Our trip to Mexico

As you all (probably) know, Ben brought me to Mexico. We vacationed on Isla Mujeres, and Daniel and Zion stayed with my parents. Although we were worried that we would have a hard time enjoying ourselves because we would miss the boys too much, I am pleased to report that, although we did miss them, it did not in any way prevent us from having a wonderful trip! It was kind of a birthday-Christmas-Valentine's Day present all wrapped up in one. I have yet to see whether it also encompassed our five-year anniversary, which is coming up in May. Ben worked very hard freelance designing a website, and that paid for our trip. Thank you, Ben!

Believe it or not, I had never been to Mexico before. Ben was pleased to give me another stamp in my passport. It's kind of embarrassing to me--I've been to Africa three times and visited six different countries on that continent, but I had never visited our neighbor Mexico (I've also never seen the Pacific Ocean--don't tell).

A summary of our trip: we almost missed our flight out of Indianapolis (after keeping us waiting over an hour at the front desk, they called ahead and we got to the gate at 1:21pm--the flight was supposed to leave at 1:20) We spent the first night in Cancún and caught the ferry over to Isla Mujeres in the morning. We spent the next five nights in Los Arcos, a little hotel in the center of the tourist-y area of Isla Mujeres. Isla Mujeres is a skinny island that is only about 5 miles long and half a mile wide. We inadvertently planned our trip for the duration of "Carnaval", the week leading up to Mardi Gras. This meant that every time we tried to go anywhere we were treated (whether we wanted it or not) to dances, mostly performed in the middle of streets by groups of ten to fifteen scantily-clad overweight and past-their-prime women. It was special, as my family would say. We arrived on the day "Carnaval" began, and left the day it ended. Oops.

We took lots of long walks. We had blisters on our feet by the time we came home. The second day we walked seven miles. We walked to a Sea Turtle Farm and back. I enjoyed it. Ben did not. We especially enjoyed walking along the east side of the island because it was always completely deserted. You can't swim on the west side of the island, so I guess that's why no one went over there.

We went snorkeling and saw all sorts of fish. Here are some pictures interspersed of the ones I remember seeing. I'll bet you'd never guess what the middle one right here is called--that's right, donkey dung. I was scared of the barracuda and the urchin. The rest were pretty cool, especially the one at the very top. The squids were pretty cool too, because we could watch them change colors to blend in to their surroundings as they swam over different surfaces.

We ate lots of delicious food--Mexican food, sea food, Cuban food. Yum. We also discovered our new favorite drink--mojitos. Thanks for the tip, Katie.

We stood on the southeastern tip of the island, which is the easternmost point in Mexico. The morning we left, we got up early and watched the sun rise on the east side of the island.

On the way home, our flight got delayed in Cancun, so we had to take a later flight out of Chicago. We didn't get home until 2am, though we should have been home by 11:30. American Airlines sucked, but the rest of the trip was great.

Tune in next time to hear how Daniel and Zion kept us busy for the next few days.