Okay, here we go with the next day of our Mexico adventures. Wednesday morning we slept in - again - and woke up to the sound of the phone ringing. A really loud ring. It was Wayne & LaRean asking if we were ready to go to breakfast. Um, no!! So, we got up, showered and dressed really quickly, and ran downstairs to meet them for breakfast - wet hair and all!
Ahh! Hurry and get ready!
Breakfast was DELICIOUS - they had an assortment of things from sausage and bacon, to pancakes, to breakfast rolls, cereal, omelets cooked with the fixin's you wanted, to some authentic Mexican breakfast "things." They also had at least a dozen juices - from the normal orange and apple juices (both with pulp and without), as well as pineapple juice, tangerine juice (YUM!!!), mango juice, pomegranite juice . . . They had a lot of things, but my fav. was the tangerine juice. Wow!
One of the things, though, that I didn't like was their hot chocolate. They made it with milk (very creamy milk, too), and I don't like h.c. with milk. It's too creamy and thick for me. Brandon also found some batido's - basically a "shake" with milk and banana (and I'm sure some other things. We make them here at home with ice cream, milk, and bananas. Sometimes we had strawberry flavoring.) Anyway, he's talked about batidos from his mission in Ecuador and how great they were, so it was fun to finally taste the real thing.
Various shots of the buffet where we ate breakfast every morning
Enjoying my batido
After that, we wandered to the lobby at the top of the stairs to decide what to do with our day on Thursday. Brandon & I wanted to go off and do something, but Wayne & LaRean were content to stay at the resort, get a massage, wander the beach, take a nap . . . As soon as we found a seat and sat down, Wayne wanted another pinada. (Keep in mind, we had just finished breakfast literally 5 minutes ago.) So, when a worker wandered over, Wayne asked for a "virgin pina colada." She nodded her head yes, and walked off to get it.
Another view of the resort
I was singing as we were walking and Brandon had to get a picture
This was the "roof" above the stairs. It was HUGE!
A few minutes later, she brought back his drink, but we knew at once that it was different. First, it was in a real glass. All the other times that we've asked for a pina colada without alcohol, they always give it to us in a plastic cup. I guess only those with alcohol get to feel special and get the real cups! :) Second, it had a slice of pineapple and a cherry garnishing the top of the glass.
So, LaRean and I decided to smell it, and boy was the smell of alcohol STRONG!! But, Brandon & Wayne couldn't smell anything, so Wayne proceeded to take a drink. "It doesn't taste any different to me," said Wayne. "I can't smell any alcohol, either." LaRean & I tried to convince the two men that there was, indeed, alcohol in the drink, but neither of them believed us. He drank a few more sips, but just to be on the safe side, he didn't drink anymore. What a good guy!
Wayne and his "virgin pina colada!"
What about doing this tomorrow?
Just to show you how much father and son are alike. (And, apparantely, the guy sitting behind Brandon. Maybe it's a "guy thing.")
After that, we went back to our rooms to do the usual getting ready stuff - brush teeth, apply makeup, dry and curl hair . . . Brandon perused the TV channels finally settling on CNN where they had breaking news about the pirate attack on an American ship. Kind of interesting, but (very selfish of me) it wasn't what I wanted to hear about. This was my vacation - I didn't want any gloom and doom.
Once we were ready, we headed back to the front of the resort to catch our bus into Playa del Carmen for our shopping excursion. There were only about four other people on the bus. Of course, being the teenager at heart that he is, Brandon wanted to sit in the very back of the bus. (He wouldn't make out with me, though! Hmm.)
But, we enjoyed our trip into the city very much. We saw some very American type stores - Sam's Club, Home Depot, Chevy, Sherwin Williams - and some very authentic Mexican types. One guy was riding along on a backwards tricycle pedaling his wares. It was very interesting to see. Oh, and there were people walking down the middle of the street selling newspapers to the commuters going past. I don't think I could have brought myself to do that line of work, but they seemed pretty good at it.
Our very empty bus
Workers making breakfast for the people that worked at the resort
Pedaling his wares on his backward tricycle
Once we got into Playa and got our bearings, we headed down to the beach to see about catching a ferry out to Cozumel. (We saw the ferry coming in, but could never find a place with ticket information. They had a "You Are Here" map, but no contact information for anything to do with the ferry. So, we decided to bag it, and just do some shopping instead.)
The ferry pulling into the dock - the water was INCREDIBLE and such a pretty blue color
Along the way, we wandered into a couple different stores, and at the very first one, a dress caught my eye. I turned to LaRean to show her the dress and how pretty it was, and the next thing I know, this dress is being shoved over my head. The lady of the store said, "Here. You try on. Hand made. Very pretty." And she literally took it off the maniquen and put it over my head. So, I guess I was trying on the dress. It was a VERY pretty dress, and you could tell that it was hand-stitched just by looking at it, but with my blossoming figure (all right, all right, it's more like my ever enlarging figure), there was no way I was going to pay $75 for a dress that I could only wear a few times the rest of my life.
