mexico 5/24/08: Como se dice, "stuck in Mexico"?

Hola amigos favoritos!

So, omg. We are totally stuck in Mexico! Don't you worry bout a thang, though. American Airlines put us on a broken plane (something about an engine), but they noticed in time so we didn't die or anything. But, we were stuck on the plane for a couple hours, and then it turned out that we wouldn't be able to make it to customs in Dallas before closing. So, the airline has put us up in a hotel overnight. And they gave us a free dinner and stuff. So that's all fine. At this point we're expected home around 3 tomorrow, but who knows!

In other things, the last few days in Mexico have been amazing! I've been so completely happy. On Wednesday we all took a ferry to the Isla de las Mujeres, which has a very cool history about pirates and marauding buccaneers, woohoo! Melissa told us some sort of story involving love and death and a woman left on an island or turned to stone, but she wasn't sure exactly so neither am I. haha. Anyway, the food was excellent-- we ate at the greatest little place there, with delicious guacamole and fish. My fish was raw and had octopus and oysters or something. It was an adventure on a plate. Then we shopped at the little colorful stands and went to the beach.

On Thursday, we went to the water park. The coolest part there was that Amy and I swam with the dolphins! The dolphins were so cool. We have pictures of us having a water fight with them-- when you splash them, that's their signal to splash you back. The other signal that was really funny was that if you pointed your fingers and moved your hands up and down like a conductor, the dolphins made chirping noises. So that was all super cool. One of the dolphins liked me and turned over on his back so I could rub his belly. So fun.

And finally, Friday was the best day of the entire trip! April, Ben and I went to the ruins at Chichen Itza. The three hour ride was totally worth it because the ruins were AMAZING...possibly even cooler than the Roman ruins, maaaybe. The big pyramid is one of the new Seven Wonders, so I was really glad to get to see that. People aren't allowed to climb it anymore though, unfortunately. They just stopped allowing that two years ago, when a woman fell and died. But, just seeing it was cool. We clapped at the bottom because the echo makes chirping noises, and we saw the observatory and you could still see all sorts of engravings and some of the remains of paint. Also, April and I played funny games like "who can take the longest steps" because we wanted to play in the ruins, but it was also pretty hot out so we were trying not to go too crazy.

Anyway, I should run. But, hooray for our week in Mexico! I think this will wrap up my Mexicana emails for this trip (unless we're very unlucky tomorrow) but I'll be writing again from camp this summer. If it's anything like last summer, there will be lots of good stories.

con amor,
Sara

mexico 5/20/08: buenas noches!

Hola guapos!

Oh dear, its back to those tricky keyboards. Im writing you all from Cancun, Mexico! que divertido. Also, I will not be using...quotation marks? Flying comas? What are those called? Oh well. Either way, I cannot find them. Although, I do have nice access to the ¡ and the ¿.

Anyway, Cancun is just beautiful. We re staying at this great resort with Aunt Joanne and Uncle Dean, and their kids April and Allen, and their significant others Ben and Melissa (respectively). The weather is very warm and tropical and humid, which I just love. Although, it is a bit sweaty. But still, I think its great. The resort has a bunch of huge pools, too, and we re right on the beach. The beaches are white sand and the sand doesnt get too hot, which is kind of amazing. But at the resort, the pool is the coolest thing. We have a swim up bar AND a swing up bar~ how lucky are we? Pretty lucky! The swim up bar has seats built right into the floor of the pool, and the swing up bar is actually just a bar that has swing instead of seats. Im not sure if its actually called a swing up bar, but thats what Ive been calling it. The pool also has a volleyball court, so April bought one of those colorful inflated balls and weve been playing volleyball. woohoo!

So, the trip has been very fun so far, although the hardest thing has probably been coordinating eight people. We are lucky enough to all be easy going, but its still tricky trying to keep track of everyone without cell phones. (Some of our cell phones work, but the rates are expensive so we dont use them). It was all sorts of craziness flying in! Almost all the "couples" were on different flights, though Amy and I were with Dean and Joanne. For our flight, we had to be at the airport at 800 am California time, and we didnt arrive at the resort until 1130 pm Cancun time! It was a very long day, and we all laughed at how exhausting it is to sit around doing nothing much all day.

We ended up taking some R&R time at the resort the first couple of days (delicious food! yummy drinks! crafts! pools!) though we also had fun going into town and bartering. Today we had our first big excursion, to Tulum to see some of the Mayan ruins. They were so neat! We had fun poking around them and looking at the different carvings and things. But, the coolest part was going to the beach. There was a beach just below the cliff that the ruins were on, so we took this steep wooden staircase down to the bottom and left our things in the sand and went into the ocean. The water was warm and blue and the sand was soft and the waves were PERFECT for body boarding. I hadnt really intended to bodysurf but one swelled right in front of me so I dove with it and it carried me all the way to shore! And of course, all of this was with the ruins overlooking us. It was very neat.

I also got saved about $5.00 on sarongs, but I need to try Shannons trick. April told us her friend Shannon was the best at bartering--even if something cost fifteen dollars, Shannon would say "one dollar" and (according to April) it usually worked! I will have to try it at some point.

Hasta luego, con amor
Sara