Our vacation so far!!!
After much thought during the Christmas season, we realized we hadn't actually taken time off just for us for almost 3 years. So in true Bam and Share spirit, we booked a holiday while we were in Canada to Isla Mujeres, a tiny island off of Cancun. I'm writing this while laying on the bed in our very white hotel room, with the patio doors open and the Caribbean breeze blowing. We've been here for four glorious days and in a nutshell, here's the experience so far...
DAY ONE:
After arriving the night before around 7:30 pm by the time we got to the island, it was nice to wake up with no plans and nothing to do. The sun was shining and since we had slept in until around 11 am (!!!) we sauntered down to the beach which is right where our hotel is. We are staying at the Cabanas Maria Del Mar on Playa Norte. (North Beach). We spent a careful (ie - using tons of sunscreen) day on the beach, swimming and trying out our snorkel gear. Hanging around just getting the feel for the place. 
I was happy just to swim about and enjoy the shallow CLEAR blue water and so was Bam. Wow. We discovered our hotel had wireless internet but agreed not to check our email until we get back. Hey, that's a huge thing for us!!!!
At night we strolled through the tiny town and found the main street of shops and hawkers. We ate a charming little restaurant called Comono's. Being raw vegan on vacation is never easy so we also agreed to settle for just vegan when we had to in order not to starve! But at Comono's we found some decent salads and then went shopping at the local grocery store. There was lots of action going on the plaza square what with Christmas coming to a close. All sorts of musicians and street vendors were on hand and lots of pretty lights. Whew. We're on holiday!!!
You can check out more pics from day 1 here or just click that pic.
DAY TWO:
Our second day began much like the first. We slept in! Wow! Had our usual fruit breakfast in our room. Then off to the beach which is about 28 steps from the door of our hotel. Nice. More swimming and lazing about. This is the life!!!!
We tried a different restaurant called Zazil Ha and liked their salad but weren't impressed with their so-called 'fresh' fruit juice which we found out was actually from a box. Ah well. We raw vegans are so picky eh? On a very positive note, we found the vendor on the beach who sells fresh coconuts and just hacks the end off for you and sticks the straw in there. Soooooo good!
At night we wandered into town again and met with Captain Tony to talk about snorkeling with him the next day. He said to come back at 8:40 in the morning and we would settle up then as he cancels if the weather isn't good.
We were both excited now and couldn't wait to snorkel. (like little kids the night before Christmas!) We could hardly relax but managed to meander thru town again and wore ourselves out for an early night.
More Day 2 pics here or click the pic above on the right.
DAY THREE:I used my cell phone as our alarm and had forgotten to change the time! So the alarm didn't go off. But the tropical birds woke us up and our excitement got us out of bed in time to eat some fruit and head to Captain Tony's for our big boat snorkel. Being the king and queen of preparedness, we both took seasick pills called Triptone so we wouldn't get sick on the long boat ride.
Ahhh.. Our first disappointment. He said it was too rough to go. He is a very honest captain and we highly recommend his services as he is simply straight up and speaks good english. But we were bummed out. Never mind. On the way back to the hotel we passed a cute little place that offered up all sorts of organic foods so we stopped there for fruit plates and lemon and chaya smoothies. It was Elements of the Island and is a very cool place if you like healthy food. They also offer yoga and have hotel style rooms for rent, too. Definitely a good find.
With a belly full of yummy fruits we meandered back to the beach and stumbled across another snorkel outfit who said they would take us out to a close by place. (the place with Captain Tony is Isla Contoy and is an hour boatride.) Meanwhile, remember those seasick pills? Wooooah! Those were kicking our asses now. We managed to sign up for the snorkel boat and asked for 1pm hoping the pills would be worn off by then. We forced ourselves back to our hotel. No easy task as we both wanted to lay down on the warm sand and just go to sleep! Those pills were like VALIUM!!!! But sorta coupled with a weird anxiety at the same time.
What felt like an hour but was only 10 minutes back to the hotel... we both nearly collapsed into the bed and slept until 12:30. Whew.
Back in to our snorkeling stuff and off we went ... We headed out to a little reef and saw some cool fish. But ... the water was colder than we thought and we had to wear these little life preserver vests which made it next to impossible to dive down and get photos. Hmmm.... what to do. We decided diving was where it was happening.
So that night we wandered thru town and found the shop close to Captain Tony's called Coral Scuba. We booked our 'resort dive' with Enrique and now were really really excited! We had to be there at 8am the next day and we could get our deposit back if we changed our minds. When we got back to the hotel we checked the weather reports like every 30 minutes. Frantically hoping for good weather. The sites were predicting rain and and high winds. Not a good thing for beginning diving. But hey, we're not to be stopped!!!!
We watched the sunset and had a mellow evening together. Learning to slow down. Yes I am. Honest.
More pics from Day 3 here or click the pic of fishies!
Day 4 THE DIVE coming soon!!!!!
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