My Trip to Mexico

[abcat1993]

Well, I'll describe it later, but here are some pictures:
My dad holding a sea urchin:
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o25/abcat1993/MattsPics948.jpg[/URL]

Some little bug that I thought was cool:
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o25/abcat1993/MattsPics939.jpg (http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o25/abcat1993/MattsPics948.jpg)

This is what our resort did for us every day (always different):
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o25/abcat1993/MattsPics935.jpg

Our first hotel/resort (they had hundreds of these buildings that had about 6 rooms on each floor, and 3 stories; yeah, huge):
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o25/abcat1993/MattsPics890.jpg[URL="http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o25/abcat1993/MattsPics890.jpg"]

[abcat1993]

An iguana (there were thousands of these there, and thankfully nobody was harassing them):
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o25/abcat1993/MattsPics1035.jpg

A good macro shot of a butterfly:
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o25/abcat1993/MattsPics1006.jpg

The orchid room at this place called Xcaret:
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o25/abcat1993/MattsPics1039.jpg

Our second hotel which kind of freaked me out since we went from classic Mexico style houses and places, to this completely modern weird place:
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o25/abcat1993/MattsPics1091.jpg

And I forgot to mention that I came back to 580 unread posts and a bazillion new members.

[adamanteus]

Excellent photos Matt, have you got a new camera? I like the shot of the Spiny Tailed Iguana (Ctenosaura similis?) I'm looking forward to reading all about your trip when you write it up for us. The trick with the towel elephant is pretty neat...My wife can make a few different things with a towel, but I'm afraid they're all too rude to post on here!!

[Snaky]

Nice pictures. Also looking forward to some stories:)

PS: I've been a little bit busy with work and even I can't keep up with the forum:o

[abcat1993]

Thanks James, I was wondering why it wasn't green. And no, the camera is not new, I got it for Christmas, but I did just figure out some new tricks with it. As for the story, it'll be a three page long essay that I'm writing for English, so expect it in a week or so.

[adamanteus]

Okay Matt, but don't forget us! I'm sure I speak for many of us when I say we'd like to hear the details. I say again...nice camera work.

[FitnessFreak]

what resort did you stay at? looks sorta like mine

oh and did u get sick when u came back from mexico?

[Cazador]

Awesome pictures, Matt. It looks like you had a great time. Did you try any of that drink that the butterfly's having? Looks yummy :eek: :D.

Also, were you able to get out and take a walk away from the crowds at all?

Rick

P.S. Welcome back ;)

[drache]

really cool pictures, Matt
I like the animal ones best, of course
where in Mexico did you go?

[Josh]

see any snakes while u were there

[abcat1993]

No, no snakes. I didn't get sick yet, but my dad did. I went to the Gran Bahia Principe resort in Riviera Maya (I'm not sure if that's the town name or not though), and that's near Playa del Carmen, and a 2 hour car ride from the Cancun airport. Rick, there were no crowds there, just a nice, topless beach :p , and three huge swimming pools (or more). The resort was at least a mile long and I didn't even go to all of it.

[GarterGuy]

LOL...you know I thought I recognized the orchid house and I'm betting the butterfly pic was taken in the butterfly garden....I was at Xcaret several years ago. Really cool place! That area of the Yuchatan is really nice and not as touristy as Cancun. Did you get to hit any of the monument areas like Chitzen Itza or Tolum? OH and Rick.....the butterfly....they actually give them bananas soaked in beer. So I'm betting you might have drank what it's drinking....LOL.
Roy

[FitnessFreak]

No, no snakes. I didn't get sick yet, but my dad did. I went to the Gran Bahia Principe resort in Riviera Maya (I'm not sure if that's the town name or not though), and that's near Playa del Carmen, and a 2 hour car ride from the Cancun airport. Rick, there were no crowds there, just a nice, topless beach :p , and three huge swimming pools (or more). The resort was at least a mile long and I didn't even go to all of it.
I KNEW IT LOOKED FAMILIAR I WENT THERE TOO!!

when abouts did you go?!?!??!?!

ya there was thousands of iguanas all over eh?? did you see the little geckos all over the buildings at night too?????

what part of the resort did you stay in? i stayed in the coba part =p

btw i went there a week and a half ago and stayed for a week

[abcat1993]

I left for it on April 4th, and stayed at Bahia until the 9th or 10th. I stayed at Tulum, in Club Diamond. I never saw the geckos since I figured they'd only be out when the sun's out and they can bask, so I never even looked. And I did go to the ruins at Tulum, kind of boring, but my dad loved it, then made us suffer through a hundred pictures of me attempting to smile next to my sister.
EDIT: I just got that parasite thing too and it's really annoying. Light headed, freezing cold (on the inside of my body too, not just the skin), extremely tired, stomach ache, high heart rate; the usual.

