody nearby clearly wasn’t wearing any deodorant and from the smell of it, probably never had in their entire life. I couldn’t finish my food. They still had the fun live music though.

We decided to try watching another movie and went for a comedy this time. We watched Fanboys…a movie that makes fun of starwars fans. If you like starwars and have a strong sense of humor, I highly recommend it. Poor Dan had never seen star wars so he didn’t get a lot of the jokes. Sad.




Day 8, Friday May 7th


More Turtles, A Shark Tries to Kill Me, Kelsey and I Are Best Idiots, and We Offend the President of Tulum:


On Friday, we decided to go back to Akumal because we wanted to see more sea turtles, AND we wanted to rent a camera and take our own pictures this time! Unfortunately, the dive shop was closed so we didn’t get to rent a freaking camera!! Scott was furious.
The only way to feel better was to see as many turtles as possible, which we did. We stayed out in the water for a long time and saw tons of them. Scott insisted on touching a couple of turtles, since Dan and Kelsey did, and he didn’t want them to “One up” us. It’s all about competition in this family. While we were out there, a huge fish the size of my leg with big fins swam by. I immediately thought “shark” and since I’m terrified of sharks I turned and swam away as fast as my legs would take me. Scott said it was just a big fish, but I didn’t care…that thing scared me, and I didn’t want to see if it had teeth. Scott said that I was overreacting, probably due to the fact that I kept screaming that it was trying to kill me, but psh, whatever. In MY brain when something that looks kind of like a shark swims across my face, it’s trying to kill me, and it’s pleased that the big strong husband doesn’t even suspect it’s evil plan. You can’t fool me evil monster fish. Nice try.
The water was so warm it almost felt like a hot tub. Even though it was about 80 degrees outside, the breeze felt chilly when we came out of the water. We rejoined Dan and Kelsey and we played “get to know you” games featuring Scott as the subject of questions. Throughout the trip, everybody got to guess questions about each other. It was fun.
For dinner we went back to “Los Pepe’s” cause their food was really good. Unfortunately, it was like, a billion degrees in there. Dan was mad cause we made him sit in the corner and he didn’t get any air from the feeble ceiling fan. It was really loud in there because they had the soccer game on. As we all know, Latinos love their soccer games, so the owner only really came out to help us during the commercials. He still wins our vote though, because as soon as he saw us he didn’t hesitate to tease Dan and ask him if he wanted any habanero peppers. This time I ordered some shrimp quesadillas, All the seafood is extremely fresh, giving it an amazing taste and these quesadillas were excellent. Scott took a bite and immediately said that those were the best tasting things he’s had since we’ve been in Mexico. I let him finish mine since the melted cheese was really greasy and my weak stomach could only eat two of them.



Giant lemonades!!


Kelsey and her Piña Coladas.


It was on the way back that Kelsey and I proclaimed our amazing idea to our husbands that we needed to get henna tatooes. They didn’t agree. We tried to explain that Henna's only last two weeks, but they didn't care. Kelsey suggested that we should get tattoos that said “Best friends”, one of us having “best” and the other “friends”. Dan suggested we make it say “Best Idiots” cause even though they were fake, he’s not a temporary tattoo fan, apparently. Psh.
Since I never got my own, I will present you with this picture of a henna tattoo on someone else, cause I wanted one on the back of my neck just like this girl:


On the way back there were some cars parked in front of the hotel not allowing us to have much room so we parked in front of the house right in front. Immediately a guy pulling into the drive way rolled down the window and yelled to Scott that he needed to move his car immediately. Scott shrugged him off thinking that the dude was being a little touchy and told him we’d move it later. Shaun who heard the commotion came out to see what was up and told us we had to move cause that was where the President of Tulum lives and nobody’s supposed to park in front of his house. Oops. Wondering how many more people were left to offend in Mexico, we moved the car further back. Unbelievable. You can’t make this crap up.
When we got inside, we played Scategories.

Scott announced before hand that he always wins and we were wasting our time playing against him. The little dork beat us all and gloated about it like the humble man he is.


Day 9, Saturday May 8th


Pigging Out On the Beach, Charlie rips us off, and Nutella:


Saturday was our last day in Tulum! I was already starting to feel sad. We decided to spend it on the beach, and went to the OM restaurant, because supposedly it was one of the top rated restaurants on the travel forums. We spent a ton of money on pizza and pasta, and their absolutely amazing garlic sauce which they’re famous for. How often do you get to eat pizza and pasta right on the beach people? We were so spoiled on this vacation. We stayed there until 6pm.





