GlossyVeneer

Thursday:
We woke kind of early on this day. I had the habit of planning things at times I didn’t think were too insanely early but then they felt early because Cancun was two hours earlier than our normal time, and we were trying to relax on vacation. Oh well. After a light breakfast we headed to the spa for a couples massage.

Honestly, I don’t know what the appeal of getting a couples massage over a regular individual massage is other than the fact that it saved us about $25. It’s not like there’s more “romance” or whatever. My husband even said that he was so relaxed and enjoying his massage that I could have left the room and he wouldn’t have noticed.

I have never left a massage quite as oiled up as I was after this one. I felt like I should go prance around a wrestling ring or something because I was positively glistening. And my hair was rather frightening after this because the therapist massaged my head too. It is kind of weird when your own appearance shocks you as you glance in the mirror, which is exactly what happened when I saw the weird directions my hair was standing.

At the end of the session the therapist said to me, in her broken English, “You are very tense. In shoulders.”

Sigh…

Someday I will be completely relaxed. Someday…

After the massages we went and lounged on the beach for a while with our iPods. Then we decided it was time to get cleaned up and get some food in our bellies. After a miserable meal at the open-air cafe on the property (it was far too windy to enjoy the meal, when the wind is picking up elements of your meal and flinging your straw out of the Coca-Light… that’s just annoying!) we decided to walk to the flea market and see what was happening there.

Ugh… I am a bad tourist when it comes to spending on the Mexican locals because we took one quick walk through and tried to dodge the vendors screaming out at us. “Cuban cigars!” “Pretty jewelry lady!” “You want t-shirts?” I was on vacation, I didn’t need that pseudo-pressure so we went back to the hotel, put the bathing suits back on, found some shelter on a beach and lounged there for a few more hours.

Our last night was our best meal of the whole trip. I wish we had tried this restaurant the first night because we probably would have been there each night. I had some crazy shrimp skewers that were stuck in a grilled slice of pineapple. There was a flaming lime on my plate, that the server used to run the shrimp/veggie skewers over before taking the fire away. And my husband had some amazing black coral mussels with a sweet potato souffle. It was a good meal.

We spent time wandering around the resort a little and relaxing before eventually turning in to catch our flight home the next day.

Wow… for being a day that didn’t have a lot of activities on the agenda, I’ve sure rambled a lot on this. I’ll save our return travel for tomorrow.

Monday:
We flew to Cancun, with a stop in Phoenix, on this day. Although our flight left early in the morning, we got to the resort mid-afternoon so we had a little time to get settled and explore. We were greeted with a large banner across our room’s door that said “Anniversary” and we had a large fruit basket and chilled champagne waiting for us in the room as a gift from the hotel. We had a lovely dinner of surf and turf at one of the resort restaurants. After eating we checked out a DVD from the hotel and just relaxed in our room since we were exhausted from traveling all day.

Tuesday:
The big plan for the day? No plan really. Just sit on the beach with books, ipods and sunblock while we both relaxed. Let the worries and cares of the “real” world float away. It was really super windy in Cancun and I had no idea what to do with my hair in that kind of humidity, but it didn’t really matter. All that mattered was that I finished two whole books while on vacation and didn’t have a Blackberry chirping at me every other second.

Wednesday:
One of the main reasons we chose to visit Cancun was because my husband wanted to see some Mayan ruins. We booked a trip to Chichen Itza in advance and my hubby was really looking forward to the experience. The plan was for the bus to pick us up, drive us the 2.5 hours to the ruins, we would have a 45 minute guided tour and then a little more than 2 hours to explore on our own. Then we would be taken to lunch at a restaurant in a little Mexican village followed by a trip to the Il Kil cenote (natural well).

The drive to the ruins was fine, with drinks and pastries provided. Upon arrival we were given water bottles and the tour started. It was about 100 degrees at Chichen Itza, something I didn’t think would bother me since I live in Las Vegas; I’m used to the heat. But the thing I’m not used to? Humidity.

Halfway through the tour I started to feel a little dizzy, so I wandered away from the group to lean against a tree. My husband came over to me and the next thing I remember is waking up on the ground.

I don’t recall any of this: the hubby says that I started saying “Oh no, Oh no!” And then I started tipping over. He caught me and tried to lower me to the ground, but he said I was kind of flailing around some. Then he said I started mumbling, “What happened?”. The point at which I start remembering things is right after that and I was aware of being on the ground with rocks embedded into my elbow and then I asked, “Where’s my camera?” (It was still around my neck, but it was laying off to the side in the dirt.)

My husband removed the camera from my neck and helped me sit up. Then the ambulance showed up.

Apparently I’m not alone in passing out at Chichen Itza, as there are a couple ambulances there waiting to help people. The ambulance techs didn’t speak English, so our tour guide had to translate. They asked how I was feeling, the tour guide translated and the first thing out of my mouth was, “Embarrassed.”

Oops… I guess the Spanish word for “pregnant” is very close to “embarrassed”. So then they were all concerned about that possibility. After denying that I was with child and telling them that I didn’t need to be loaded into the ambulance, I sat on the ground for a while. Someone in our tour group had pulled out a wash cloth, doused it with water and gave it to my husband so he could put it on my neck. Another person in the group said, “Pour water over her head.” So then I had water dumped over my head. Another man who had a scooter at Chichen Itza, I think he was one of the vendors selling there, rode off and bought me a bottle of water. I tried to pay him back, but he wouldn’t take anything.

We walked back to the restaurant at the entrance of the grounds where we sat for 40 minutes while I ate an entire single-serve package of Pringles (sodium) and drank some Gatorade (electrolytes). Then we spent 40 minutes wandering around, but I felt bad because I had taken away a lot of the time we should have spent playing there… the one place my husband was really excited to see.

After we went to lunch and then went to the cenote. I chose not to jump into the water since my mind was pretty foggy the rest of the day, but my hubby did make the jump. We went back to the hotel and chose to visit the buffet restaurant instead of one of the other choices because a) it was the fastest way to get food into me and b) we wouldn’t have to go get somewhat dressed up like the other eateries required.

Aside from scabs and bruises on my arm, I didn’t have any lingering problems from my fall except for the embarrassing feeling of being “the girl on the tour that passed out”.

This has gotten pretty long, so I’ll recap my last couple days tomorrow.