I had forgotten about these pictures from our honeymoon since they were on my camera, and since it died a day into the trip, I had assumed there were no good pictures on it. But I like these pictures because they show the awesome place we stayed at. We went to Playa del Carmen, Mexico and stayed at the Shrangri-La Caribe (It is actually now named Mahekal Beach Resort). Everything about it was great. Breakfast and dinner were included, and all the food was amazing. Every night was a different theme, they had Mexican (one of the best), Italian (was the only not-so-good night, we both aren't fans of italian food), and then the other nights we got to choose from a menu. One night they had duck and I will never forget how good that duck was... I would go back just for that one meal. For breakfast they had all sorts of stuff. Kevin had refried beans, scrambled eggs, and the freshest mango we both had ever tasted, every morning. I think he would go back just for the breakfasts. They had cantaloupe and watermelon juice that was oh so tasty.
Ok, enough about the food. This first picture is one of my favorites because it was the first picture we took on our honeymoon and it has such a funny story behind it. When we left on this trip we had decided we wanted to be as cheap as possible. It was a game for us. So when we flew into Cancun, we took a cheap bus to the heart of Playa del Carmen, for I think $12 each. Once we got there we had no idea where the hotel was, we assumed it was pretty close so we started bargaining with the taxi drivers. Since kev went to Ecuador on his mission, he speaks excellent spanish and was excited to use it. He had such a fun time with this. He would sit there and chit chat with these taxi drivers, they would be laughing and five or so minutes later the conversation would end and I would always have to ask "What did you guys just talk about that was so funny?" Kevin would forget every time that I understood no spanish and would just hang out and look around while they talked. Well, all these taxi drivers wanted $5. Woah no, that was too much for us! So we went over to these bicycle taxi and asked him if he would take us for $3. He agreed. But Im sure once he saw that we had 2 big suitcases with us he started to regret it. We hopped on and put our suitcases in the back. We thought it would only be a block or so... it ended up being a 15-20 minute ride. Our taxi pedalists had the hardest time pushing us! He was huffing and puffing the whole way. Kevin was encouraging him in spanish while at the same time laughing. But he didn't give up, he was determined to receive his $3. Tourists were cruising by us just walking. So this picture was taken during that adventure and we told the driver to smile but he was too tired and too concentrated.
Here was our sweet room! When we arrived, we told the front desk guy if we could upgrade to a nicer room since it was our honeymoon, so he upgraded us to a better location and a top room. We loved hanging out in that hammock after dinner.
I dont know how to rotate these pictures, but here was our room and bed. Our room was very simple but I loved it. No T.V., no radio, an open shower with mexican tile, and windows that had no glass just those wooden shutters if you wanted to close them. It was very romantic!
This was the view from our room.
Here we are hanging out at our beach the night we got there.
Im not sure if this was our bungalow, but these are what they looked like! They were rad.
Kevin putting on some sun screen.
Pretty walkway
Hanging out at the bar. Sadly, we only got drinks once.
Since this trip was going to be cheap, we had to find a cheap way to get to and from our hotel and go to Tulum and the little beach town Akumal. We took a one way bus to Tulum that was around $12 each. It was a pretty long bus ride. Taxis would have been faster, but way more expensive. When we went back to the bus station, Kev talked to the lady and asked her the cheapest way to go to Akumal. Once he spoke spanish to her, she was instantly nicer and told him about a bus that stops and picks up people on the freeway. Im forgetting the name of it... So we waited by the side of the road and sure enough this little bus comes and picks us up. Kevin asked the driver if he could take us to Akumal and we were on our way. It was then that we found out this was the bus for all the locals. We were the only white people. He dropped us off the side of the freeway by Akumal and I think it only cost us 35 cents each. We just had to walk down this street to get to the beach since the freeway is right along the ocean. We had brought our snorkel gear in backpacks, and snorkeled the rest of the day away. It was pretty cloudy here but we did get to see and swim around with some sea turtles.
Around 5 or 6 we walked back out to the freeway and waited for the bus. Well now it was rush hour, so we squished into a bus or two later and had the nice company of all the commuting mexican workers going home. Again, we were the only white people, and we couldn't even sit next to each-other the whole way home, which was about a 1-2 hour adventure. But heck, it was under $1 each to get back home. It was worth it.
All this reminiscing makes me want to go back so bad.
We will be back someday Shangri-La!
