Mexico 2019 Part Two

Let me think … What else happened on the trip?

The last time we were here, the entertainment was sub-par, but this year it was great! I loved all of the nightly entertainment. The evening entertainment wasn’t my cup of tea with different silly games and such, but the nightly dancing shows were amazing! All of the dancers were incredible and my mom and I also got to see a Grease show, so that was fun!

One day my family decided to venture off of the resort for an excursion to a natural water park called Xel-Ha. This was one excursion that nobody had ever done, so we were all excited for a new adventure. The bus left very early in the morning, around 7am. We were all ready to go and we all hopped onto the bus for the hour trip to Xel-Ha. While on the bus, it was pouring rain outside. It wasn’t the nicest day weather wise, but it was warm enough for us to enjoy the water. For the most part, while we were at the park, it wasn’t raining. We started off by having a complete breakfast at one of the included restaurants before my dad, Blake, my brother Logan, and Logan's girlfriend Rebecca all went snorkeling. My mom and I aren’t big on snorkeling. In fact, my mom can’t swim, so being in the open ocean isn’t on her list of “things to do”. While they were swimming around, my mom and I decided to walk some of the path. There wasn’t much to see, but we did visit the Manatee exhibit and got to see the lazy “sea-cows” lying around. We strolled for about an hour before heading back to meet up with the others. We actually got back at the perfect time because we arrived just as they were returning to the dock. I’m glad we didn’t go with them because, while out there, they saw a barracuda! Apparently the predator was just chilling underneath the floating dock out in the cove. Blake came within 5 feet of him before realizing what he was seeing. Scary!

After they returned their snorkeling gear, the “youngsters” decided to do the 100ft waterslide. There were two different slides, one white and one blue. We were told ahead of time that the blue slide was the faster of the two (the boys tried both and said they didn’t notice a difference), so Rebecca and I opted for the white one. It was quite the hike to get to the top and a lot of people just did the climb for the views before heading back down. The first half of the walk up is enclosed, but the top half is open to the sky so that you can take in the views. I kept my eyes on the stairs and only looked up once I was at the top. The slide was actually a lot of fun. It was even fun at the end when you plummeted into the water at a very steep angle … that was unexpected. We weren’t allowed to bring anything up with us, so I don’t have any pictures of the view, but trust me when I say that it was beautiful!

The whole park is a big circle, so after the slides, we decided to continue around the park. Next we had to cross a floating bridge (we didn’t mention this to my non-swimming mother before arriving to said bridge or else she would have never crossed it) before getting to the mini cenotes on the other side. Blake, Logan, Rebecca, and I all crawled into the cenotes and “Golem-walked” across the rocks; there wasn’t much head room. It was fun. After we swam around for a bit, we continued walking to a swing rope that seemed incredibly dangerous. We were hopeful it would be a fun rope to swing into the water on, but it took you right between two rock formations and seemed like a major accident waiting to happen. There was a lot of walking before we got to the cliff-jumping which only Blake and Logan did. Until, finally, we got to the top of the park to the lazy river. We were able to pack up our belongings, including our shoes, and have them shipped to the end of the river where we could retrieve them. We thought this was a great idea until my parents had to end their lazy river mere moments after beginning - due to my dad’s back pain - and then having to walk 40 minutes to the bottom of the river to retrieve their shoes. The next sequence of events were quite unfortunate, but here is the long story short:

- My parents got into a fight after ending the lazy river short and separated on the trail

- My dad returned to meet us, without my mother

- Blake and I decided to run the whole length of the park in search of my mother (told my dad “stay here!”)

- Blake and I returned to the “meeting place” and found my mother … without my father

(while we were searching for my mother) My mom met up with my dad at the meeting spot, so my dad decided to walk back up to the top to find Blake and I - Blake and I were already running the opposite side of the park at this time.

- I decided to then, run part of the way back up the park to find my dad. I found him

- We reunited the family and Blake and I burned off all of the calories we had eaten earlier that week during the vacation.

- We had lunch

It was a mind boggling situation filled with many poor decisions. However, we reunited and all returned on, relatively, good terms. Once we finished lunch, there wasn’t much else to do. We had done it all. On a map the park looked big and walking it felt even bigger, but there wasn’t much to do overall at Xel-Ha. My dad took my mom in the water close to the dock and pushed her around on the raft so that she could still experience the lazy river. Meanwhile, I enjoyed watching the beautiful fish swimming around them. We tried to waste time until our buses arrived, so we got changed and my mom shopped around while I watched the dolphins play. There was a maternity ward for one dolphin and I watched the mother and her baby swimming around. It was super cute. After a while, the bus finally arrived and we hopped on to end our day. Blake immediately passed out - he was exhausted! Overall, it was fun to experience, but I probably wouldn’t go back nor recommend Xel-Ha. There are many other amazing and better excursions that would top this one.

The only other major thing about this trip that I can remember is that, out of the 7 days that we were there and besides the first actual day, I was only feeling well for 2 days. On those days, Blake had decided to smoke cigars for the first time ever which caused him to get nicotine poisoning and put him out of commission for those days. Silly man. He still won’t admit that it was the cigar that caused him to feel unwell, but it 100% was.

On our departure day, Blake and I were both feeling better and we decided to workout to burn off some energy prior to our flight. While on the treadmill, my treadmill malfunctioned and I was unable to stop it. I finally had to pull the emergency clip, but it was kind of scary when it happened. Looking back it is actually pretty funny. My brother and Rebecca had already checked in and booked their seats on the flight, so we decided to try to do that ourselves. When we logged in, it seemed that - practically - the entire plane had already been booked. I figured it was probably a mistake. Blake and I had chosen the seats, but hadn’t pushed the “Finish” button to claim them. Anyways, we decided to just deal with it at the airport, so we got on the bus and headed on our way. Once we arrived at the airport … BEHOLD … the flight was delayed and delayed … and delayed some more. As well, only a few people had pre-booked their seats. However, when Blake and I got to the front, we were placed in the seats that we had chosen earlier that day; which was weird because we never confirmed them. Unfortunately, this meant that we were separated while everyone else was seated with their significant others. My parents offered to switch with us, but they were seated in the middle of the plane. Blake and I figured that the middle of the plane equaled more chances for babies crying or annoying surrounding passengers, so we kept our seats at the back of the plane. Once we got on the plane, we quickly realized that was a mistake because EVERY child on the plane was seated at the back of the plane. It wasn’t so bad. Most of the kids were excellent and tired since our plane was delayed into the evening; so most of them slept. Also, Blake was seated next to the cutest baby I have ever seen, so that was nice. All we had to deal with was a stinky diaper or two and a poor little girl that got air sickness and vomited during our descent.

Honestly, when we landed, I was so happy to be home. It had snowed and I was so happy! Even though the warm weather is nice, I like this time of year because it marks the beginning of the Christmas season (my favourite time of year). I loved getting to spend quality time with my family, but I couldn’t wait to get back home and (surprisingly) I couldn’t wait to get back to work. Being in my own bed was a bonus too!

It might not have been the most amazing vacation, but any time that I get to spend time with my family is awesome to me!