A little bit different than last year's trip--we literally spent the majority of our week laid out on the beach with cold buckets of beer being brought to us every half hour. Once we arrived in Isla, it took us no more than 7 minutes to jump off the ferry, check into our hotel and plop down in beach chairs.
My parent's veins have certainly adjusted to their Mexico lifestyle because they're clearly used to pumping beer rather than water. I was guzzling water by the gallon trying to stay somewhat sober and hydrated but, to my amazement, Mom and Dad were handling the sun-alcohol ratio much better than myself.
One day we did rent a golf cart to do some exploration of the island. We drove around awhile observing the busy little town. Props to Dad for handling the local Taxi driver rage like a champ with no rear view mirror!
We paid 30 pesos each (roughly $2.70 USD) to walk around a seemingly typical park on the Caribbean side of the island which unexpectedly turned into a cliff-side hike complete with caves, amazing views and even some Mayan ruins and history. You know those post cards you see with completely clear blue water crashing over these enormous, dangerous looking rocks? The white spray of the waves always looks pretty and romantic and you can just hear the waves crash when you see those photos but you never actually imagine a place like that being within your reach... well, we were inches from it.
Dad claimed this was his personal favorite view of Isla Mujeres, Island of Women...
It was definitely a memorable day. After our surprise adventure we bee-lined for the beach, as expected.
And the food... oh the food... I intentionally took pictures of every meal we ate. The number of restaurants is somewhat ironic on this tiny little island. Every single meal we ate was excellent. If the topless European girls and cheap beer doesn't sell my boyfriend on visiting Isla Mujeres again soon then the food, without a doubt, will. Some of our favorites:
Flautas de pollo at a tiny, off-the-beaten-path luncheria
tuna carpaccio at a nice steakhouse in the center of town
garlic and butter soft shell crab at a fish shack on the beach
That pretty much puts our Isla trip into a nutshell although the pictures and text will never do the memories justice. After every vacation I always go home with some new philosophy on life. I'm totally convinced I'm going to get back to Houston and buy a Spanish book to become completely fluent and I also want to convince all of my friends we should quit our jobs, master basket weaving and move to the Caribbean to sell straw bags on the beach. Of course, real life will set in sometime this week and my vacation induced ideas of living in a beach shack will long be forgotten. However, what my parents have instilled through their adventures and what you should take from it also is that sometimes you really just have to do what you want. What do you really want to do today, this week, within the next year or even the next 5 years? It doesn't have to be some exotic vacation to the Maldives or a 46-day cruise to Cairo. Maybe within the next month you simply want to discover a bed and breakfast in the next town over. Just do it. I promise the memories are so worth the sacrifices it takes to get there.
Adios mis amigos, until next year..
Yes...it was a great trip!xxxooo
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