Looking at the menu.




The OM restaurant




Check it out! I'm eating pasta on the beach!!






























I thought it was funny that all of Scott's hands were covered with sand except his fingernails


The beautiful Kelsey taking pictures on the beach


Yoga!


Back at the hotel, it there was a peacock on the bed.


For dinner we went to a place called “Charlies” which was supposed to be a little fancier and more expensive, but hey, it was our last day. Honestly, I didn’t like the food. Overpriced and tasted funky. Scott was kind of pissed cause I wouldn’t eat it, but it was gross, and I didn’t want to spend the rest of the night vomiting. He got me back though because even though there was a dance floor, he didn't want to dance with me. He was following Dan’s bad example who also refused to dance with Kelsey. I didn’t press the issue though because I just wasted a meal he paid for, but seriously, it was making me dry heave.










That night we tried to clean out our rental car, since it seemed to develop a beachy smell. We took the liberty of using bug repellent to mask the smell. We went souvenir shopping and got the kids some trinkets so that we come come home as super heroes to them. Then we had the idea of all ideas and bought Nutella at the grocery store (which is a dollar cheaper there than in the states) and ate it with bread and bananas. Praise the almighty Nutella!! Best dessert ever!



Day 10, Sunday May 9th


We finally got La Floresta, My Nutella gets stolen, and airport security hates Scott:



It was mothers day! We spent it packing up, checking out, redeeming the rental car by washing it and making sure it didn’t smell, and headed out.
On the way back we took vengeance on the lack of pesos our first day, and ate lunch at La Floresta.


Delicious fish and shrimp tacos!


We got lost going to car America, and went to a random one in the middle on Cancun. They were nice enough to give us a map and redirect us back to the one by the airport. They looked the car over and didn’t say a word about any charges, so I guess our redemption process worked. I guess we’ll know for sure after a few weeks and if Dan’s credit card doesn’t get dinged…since it was in his name. When we got to the airport there was an hour and a half wait, which is fine cause we had to get through the checkpoint. I accidently left my bottled water in my backpack which they confiscated…but that didn’t make me mad. What made me mad is that they took my Nutella!!! Oh the agony!! Those animals!





Scott being a dork


The one thing that made me giggle was that went we went through this and the Dallas airport, Scott was “randomly” selected every time to do some extra searching on. There must have been a fugitive loose with a face that looked like his cause they didn’t leave him alone at every single checkpoint in both airpiorts. On the plane over to dallas, the movie “When in Rome” was on, and I watched it. I’d been warned by many that it was stupid, but I liked the actors in it so I still gave it a chance. I actually liked it. Yes it was cheesy and very, very, silly, but if you take it with sort of a slapstick humor, it’s actually a fun show. I liked it, but maybe it’s cause I wasn’t expecting much.



We had a long layover in Dallas, and we were sick of tacos and craving American food like crazy, so we at the the TGI Fridays there in the airport and it was actually a lot of fun. They seated us way in the back so it didn’t even feel like we were in an airport and we had a blast talking.





During the second flight we played another couple of games of Monopoly deal, which helped the time pass a little faster. Jason was there to pick us up in Scott’s car. By the time we pulled into our garage it was 12:30 am. My parents were nice enough to have brought the kids back to our place and put them to bed already. We let Dan, Kelsey, and Jason take our crap Toyota back to their place in South provo. Dan called on the way back tellin us theat the car was making a strange noise and that they were afraid. We blew them off and told them it was fine. We snuck in the kids rooms, kissed them on the cheek and went to bed. VACATION OVER.


Afterthoughts:


I’m sad it’s all done now, but it was great to see the kids again. Crystal woke up at 7 and crawled in our bed to sleep with us. Seth couldn’t stop giggling with excitement when he woke up and saw us in the morning. We couldn’t stop kissing them all day.
After doing some research we discovered that they’re opening up an airport AND a Wal-Mart in Tulum. They’ve already broken ground in the airport. Nooooo!!! This means the place is going to be overrun with tourists and loose it’s serenity! So sad. I really enjoyed the secret of staying in this tiny little beach town, and I’m a little sad that it will probably never be the same going back again. We had a blast though, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to try a vacation off the beaten path while they still can. We had a blast with Dan and Kelsey, and though we teased Dan about his thriftiness everyday, we couldn’t have asked for better company. Thanks guys! Quite possibly the best vacation we’ve ever had.