Cancun - Day Two

After a night of living in vacation poverty (showering in a pond due to a clogged tub drain, cracks all over the ceiling, sharp/cracked tiles on the floor, mold on the bathroom ceiling, broken lamps, terrible ligthing, musty smells) Eric was finally fully convinced that we needed to get out of there, at any cost. The next morning, at around 10am, we called our booking company, cheapcaribbean.com, and explained the situation to them, and they agreed to call the hotel and see if they could do anything to get us a better room. I really had no hope of them actually calling the hotel and pleading our case, let alone convincing them to give us a better room, so I resigned myself to forking out an additional $200 if that meant we weren't living in poverty for the week. Price you gotta pay!?

But  lo and behold, they did call. When we went to the front desk 20 minutes later, completely defeated and resigned to accepting our fate, the new morning manager on duty had already talked to someone from cheap caribbean. Without much persuading from our part, we were soon inspecting our beautiful new room, which was in the same building, still with an ocean-view, for no extra cost. And boy was it a sight for sore eyes...

It smelled of clean, cool air, with just a hint of fresh paint. Beautiful tiled floors, nice clean bed linens, great lighting, flat-screen tv. This was what I had imagined. This would definitely do! We quickly moved our stuff over and settled in. Crisis over! It was such a relief!

Now that our accommations were secure, we were finally ready to play and start our vacation. We spent the afternoon away from our resort, walking along the beautiful white beach and inspecting everyone else's resorts to see what we were (or were not) missing out on. As it turns out, our resort was probably the most beautiful peace of property in the hotel zone. Our resort was gigantic and its gardens were gorgeous, whereas the resorts on the 2 miles or so of beach that we walked were pretty small in comparison, with no gardens at all. So, that made us feel a bit better about our resort. If we were to go back, however, we would definitely book a room at the Westin. It's grounds were impeccably clean and the infinity pool area was amazing. We couldn't resist taking a dip in their pool, just to see how an infinity pool feels, and let me tell you, it was awesome. And lucky for us, no one seemed to mind. :) I'm pretty sure it costs a fortune to stay there, but one can dream.

That evening we booked a snorkeling tour for the next day and then, per our tour-sales-man's recommendations, we went into Cancun for their weekly Sunday Fiesta. We rode the bus into town for $.80 a person, and arrived in Mexican fair-food-heaven, complete with Mexican folk-dancers for our entertainment. If you know me, you know how much I love fair food, and I was like a kid in a candy store. Even Eric was excited about this fair-food scenario, as all of his favorite Mexican food was right there for us to partake and enjoy.

Most people would probably be a little wary about this scenario. I mean, not even fair food in the States is completely safe...Mexican fair food would certainly be the death of somone, right!? Getting sick crossed my mind for a split second, but after looking at the long lines behind each vendor, I figured that the crowds wouldn't lie. And Eric, my resident Mexico expert, assured me this place was definitely safe. So I then proceeded to eat myself silly. Street tacos, nutella crepes, more tacos, fanta, more tacos, and finally the best churros I had ever tasted, drizzled in lechera (sweetened condensed milk)...I am still dreaming about those churros, they were SOOO good!

After we stuffed ourselves silly and saw all the sights and folk-dance performances we cared to see, we decided to make our way back to the resort. We then ate a second dinner at the Brazillian steak house restaurant. We had a lot of restaurants to get through at his resort, and we couldn't afford to let a night go by without trying one if we wanted to make it through them all. :) The steakhouse was amazing. The buffet was just so-so for me, but the meat more than made up for it. While I am still dreaming about churros, Eric is still dreaming of their bacon-wrapped turkey.

And then we spent the evening watching a movie on our laptop, under the glow of the best feature of our new room, something we lovingly referred to as the "Sens" lights. They were awesome...

It was a great day. Maybe this all-inclusive thing isn't so bad after all.