[FitnessFreak]

I left for it on April 4th, and stayed at Bahia until the 9th or 10th. I stayed at Tulum, in Club Diamond. I never saw the geckos since I figured they'd only be out when the sun's out and they can bask, so I never even looked. And I did go to the ruins at Tulum, kind of boring, but my dad loved it, then made us suffer through a hundred pictures of me attempting to smile next to my sister.
EDIT: I just got that parasite thing too and it's really annoying. Light headed, freezing cold (on the inside of my body too, not just the skin), extremely tired, stomach ache, high heart rate; the usual.
ya we went to the ruins, we left april first and stay till the 7th

our stupid travel guide told us to stay at coba, but it was the crappiest one lol tulum and akumal both had the beach right there, and better buffets =[

ya that parasite sucks, i had a major headache yesterday and chills, and had diaherra(?) for like 4 days lol....:eek:

how was your trip in mexico, did you enjoy it??

[abcat1993]

Mexico

It was five A.M., Wednesday April fourth. My alarm was going off. I got out of bed, wondering why I was waking up at five in the morning. After brushing my teeth, taking a shower, getting dressed, and getting ready for school, I realized that I was going to Mexico.
External dialogue

I confirmed it with my sister by asking, “Are we going to Mexico today?”
She enthusiastically replied, “Yes”.
My parents were in their room finishing the tedious job of packing, while my sister was still asleep. By five thirty, the American Taxi driver had pulled up in our driveway and my dad was helping him get our bags in the van. After putting the rest of the luggage in the taxi, we finally left for O’Hare Airport, had a quick snack once we got there, and finally got on the plane an hour later. The plane ride was as interesting as always, that is until we got above the clouds. As soon as the plane landed, I stumbled off, half asleep, while my parents and sister carried the bags, walking to the customs desks, the entire time smelling Mexican food. Soon after they approved us, which are basically asking if you are carrying food, I walked outside, now carrying most of the bags.
Internal Monologue


Unique smell

Outside the smell instantly reminded me of Florida, which is one of my favorite places, but I still thought, Nothing is better than Florida. The smell was like the ocean hitting the warm, Mexican air to create a splendorous, tropical smell. There were mobs of people blocked off, all wanting you to use their car to go wherever you’re going, creating a small, noisy path. After walking for about a minute, we were all sweating already, and were relieved to find our taxi. The ride to our resort in Riviera Maya, called The Gran Bahia Principe, was roughly an hour and a half, which we stopped once on to get some good Mexican ice cream. After arriving at our resort, we checked in, went directly to our room, and turned up the air conditioning all the way. Next we decided to head to the beach, pool and finally dinner. The beach was the same as Florida at first, but after looking at it closer I noticed small pieces of coral everywhere, and that the water was a little warmer than Florida. We didn’t go in, but after walking around more in the eighty degree weather, we decided that swimming wasn’t a bad idea. So, we went back to our rooms, got our bathing suits, and went in the pool closest to us. After swimming for a half an hour or so, we decided to get dinner at the buffet. Because the resort was all inclusive, we got practically free everything, which was pretty easy to get used to. The buffet was surprisingly good, offering tropical fruit, several meats, drinks, and even some sushi. Finally, after a long day of traveling, we went back to our room early.

[abcat1993]

The next day we woke up early and went straight to the breakfast buffet in the restaurant called Tequila. On my way there, I finally saw my first lizard of the trip, a Spiny Iguana. The buffet included various fruit drinks, freshly made pancakes, French toast, and omelets, and possibly the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had. The hot chocolate, which they called hot cocoa, was so good I wanted to commend the person who made it. After having my breakfast, my dad, my sister and I went to the ocean to swim, as we had our bathing suits on. We put our things down on a chair and went into the water with our mask and snorkel. When I first went underwater, I saw something I wasn’t expecting; fish. There were fish everywhere that I had assumed were only in big reefs and coral formations. Once I had to clear my mask, I pulled it off my face slightly, and went under just like I would if I had been in fresh water. The salt water got in my eyes and it burned like the sun. After getting a little tired I decided to sit on a large man made rock used to break the waves. I was laughing extraordinarily while watching my gargantuan sister pondering around, trying to get on while being blasted with waves. Later, we went to the Mexican Fiesta held every Thursday. Unfortunately; however, we only got some free food because it was storming out, instead of watching a show.
The next day we started the day off the same way, by going to breakfast at Tequila.

