Travel Tales
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Hola! Our family just recently had a trip to Cancun, Mexico and I'm very excited to share my experience with you guys. We were there for five days and I will try my very best to cover every bit of our trip, from the tour packages we had to the best souvenir shops. I will also try my best to keep this post short... just kidding! It won't.
Before heading-off to Cancun, we first had a series of stopovers. We stayed in West Palm Beach, Florida for a day before our flight. After that, we had to stay for about an hour and a half in Charlotte, North Carolina. From there, we had our 3-hour flight to Cancun.
Some friends of mine kept wondering why we opted for a tropical place this summer. I do find it strange considering that we always go for the cooler countries. By cooler I mean, cold. Why Cancun? Well, we want to experience a different kind of summer. A different kind of warm. Change is really what we want (not in a of political kind of way).
Our hotel shuttle fetched us from the airport and the driver was soooo nice. He spoke English very well (thank goodness) and was very informative. The moment he knew we were Filipinos he went, "Pacquiaaaoooo!!!" Yes. Let's be honest, Pacquiao is/was a great boxer... not much as a politician, though.
When we reached the hotel, The Royal Cancun, we were greeted with more smiles. We had this nice fellow who assisted us in going to our room and choosing our tour packages. He was surprised to see a Filipino family coming straight from the Philippines in Cancun. He said it was his first time to encounter "real" Filipinos. I don't get it as well. Maybe, most Filipinos who went there were residing in the States. Hmmm, maybe.
When we reached our room, we changed our clothes for dinner and went down immediately. By the way, the hotel room that we had is probably my most favorite hotel room EVER.
We had dinner by the beach that night. Our hotel was so convenient since we had the beach front all to ourselves with less people. Bless. Oh! Did I mention it was Erl's birthday that time? That lucky piece of meat hahaha. Anyway, we had a lovely birthday buffet dinner. Buffet=unlimited churros for dessert. The food was A++++.
We walked along the beach after dinner. It was beautiful!!! The water was so clear and so blue and the sand was very powdery. The beach was so clean as well!!! We saw some "pirate ships" that night. Turns out it was a "Pirates of The Caribbean Tour". Hahahaha.
We went back to our room and dozed off. Well, not really. We were jet-lagged. Hahaha.
Our second day was set for our trip to Tulum and Xel-Ha (tour package here). Tulum was a must-see but, Xel-Ha was the real deal. You'll see why in a while.
Tulum is a walled city located along the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. We toured the ruins of city for half of the day. It was so hot that time. Our hats came in handy but we had to slather a lot of sunscreen on. The first thing Erl and I noticed in Tulum was the ridiculous amount of sunbathing iguanas. It was crazy. I hate reptiles. You have no idea how many leaps of horror I did when Erl kept on pointing at them. The photo above shows the "Great palace" and exactly three iguanas marvelling at its beauty.
The photo above shows the "Temple of the Frescos". It's my favorite structure in the whole city. If you look to the very left, you would see a silhouette of a face. Cool, right?
This is a diorama of what the walled city of Tulum looked like before it got, you know, ruined.
The entrance to Tulum was surrounded by souvenir stalls. Our tour guide told us that there are other cheaper places where we could get souvenirs. You have to listen to the experts.
We got back to our bus for our trip to Xel-Ha. We were given wristbands and our tour guide explained to us what to expect when we arrive there. It was an all-inclusive tour. The park had three restaurants to choose from. Everything was "unlimited". By everything, I really mean e v e r y t h i n g. We ate brunch at one of their restaurants. We were so full. Erl ate about 5-6 servings of ice cream.
After brunch, we changed into our swimming gear and rented out some snorkelling equipment. The park was so organized! Everything was so hassle-free. The park offered a lot of activities to choose from. We tried out snorkelling first. Our parents decided to sleep while we went swimming. We couldn't blame them. There's this area that had hammocks. Everybody was free to sleep there.
