Cancun

Danny and I finally got away for a belated honeymoon the first weekend of October. We originally had our flight set to leave at 7:15 on Thursday night but we were able to fly standby for the 12:30 and luckily made it on. We even got upgraded to First Class! Woo hoo! A few free drinks on the way down there... along with a healthy salad for lunch and we were feeling great by the time we landed in the sunny south!


I forgot the SD card in my camera so we couldn't take any pictures the first day we were there. Once we got to our hotel we put on our swim suits and headed to the beach for a little sun. They had the yellow flags out so we didn't venture out into the water too far. It felt great though.... just perfect. We headed in when the sun went down behind the hotel and got cleaned up to head down the road for dinner and fun.


Our hotel was at the very South end of the Cancun strip so we took a bus to the other end. It was pretty nice as it only cost 50 cents each, no a/c, but the weather was cool enough it didn't matter. We stopped in at Senor Frogs first.... we figured we had to do the tourist thing one night. There weren't too many people there so we got a great seat right on the lagoon. Next we walked down to Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville Restaurant. It was booming... lots of people old and young. They had a DJ that was pulling guests from their seats on stage so they could be apart of the action. We sat there for a couple of hours enjoying the entertainment. Our last stop was at Pat O'briens. The crowd was small.... but the wait staff was pretty funny.


The next day we woke up and headed down to the concierge to ask about fun things to do in the area. We both wanted to go snorkeling somewhere... but wasn't sure what would be recommended. The concierge told us there were really 2 main places to go. One included driving your own 2 seater boat that was in Cancun and the other was a 25 minute bus ride down to Puerto Morales. We decided to go to Puerto Morales as they had an opening at 11:30 and up till then we were the only 2 that would be on the trip.


Since I forgot my camera card we had to run into town to pick up another as well as an under water camera. We barely made it back in time to catch our bus.


The trip down was shorter than we thought and we were a little skeptical driving up as it wasn't the nicest area. But once we got our equipment (goggles, flippers, life jacket and breathing tube) we were headed toward the small 10 seater boat. This was my first trip snorkeling so I was a little scared at first. Once I got in the water it all came natural. We were right on a coral reef and there was tons of fish all around us. Our guide, Gabriel let us go where we wanted but kept good tabs on us. He would also wave us over to see some really cool fish when he spotted them. The coolest fish.... a nurse SHARK. Gabriel waved us over and said "there is a shark down below this coral. She's sleeping and if you'd like you can take off your life vest, take a deep breath and I'll show you where she is." Danny was all for it... but I was a little hesitant. He headed down with Gabriel and came back up about 30 seconds later. He was so ecstatic about it. Then Danny helped me out of my life vest and I headed down with Gabriel so he could show me where the shark was. I had to grab onto a piece of coral that was sticking up so I could pull myself down to peep through the little hole where the shark was. Sure enough.... you could see her huge eyes as she rested on the ocean floor. It was such a rush of adrenaline.


Our first session lasted about 45 minutes. I didn't get too many under water pictures that were clear enough to post... but caught this one of a tiger fish.





When we finished on the first coral reef area we drove the boat about 200 yards to another coral reef. I didn't think things would look much different but it was amazing the different colors of the coral that we saw. We stayed in the water about 30 minutes that session. Just as we were heading back to the boat we spotted 2 barracuda's. They were on the prowl for something to eat.


Here's Danny and I in our gear!





After our snorkeling session we ate lunch at the little restaurant just up the beach. The waiters were awesome.... and our bus driver even let us bring a much needed beer for the drive home.




That night we went out to dinner at Lorenzillo's. It was the best seafood I ever had. We started out with a great bottle of wine named Crios.

We took a walk after dinner and passed this NHL sign.... we thought it was hilarious that they showed hockey in Cancun.

We decided to pick up a case of beer for the fridge on the way home. We didn't feel like sitting in a bar anywhere as we were there for the beach. When we got to the hotel we put on comfy clothes and headed down to the beach. The moon was almost full so it was super bright. The waves were crashing onto shore.... just too nice!

Our late night stroll down the beach left Danny wet!

Saturday morning we were back on the bus headed down to the market for shopping!

That night we found another restaurant for dinner. We walked down the street from our hotel to JC Capitan's restaurant. It was small and quaint and built right on the lagoon.

Danny and I sat down and started looking out over the edge of the dock. The waiter asked us if we saw the crocodile. We were both like what???? So he showed us where the croc usually sat. Sure enough... there he was.... like 15 feet long!

Sunday morning we got up for breakfast at the hotel.... here was our view!

Since it was our last day we decided to take a walk down the beach towards the tip. We found these tortuga (sea turtle) shells on our way.

We also saw about of skinny pencil fish (our own name we gave them) while we were walking down the beach. They had a bunch of minnows cornered. If you look really close you will see the minnows at the bottom of the picture and some stick looking fish in the middle.

We spotted a huge iguana too. His buddy was up under the rocks behind him too.

Another cute pic of us on the bus.

Our last night we walked down the beach for our nightly stroll. We had found a tortuga preservation area earlier in the day. They had a fence around it to protect the eggs from predators. You could see little foot prints in the sand all the way around the exterior from where the babies had tried to get out. We flashed our camera a few times to see if there were any turtles around but our only action was a patrolman on duty. He stepped over the fence and opened up one of the little turtle holes to find a few babies that had hatched.

He handed the first little guy to Danny... isn't he precious.

Next I got to hold him..... it was by far the highlight of our trip!