my lovely, wonderful, amazing friend katie hutchinson came and joined me in mexico for a vacation over new years. we have been friends since the end of the grade 8, so not having her regularly in my life has been tough this year. SO many people have told me that they will come and visit me in mexico, but i knew katie actually would. the thing is, katie and i have actually never travelled together. we have, however, done a lot together. we have cried over boys, gotten drunk for the first time, and watched each other grow up. she understands me because she has been there through it all. i have always known we would travel well together because her preparation and caution would nicely counteract with my spontaneous wanderings.
a little of this...
in a lot of ways, our trip was reminiscent of a quiet trip appropriate for 80 year olds. and that suited us BOTH just fine.
*one night, we went to bed at 8 o'clock and slept right through until morning!
*we found divine pleasure in wandering around in the garden outside of our hotel in playa del carmen.
*each night before going to bed we read out loud to each other from a little question and answer book that i got for christmas.
*playing scrabble at the bar WHILE drinking margaritas. perfection.
*enjoying new years eve dinner in french with a lovely couple from paris. they were accidently served our guacamole, and it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
*getting massages ON the beach!
*the most exciting part of each day was deciding where we wanted to eat for dinner! a culinary extravaganza. homemade italian pasta, a religious experience with nut crusted pork at john gray's place in playa and generally fabulous food. yum.
and a little of that...
in many other ways, we lived life on the edge, braving the treacherous mexican highways and still emerging in one piece.
*after visiting grand cenote, a huge underground pool, we were unable to find a cab to bring us back to town. SO, we had to brave a five km walk on a highway, almost being swiped by passing cars and buses. a young man cycling by offered us a spot in this little metal pushcart buggy, but we passed the transportation over to a young family who needed it more then we did. so humble and kind, don't you think? we felt pretty good about ourselves!
*there was no room left on the 1st class bus, so we had to settle for being packed in to a 2nd class bus all the way from playa to tulum. katie compared it to being squished into a bus in india, all that was missing was the chickens. i sat on the floor of the aisle, thinking "katie is going to kill me for this"! luckily she thought it was quite the adventure.
*because it was only a 2nd class bus, the stops only lasted for a few seconds. BUT, we had to get our luggage from off the bottom of the bus in those two seconds. first, the bus driver would NOT open the other side of the luggage compartment, so we had to literally climb into the bottom of the bus to get our suitcases. i could hear him revving the engine and i could just picture him driving away with us stuck in there. we yanked the suitcases off of the bus and at that exact moment he drove away. phew. i laugh in the face of danger now!
*our hotel on the beach in tulum were little palapa huts with only a lightbulb for electricity for a few hours a day, and a bare-bones twig bed. it was all very romantic until it dipped into the single digits at night and we had to go into town to buy blankets so we wouldn't freeze!
*living in little jungle huts come with some risks. little cucarachas were found in our clothes, shoes and suitcases! one even joined katie for a trip all the way back to canada. lucky guy.
*we had been waiting all week to eat at a delicious thai restaurant that was recommended in lonely planet. unfortunately, when we got there, they said they had no room for us because we had not made renovations! we begged and pleaded and they ended up setting us up on the ground, on pillows, on the windiest patio in the world. in the end, we felt more genuine, sitting on the floor, enjoying our scrumptious food (even though we were almost blown away). que rico!
*we had a few days of bad weather (cloudy and windy), so the beach was becoming out of the question. we decided to make the most of the situation by taking a day trip to chichen itza, one of the most famous mayan ruins that i had wanted to see for years. we had more then 2 hours in the car in each direction, but it was worth every minute. on the way home, the bus stopped at a huge famous cenote (a freshwater sinkhole) and gave us 30 minutes to explore. just as on the amazing race, we decided we had enough time to go swimming, even though it was freezing and crowded! i felt a soundtrack start of fast-paced music in my head as we quickly changed, ran down the stairs and jumped off quite a high cliff, without enough time to think about what we were doing! good thing we moved quickly, because the cliff was actually quite high. a few minutes later we were changed again and back in the van. another day, another adventure!
*while we were staying in tulum, we decided renting bikes during a windstorm might be a good idea. we were trying to have a leisurely bide ride along the coast but ended up essentially standing still as we fought a wall of wind. we always have the best ideas! the wind also affected our sun-tanning mission. we were being attacked by a sandstorm so we set up a barricade by turning a kayak and using it to shield us. only slightly successful, but very ingenious!
and a lot of...
*amazing friend catch-up time, bonding and memories.
gracias mi amor!
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