¡Bienvenido a México!

Our honeymoon was what every honeymoon should be like...nothing but relaxation! We went to Mexico and stayed at the Grand Sirenis Resort (yes, it's all inclusive). It is on the coast of the Riviera Maya. It was close to Tulum and about a couple of hours away from Cancun. Neither of us had been out of the country, and boy was this the way to experience it! Eight days and seven nights of complete bliss!!

Our room

Ocean view from our room & the lazy river where we spent a good portion of our days!

Our little friend that we found in our room

"Cash Money" Gordon holding our money that had gotten all wet from swimming.
He's outside on our private deck attached to our room.

Gordon clogging up the lazy river & lounging by the pool (what a babe!)

Me hanging out on the cabana & us together on the beach (the naked Canadian girl took our pic)

Waking up every morning to a delicious breakfast with a beautiful view of white beaches and the ocean, then relaxing all day long on the beach with our "fancy" drinks and smoothies, breaking only for a yummy lunch that mostly consisted of "American/Mexican" food like nachos piled high with jalapeños and salsa. Gordon and I were in heaven! The dinners would have probably been amazing, but because were going to be in Mexico, Gordon and I only packed clothes that consisted of shorts, light t-shirts, and swimming suits. Our travel agent forgot to tell us that we would only be allowed in the restaurants for dinner if we had on nice dress pants and a dress, and no sandals! So we ate at the buffet most nights, or ordered room service; neither of which were horrible, but they weren't all that wonderful either.
We also broke for other activities too...like snorkeling and canoeing at our resort, and taking two tours.

Our first tour we went on a large boat that took us snorkeling and parasailing. I'm not sure where we did this, but it was amazing to see all the different living creatures in the ocean and watch Gordon parasail (I chickened out)! Our second tour was by far the best! We were able to go to Cobá and take a tour on a Mayan reservation where we saw Mayan ruins, hiked around in the jungle, took a ride on a zip line across a lake, repelled into a cenote, canoed in a different lake, relaxed on some hammocks then had the Mayan people cook us lunch, which was delicious!!! The Mayan people were so gracious to cook us dinner and let us view their culture for the day. What an experience that was, unforgettable!

Us exploring and hiking a Mayan ruin

Gordon on top of a ruin. What a view!

Hiking up the ruin & in the jungle

Hiking in the jungle & coming up from swimming in the cenote

Us on the zip line

Us canoeing & the cutest Mayan girl selling honey

Relaxing on the hammocks

Mexico wouldn't have been complete without a trip on Mexico's public transportation "bus", aka large van, to see what Mexico is really like outside of a resort. That was an experience all by itself! To get onto the "bus" you have to stand on the side of the interstate highway and wait for a "bus" to flash its lights, you wave as you make sure it's the correct color of writing on the bus because that is dangerous all by itself getting on the wrong colored "bus", then they pull over, you discuss the price to take you where you want to go, then hop on for a death ride that just may consist of a wreck that neither of the people operating the vehicle care to report or even care at all that a wreck just happened , then arriving at your destination grateful to be alive and off the "bus". Although we didn't go very far from our resort, just about a half hour away to Playa del Carmen, it was also an unforgettable experience. As soon as we started walking on the streets, we were hounded by "salesman" to buy anything and everything they had to sell. Gordon, being the bargainer that he is, had a set price for a hammock that he wanted to buy. He would not go over this set price, even when every "salesperson" would laugh we he said he wouldn't pay more than $20 for a "hand-made" hammock. Finally when we were getting ready to leave, one "salesperson" said to him "Tell me what I can do for you" to which Gordon's replied "Sale me a $20 dollar hammock." He was very surprised at Gordon's reply and told Gordon "I like a man who knows what he wants" and sold a beautiful hammock to Gordon that we have yet to use (and Gordon will tell you that is my fault because I will not let him hang it up in our living room). Our trip back to our resort was much better than our trip there, thank goodness! We were so grateful to be back in our bubble safe and sound.
When it was time to leave, Gordon and I enjoyed on last breakfast with the view, hit the beach one last time, and while we waited for our van to come take us to the airport we enjoyed one last fancy drink (Piña Colada goodness is what we called it).

Enjoying our final fancy drink

On the way back to the airport we joked about how Bear Lake will never be the same unless we had someone on the beach bringing us fancy drink after fancy drink (I asked my mom if she would be willing to do that for us on our vacation and I had no reply just a nasty look on her face. I told her we tip real good! Still no reply). Oh and by the way, the bar tenders making our drinks never once messed up on our request to not include alcohol in our drinks, and we never got funny looks when we made the request...all of which we were thankful for. We did have an interesting conversation with a gentleman when we ordered our drinks one time because of our "crazy" request. He asked us where we were from, then if we were Morman. We had a short discussion about our beliefs and that was it. He was a nice guy. Coming back to reality was hard, but the honeymoon has not ended...we've only gotten closer.