Mexico beaching 2016

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Mexico – Rivera Maya 29th May – 13th June

It's that time of year again and we are off for 2 weeks of sun, sea and non-pebble beaches in Mexico!

A nice early 5am start, bound for Gatwick for our flight on the Thomson Dreamliner (apparently ubér modern and fancy) to Mexico for two weeks of 5-star sun, sea, sand and Mayan hospitality.

Some airport fun and games at Alfonso's restaurant, quickly seated but no one to server us for 20 minutes... in a very British way we depart for Jamie Olivers after saying no thank you to Alfonsos bad service. Tradition is the order of the day with a full fry up before out inflight (no-doubt) delish food! Boarding the fancy DreamLiner plane which was pretty uneventful, few movies down on the flight and a bit of tick'tak'toe gaming, i won!

So, after a long, long flight, 13 odd hours’ door to door we arrive at our hotel, El Dorado Sensimar. Amazing entrances for all hotels down the huge strip and we are greeted with some champagne and get booked in for some well earnt downtime.
We decide that it's best to stay awake to beat the jet lag... unwise (I wouldn't recommend this again!). By 8pm EST we are in the Gastro Pub waiting for our food and both like nodding dogs, an America Texas couple next to us wanted to chat, fair to say that our banter was not strong! Off to bed >>>

Next day is full of exploring the huge resort with a bit of beach and pool relaxation and cocktails thrown in for good measure.

A fully organised day of relaxation, a bit of a juxtaposition that one but we start off at the hydrotherapy centre and get into our soft towl robarge before hitting the below:

- Mud sauna
- Cold minty room
- All over pressure showers
- Jet massage, neck, back and boooody (goose neck)
- Jacuzzi hot, cold and plunge pool (cold!)
- golf cart to our on the beach massage, full TKO (Total KnowOut) for both of us!

A few cocktails later and we needed an early night, might be the time difference as well but I think we were asleep by 7pm EST after watching some qualiaty American TV, 4 episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond!

A few more beach and pool days with plenty of fine dining around the many resturants in between we decide to book a few days out, Chicken Pizza and Sheen Ka’an all booked up. We spend the rest of the day around the beach bbq and swing bars chilling out.

The Chickeny Pizza day arrives and we catch the coach at 6am for Chitch Nitzhas Maya city, a huge senoté and the first Spanish settlement in the Yucatan province. It's an early start and we decided to book room service, little did we know there would be many breakfasts to follow on the coach as well, welcome to full town! Lol.

Chitch Nitzhas was truely beautiful and our tour guide (Victor) was very knowledgable expaling how the sacrifices were used to control a diverse tribal system across a large area. Lots of exploring and after a few hours the midday sun had got the better of us, time ti cool off at a natural watering hole. Senoté bound, we get treated to a authentic Maya village were we sample honey spirits, quiet nice but i still prefer tequilla. Some food at a buffet style resturant was put on for us but it was a bit to put on for the tourists and lacked any kind of authenticity which was a shame. Food tasted great mind, but i'll come back that...

A quick dippy dip in the senoté with the fishes, really good fun and definetly cooled us off.
Last stop of the day, a very old Spanish style village which was stunning, very similar to many citys in Spain with a large church at its centerpoint off a park square. This church however was built out of anchient Mayan temple stone, this was due to the Mayan worshiping snakes and the obvious connection for Christians was that they worshipped the devil. Meaning they knocked down as many temples as possible and converted them to churchs, which is why there are so many churces in the Yucatan!
In the village we try a local delicacy, sweetcorn ice cream, i'm happy to say it was actually really nice, not sure Helen agreed mind!

So... to follow on from the food on at the Mayan village, i ate a fairly suspect bit of pink chicken... it's fair to say that it came back to haunt me for the next few days!? :· After a few days of chilling in the sun and the a bit of swimming we were back in business and back to our normal selves. We decice to treat our selves by trying the Oriental fusion resturatant with a movie night off from the world. We full overdosed on sushi and pad thai before watching {insert film!}

More pool-days and sea-days, mudslides, mango tangos, seaside margaritas & captain morgan blacks (drinks!).
Some afternoon laughs provided by the pool aerobics instructer, a Mayan guy who couldn't be more camp doing his routine which consited mainly of him air thrusting at the people taking part in the sea, hiliarious to watch!

Another outing, this time down to Tulum and the Sian Ka’an biosphere to see sea tacos (turtles), sting rays, bottle nose dolphins on a speed boat expidition. Amazing day out, felt a bit bad for some of the animals been hounded by the boats chasing them but still amazing to see stingrays, turtles and dolphins in their natural habitat. On route we also saw a huge multi-million pound house that is owned by Jack Nicholson, looks like the white house, nice!

On the way back on the monster truck down a very long, long dirt track for the return back to base the heavans opened with a lot of rain kicking off the forest palm trees as we sped past getting whipped by passing trees. One thing to note as we found out a day later, there be leeches in them woods! That’s right, lots of tiny leeches all over us… urgh! After an evening ripping these out we are left bloodied from the little buggers, still well worth it though!

The death walk.. jagged rocks and water coming in, all in the name of getting to the last hotel on the strip where Helens family are staying in 2017. It's a long walk down the beach passing two huge resourts, both very nice but very much kid friendly so not for us right now. We did have to take a break at a little cafe/eatery where we come across a weird cat dog animal that seemed very tame, a bit like a fox but with a more cat like body, weird. Anyway... we get to a sea filled pool on the edge of the beach which is teaming with little fish and chill there for a bit, a this point we still can't see the other hotel as it's around a bay?! Continuing onwards we pass several hundred lizards and a massive eagle on the beach, we are now no longer on a path and are treking down a pebbly beach. Flip flops might have been a bad call! About an hour or so more of walking and with Helens flip flop breaking into pieces we stumble upon the dolphin centre, via the back entrance! Little did we know, this was actually part of the hotel we were trying to get to, off to explore the venue! Huge hotel with more pools than i've ever seen, sadly they didn't accept dollars here so we it was a cheeky water for us. A taxi cab back to the hotel takes us about 15 minutes, walking took around 4 hours!

Last few days are spent sunning ourselves and getting the most of the all inclusive.

Amazing part of the world, first class hotel and people.

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