By this time I was used to asking, “Se habla Ingles?” to anybody that didn’t look English that I wanted to talk to.
My dad however, kept asking, “Se habla Ingles?” and getting the response, “No”, then talking in English to them.
Soon after breakfast, we headed out to the Tulum ruins. That’s when I learned what the Mexicans consider a bus. A bus to them is an elongated van, with two extra seats, that you catch on the other side of the highway. The ruins were only fun for my dad, who looked at them and saw a great dead civilization. I, however, looked at them and saw a pile of rocks. Once we got back, my parents told us that we were seeing a play called Michael Jackson, which they said included all of his most famous songs. Instantly I objected, but my dad convinced me to go and try it. After eating dinner at another buffet at a part of the resort called Coba, we went to the play. I left early because the music was so bad, loud, and annoying, and fell asleep while waiting for my parents and sister.
Simile

On my fourth day in Mexico, we started our morning like the last two days, and went on a bus to a place that looked like a ranch to go ride ATVs with my dad and have the girls go horseback riding. Riding the ATV was nothing like I had expected. The instructor told us how to make it accelerate, brake, go in reverse, and so on, which wasted about twenty minutes since he had to do it in Spanish and English.
External dialogue

He also said slow people in back and fast people up front, and when the group stops put your hand up and yell, “stop!”.


Once I had gotten in the front of the group I was able to go full speed on the beach, fly around sharp turns, and go swimming in another part of the ocean. Once, when we where near the end of our ride, and I was third from front, I thought, I’m going to die. It started when I got stuck in the sand and had to go full speed to catch up. I had just come out of a sharp turn when I hit a rock which pushed my handlebars to the left instantly. I quickly recovered however and soon caught up with my dad, who was in second. It was after this that I thought to myself, This might actually be better than Florida. When we got back everybody that was in the front group was completely covered in dirt, so we decided to go swimming, which made the swimming pool considerably darker. After arriving back at the resort, we got ready for our first sit-down dinner of the trip, which was mildly fancy. Then we finished the day off by going to another play called Circo, which I also left early and waited for my parents to come back. They did not like it either so they came back only a few minutes after me. My dad and I decided to go look at the tide pools and the rest of the beach at night. We walked almost to the other end of the resort, roughly a mile long, encountering all sorts of crabs and fish.

[abcat1993]

I woke up the next morning, our last morning at The Gran Bahia, ate breakfast at Tequila, then asked for a taxi from the hotel to go to a place called Xcaret. The taxi driver was obviously pretty desperate for money, since he asked twenty-five dollars for the ride there, and sixty-five for a round trip.
Also, just before we got off, my dad noticed that he only had a fifty dollar bill, and when he asked the driver for change he simply said, “No change”.
Luckily, he found some Mexican Pesos in his pocket, and my mom had nine dollars. From the taxi, we went straight to the dolphins, which we had reserved a few days before. After explaining how to do some tricks on them and with them, we put on our life jackets and jumped in the water. Immediately I noticed the dolphins and tons of small feeder fish swimming around me. All we did was get pushed up in the air, get kissed, and hold their fins and get our pictures taken for a rip-off price. Next we ate at a small restaurant with no name. I had some seafood soup, while my dad had fresh Red Snapper. After that, the rest of the time was fairly boring. We went around the park, looking at some of the animals they had there, including the jaguars, mountain lions, and butterflies. Right before sunset, we went to a Mayan show or play. The play started off as a bizarre game where they had to hit a ball with only their hips, for what seemed like no reason. The next game was an interesting game where they turned off all of the lights, and the sun was almost completely down so it was very dark, then tried to hit a flaming ball through a line on the other team’s side of the arena. After that it told the story without words about how the Mayans where conquered by the conquistadors. Then there was a break which we left at because we figured a few thousand people would be leaving at once next time and there wouldn’t have been any taxis left. Also, there were some bothersome people below us who kept standing up for no reason and sitting on each other while talking. We got on another taxi that only cost us twenty dollars this time, and went back to our resort for dinner. This time we ate dinner at another sit down place called Don Pablo, which you had to wear nice shoes, white collared shirt and pants which made it the fanciest restaurant yet. Unfortunately I decided to get an entrée, soup and salad before finally getting my main course, which was easily the best duck I’ve ever had, which I could barely eat. After waiting a while for all the food to settle we all decided to get a desert too. Luckily I only had an exotic fruit salad, but my parents and sister made the bad decision of getting a big, chocolate mess. We all stumbled back to the room at midnight while holding my stomach because we had eaten so much. The worst part was that my dad had gotten the sickness that you get when you drink Mexican water, so he tasted all his food again that night.

[adamanteus]

Excellent write up of your Mexican trip, Matt. Thanks for sharing your experiences with us!

[abcat1993]

I didn't post all of it yet, I realized that I need to delete some things that were just in there for school.

[Cazador]

Yeh, I noticed that too (internal monologue ;)). Really, it sounds like a great family vacation. Although you may have already realized this, your mom and dad probably spent months planning all those activities so that you'd have a great time. I bet your dad's favorite part wasn't the dolphins, plays, dinners, or other activities. What he'll treasure was the time spent watching you and your sister enjoy yourselves... probably at the tide pools! It just happened to occur in Mexico. I hope in future years you'll remember your dad for the great time you spent together at times like these. I know he will. Can't wait to hear the rest, Matt :)

Rick