The lady "helping" me try on the dress
Once we started the "real "shopping, I was SO glad to have Brandon there to help us bargain and understand the store owners. (I mean, I was glad to have him there anyway 'cause he's my hubby, and we had a week-long date with no kids, but to have his knowledge of Spanish and bargaining was wonderful.) Brandon went to put his sunglasses on that morning, and the snapped on him. In the middle of the ear piece. So, we were looking specifically for sunglasses. We found a store that sold some name brand ones - Ray-ban, Ralph Lauren, Polo - and Brandon & LaRean haggled with the store owner for a while. As they were arguing, I walked into the next store and looked at jewelry.
I'm a sucker for a pretty piece of jewelry - earrings, rings, necklaces . . . I found some BEAUTIFUL rings that were silver with amethyst, and blue/green opal in them. Gorgeous. The store owner was having fun watching Brandon debate with his next-door neighbor, so didn't notice me for a while, so I was able to browse in peace. He finally saw me, though, and then came over and tried to "sell" his wares.
I had found one that I was absolutely in love with, but the owner wasn't sure it would. I had told him I was pregnant, and he kept insisiting that I was going to "swell up big" (sure makes a girl feel good, huh?) and that a bigger size would be better. He insisted that he could make one a size bigger in a day and that I could pick it up tomorrow. *sigh* That wouldn't work because we weren't coming back. So, we decided to keep looking at jewelry stores to see if they had that same ring in the size I needed. As we were leaving, he offered the one that I wanted for $80. Still a little high, though.
Anyway, Brandon finally talked the sunglasses guy down to $10 each for his and LaRean's sunglasses. The guy was not pleased (so he seemed) and went on muttering about how he had to feed his family, too, and that selling glasses at $10 each wouldn't do that. As we left, LaRean asked, "Are you mad at us? Or are we friends?" He grinned and said, "We're friends!"
The rest of the trip was pretty much the same, although, we did find one store that had set prices. (SO nice after having to haggle for a while.) We went in and bought some souveniers for us and the boys, then went to find some lunch. We found a little bistro type place and ordered some ham and cheese quesadillas. They were really good! While we were waiting for our food, a guy came up to us and offered to make us some grasshoppers. Huh? He showed us how he was making grasshoppers out of leaves. It was really cool! Wayned ended up buying two of them and managed to get them home without them being ruined.
One of the many stores in Playa del Carmen
Waiting for lunch
The making of the grasshoppers
The finished products - Mama and Baby grasshopper
The finished products - Mama and Baby grasshopper
We still hadn't found me the ring I wanted at the price we wanted, and we had to start going back to catch our bus. So, we tried the first store again, hoping that he saw we had come back and he'd make a better deal. Still no go, though, so we headed back to our bus. As we stood there waiting, I asked Brandon to go back one more time and try to haggle with the guy. Brandon walked up to him to ask about the ring, and the guy said, "No! I give you the ring for $160!!" I think he was irritated at us that we wouldn't accept the ring for $80, so we ended up not getting the one that I really wanted.
Ring shopping
We headed back to the bus and found out why it was empy when we left this morning. Apparantely, they ferry a bunch of people throughout the day, so they only allow so many people on the bus each trip. That way, they can tell everyone to meet at a certain time and a certain place and not have to make six different trips to pick everybody up.
Once we got back to the hotel, we dropped off our purchases and freshened up for dinner. Tonight's dinner was at an international restaurant - La Fleur. *sigh* Shouldn't have done it. :) You had to make reservations for the restaurant of your choice the morning you wanted to eat there. And, you had to make it early, or it would fill up quickly. We had tried an authentic Mexican restaurant a few nights earlier, and it was pretty good. So, we thought we'd try the international. I was a little skeptical - I thought they might be serving something like frog legs and snails - something I'm not a fan of, even if they're not cooked and on my plate.
But, we got there, and had to order our food. Yikes. Most everything on there was a seafood dish, and I DON'T do seafood. So, I ordered a dish with a fried egg, and some liver. I thought I could at least eat the egg, and I decided that I'd at least try a (tiny) bite of the liver. BIG mistake!! The liver was sitting on top of the egg, so all of the flavor drained down into the egg. So, I couldn't even eat that. I did try a tiny bite of the liver, though, and regretted it in the middle of the night. (I sat by the toilet for 30 minutes thinking, "Okay, just throw up. No, don't throw up. Oh, just get it over with and throw up. No, I don't want to throw up. Ugh, I feel sick!")
Hmm - should I really try it?
My liver plate (all taken apart)
Uggh - did I really try this? Gross!
Brandon & Wayne had the seafood soup
Brandon & Wayne had the seafood soup
Brandon opening one of the clams in his soup
Wayne trying an octopus (or a squid) tentacle
I don't remember the rest of the meal - who could after eating that? - but for entertainment that night, they had a couple of guys dressed up as Mayan warriors and they did a war dance with their tall drums. After that, we headed back to Wayne & LaRean's room to play some pinochle. I'm fairly new at pinochle, and Wayne & LaRean have been playing for a long time, but we won them that night. That's twice in a row that we've won. But, don't worry - we won't get over-confident!! It'll probably never happen again!
The Mayan Warriors
Hmm - what do we have?
A view of one of the many swimming pools at night
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