It's a bummer that we didn't get to take that much pictures in Xel-Ha. We were having too much fun. Too much that I lost my snorkelling mask. HAHAHUHU. I dropped my snorkelling mask while filming our experience. We had to pay a fine of $15. Dang. We went back to our parents after snorkelling, just to find out that they were in a bar... drinking tequila. WOW. Just wow. We were running out of time so we had to run going to the park's bike station. My sister was walking too fast that she accidentally stepped on an iguana's tail . EW.
We rented some bikes and explored the the park's greener side. Yes, we biked around in our swimming attire. Nobody cared! It was really fun!!! We biked for about 10 minutes. When we reached the other side, we decided to go biking back again. So that's another 10 minutes. No regrets.
We went running back to the zip-line station. Our initial plan was to go cliff diving at the other end of the park, but it was too far away and we were running out of time. We went zip-lining instead. Their zip-line was different since you had to hang-on to it... no support at all. It's your choice to keep on going up to the end of the line or to jump into the water mid-way. I jumped mid-way... twice. SO FUN!!! We went running back to our parents. We had dinner at the park's grill-type restaurant/bar. We had unlimited steak, onion rings, BBQ and all that good stuff. Our parents let us try mojito. I loved it (hahahahah omg).
We went back to the bus. We were tired from all the running and the swimming so we fell asleep.
When we went back to our hotel, we left our big bags and went outside for a walk. There was this weekend market across our hotel. They had a couple of local bands playing, food stalls and craft stalls. We were on a hunt for cheap drinking water that night. We had to walk a couple of blocks to find a convenience store that sold cheap drinking water. We went back to the weekend market and bought some churros. Yummy yummy churros. We also watched a talent show. Yay for spontaneity.
Our third day in Cancun was well spent in Chichen-Itza, Valladolid and Cenotes Zaci (tour package here). We had a long ride going to Chichen-Itza that day. Thank goodness our tour had packed breakfast included.
Our ride going there was not boring at all. We had a very informative tour guide who explained to us everything we needed to know about the Mayan culture. He even debunked the whole "end of the world" fiasco. It turns he is of Mayan descent and that his first language is not Spanish but yes, Mayan. He taught us some of the common phrases and how to write numbers in Mayan. Yeah, I got lost when he started doing the maths.
He explained that Mayans love math and astrology. He was so passionate about everything that had to do with their culture.
When we arrived in Chichen-Itza, we were greeted by this beautiful structure. It was the Temple of Kukulkan. The place was surrounded by other structures, but the pyramid has to be the most astonishing of them all. It has exactly 365 steps. The Mayans always aimed for accuracy. Our guide also explained to us about the shadow-play of the pyramid. A shadow of Kukulkan, their serpent god, appears at the pyramid every equinox. Indeed, Chichen-itza is one of the wonders of the world. Read more about it here .
While we were touring around the place, the vendors were everywhere as well. They had this pipe-like souvenir that made jaguar noises. Our guide explained to us that the jaguar is considered to be a god. Cool.
We reached the "Great Ball Court" and the first thing that popped into my mind was the ball game -scene in the movie "The Road To El Dorado". It turns out that this ball court was the basis of the ball court in the movie! Coolio! (check it out here ). Our tour guide explained to us that the winners of the game were sacrificed to the gods and not the losers. The reason behind that is simple. Only the best must be offered to the gods.
We were given free time of an hour for picure taking and for more exploration of Chichen-itza. The vendors kept on yelling "Pacquiao" at as when we passed by them. Hahaha. There were also natives dressed as warriors around the place. They scared the hell out of me. This was only because they reminded me of the characters from Mel Gibson's movie, Apocalypto. Such an underrated film, tbh.
Photo above shows their observatory.
We went to the city of Valladolid for lunch. Valladolid is such a colorful city. It has a plaza in the middle and a very nice church as well. It reminded me so much of the Philippines. Actually, everything in Cancun reminds me of the Philippines! Especially the people. Everybody is so nice and hospitable.
