Sunday, March 08, 2009

Belated Mexico

So, winter was brutal in Toronto – we broke the record amount of snow fallen, dangerous cold warnings went out, a lot, and we were just getting to the part of the winter where everyone’s aching for some sunlight, and yet they all know there won’t be any for another month, at least.
And that’s when I got to go to Mexico.
Sweet.

Everything about it was wonderful. Even the flight out was, like, the best flight I’ve ever been on- with snacks and food and wine and champagne. (Though the movie did suck, and they played “When the moon hits your eye” when we landed – classic Italian songs are the ideal way to welcome visitors to Mexico, I guess).
We made it to the resort, and saw the Mom, which was, of course, great.

The resort was large, but it didn’t feel huge. It was horseshoe shaped, facing the beach, and had three pools in the centre, with a ‘river’ connecting the pools, and a swim-up bar, and two restaurants. There were wild iguanas and cats and peacocks that all made the hotel their home (very cool – guests of the hotel would pick hyacinth flowers and feed them to the iguanas). That night we had dinner in an open-walled restaurant overlooking the ocean.
All the rooms face outdoors, so when we went to bed that night, we could hear the waves, and the sound was so perfect that we actually wondered if the sound was being piped in. (It wasn’t.)

We spent the next three days by the pool. The brother made fun of me for bringing four books, but we burned through those pretty quickly. Fortunately, there was an informal book exchange at the towel hut, and we got some more reading material there.
We spent some time on the beach, but I liked the pools better. Lounges everywhere, a little music, and guys in white who wandered around bringing us drinks and food and drinks and frozen towels and drinks…

There was a marina about ten minutes’ walk from the resort, and we went there one night for dinner. There were a couple of cool art places, a tequila boutique with free tastings, and a lot of restaurants, including where we went – Victors. I loved Victors!!! That place had the best tortilla soup I’ve ever tasted. And the tequila was free, and flowed like water. The brother had warned me before our trip that I was not, at any point, to turn down any offers of free stuff (this stems from the last flight we took together, when I was offered both a newspaper and a glass of wine that I didn’t want, and was later lectured for turning down). So you can imagine what it took to have the brother, by the end of the night, pleading not to be brought any more tequila, LOL!

We also took the hotel’s free bus tour of the city, which included time to shop and explore the city. The area we were in was busy and bright and there was too much to look at. This is also when I found a shop full of Huichol art – beaded art done by the Huichol Indians. We took some pics there, and I bought a Huichol owl to take home with me!

Then there was a ride up through the foothills of the Sierra Madres to a fabulous seafood restaurant. The Mom and the brother shared a drink made up of several different alcohols – including moonshine – which was served in a coconut decorated with flowers and straws…and a carrot. We never really figured out where the carrot came in.
We went back to the pool some more, and on our second-to-last day, we went on a real adventure, with speed boating and whale watching and horseback riding and snorkeling and a private beach with a catered lunch. That was an incredible day- we saw three humpback whales, and dolphins.
When we went riding, well, I think my horse on the way up to the waterfall was named ‘Glue Yesterday’, but I got a different mount on the way back, and he was minimally more ‘lively’. At the waterfall was a restaurant with drinks and munchies, and a swimming hole. Then we rode back and got back in the speedboat, to go to our private beach. Snorkeling was cool – I saw a tiny little jelly, and a blowfish and some long-nosed fish, and small sharks all in a group, and bright little tropical fish, and stingrays and sea urchins. Very cool!

By then we were tired, and starving, but the meal on the beach was so good (there was really delicious steak – I’m going to try and recreate here). Afterward I laid in a hammock strung between two palm trees drinking a pink drink out of a coconut, and knew it was heaven.
That evening we went to the upscale restaurant at the hotel, which was specializing in gourmet Mexican food. It was great, and we ate so much, and after we were stuffed, then the staff started singing and I tried to sink into the floor cause they were singing at me. They brought me a birthday cake, too, which was delicious, but we were so full that we mostly just picked at it. I should have brought it back to the room, in retrospect.
And the next day was travel day again. The Mom flew out early, and the brother and I spent the day by the pool before going to the airport. The flight back was a little delayed, and again the movie sucked, but was otherwise fine. The brother leant me his noise-cancelling headphones for the whole flight, which was very sweet of him – those things are amazing.
And then we were in Toronto again, where it was cold, and later, snowed. And all three of us looked back fondly on our trip…
…and decided to do it again, next year.