We had a hearty lunch buffet at one of Valladolid's famous restaurants, "La Casona de Valladolid". The meal was a thumbs up but, the place was really something else. It was so rustic and very "Instagram worthy."
After lunch, we were given some free time to explore the place. We went to the market just across the plaza where the locals sold their traditional Yucatan embroidered pieces. My mom bought a top for me as a souvenir.
We asked the vendor for a picture but she didn't understand english very well. Her niece translated for us. So nice!!!
We had a side trip to one of the sinkholes found in the Yucatan Peninsula. We visited the Cenote Zaci. No swimming for us, though. Our parents found it a bit dangerous since it was a hundred feet deep. Also, my dad is scared of heights.
He wouldn't even allow us to sit on the edge of the railing for picture purposes. After the short stop at Cenote, we headed back to our hotel.
Our fourth day in Cancun was more of a "Lazy day". We rode a ferry going to Isla Mujeres, which is an island in the Caribbean sea. The island literally translates to "Women Island"... yasss!!! No tour package-whatsoever for this one. We rented a golf-cart so we could tour around the island. We swam a bit and ate lunch there. We had lunch at a restaurant by the beach which served the best guacamole I've ever had. No kidding. Even their tortilla chips were to-die-for.
We went back to Cancun at around 1:00 in the afternoon and went to the market to buy souvenirs. I forgot what the place was called, but it had everything you needed for "pasalubongs". They sold keychains for a low price... only if your haggling skills are as great as my dad's. Erl bought a luchador mask for 200 Mexican pesos... it was 400 Mexican pesos, originally. Yooooo.
It was our last night in Cancun and dad decided to get the Xoximilco tour package, which was a Mexican fiesta tour-thingy. I don't really know. It was too random for me hahaha. The only thing I remembered was our tour guide saying "This is an authentic Mexican fiesta. We Mexicans love to dance so I expect everybody to shake their hips." WHAAAT?? Hahaha
So Xoximilco is actually a nighttime cruise on board a trajinera. Our trajinera was named "Zacateca". Our tour guide was one big ball of sunshine (so hyper) named, Manuel and our "captain" was Panchito. We had corn and tortilla chips with guac while we waited for our other trajinera-mates. We were the only "kids" on board. They had unlimited tequila, vodka, EVERYTHING. I was very into the unlimited water, though. HAHAHA.
We introduced ourselves and made new friends. There were people from Australia, New York and Algeria. It was such a wild night. There was a lot of dancing and a lot of games. We danced the Macarena! Hahahaha. We also have a new favorite song! It's called El Noa Noa. Despacito is so meh... this is the real JAM. Plus! It has killer dance moves in it HAHAHAH.
We played a couple of games. We won most of them *flips hair*. One guy even said "You go, Philippines!" But I did lose once. I had to choose between taking a shot of tequila or eating a fried cricket as a punishment. I went for the cricket. Loved it. Our tour guide said I was badass. I am. HAHAHA.
One of the games was pretty crazy! We had to be electrocuted *dead*. The one who stays the longest wins. CRAZY!
The whole cruise was mucho mucho mucho divertido!!! We had mariache bands playing and A LOT OF FOOD. The quesadilla was... mhhhmmm. This is definitely a must try!
That night was probably the best night of our whole trip. Just look at mom! (btw, look how tan I got. woah.) Too bad this was also our last night in the beautiful country of Mexico. I still can't get over our recent trip, tbh. I would definitely want to go back some time. Maybe with some of my friends (?) Hahahaha. They would really enjoy Xel-Ha and Xoximilco for sure. I actually made a video of our trip. You could see it at the lower-right area of my blog.
Over-all, Cancun was a gem. The sites, the people, the food, everything! It reminded me so much of home. A must see. This I swear.
Well that's that! I hope you enjoyed my Cancun experience! Thanks for reading!
xG
