Lucy and Ethel go to Mexico. (The Shark Story) Part 1

(This is Part 1 of a three part story.  Be sure to check out Part 2 and Part 3 to see what happens when two responsible moms go to Mexico for a Girls’ Vacation and get stupid.)

Spurred on by Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, I thought I would share this tale. While it initially was going to be one post, it is long enough that I feel I should break it into two parts.

In June 2007, my best friend and I found ourselves in desperate need of a vacation, a drink, some girl time and a way to celebrate my upcoming 40th birthday …so we hopped on a plane and headed off to Mexico.  We found all of those things, as well as tequila, ceviche, and fodder for a drunken shark tale.

Eva and I flew in to Cancun, and then took a 2 hour cab-ride to Tulum. The resort we were staying in was beautiful. Upon arrival, we were each handed a glass of champagne and taken on a tour of the grounds. Gorgeous white-washed buildings, thatched roofs, pools, grottoes, an amazing spa, lush landscaping, birds singing…

We were taken to our suite, with an amazing view of the Caribbean. There was one king size bed instead of 2 doubles. They apologized profusely and said they couldn’t move us until the next day.   Not a problem, we said.   Having grown up together, we had had many a sleepover in the same bed.   We assured them we were fine for the evening.

Our concierge was asking us about our trip… were we wanting to relax?
Is this a celebration?
Did we want to do a lot of activities?
We were pretty sure the only activity we would be interested in was raising an arm and signaling for the cabana boy, but we told her we’d let her know.

We did say that, yes, we were there to celebrate my birthday.   The concierge told us they do a special menu in honor of birthdays… when would we like to do it and what would we like to eat.   We asked if we could let her know on that a bit later.   We just wanted to get some dinner and relax.

We had a nice dinner and some decent margaritas and stayed at the table chatting for hours.   It was wonderful!   No kids interrupting, no schedules or calendars. A little bit of heaven. We went to bed and slept straight through until almost noon the next day!

They moved us the following day to a room with 2 beds… but it was ground level, with a view of the employee parking lot. Also, the air-conditioning was not working. We moved back to the first room, almost certainly causing speculation that we were lesbians. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

This?

This was Base Camp.

This?

This was the view from Base Camp. (Kindly refrain from leaving comments about my hammer toes.)

This is how we spent our first full day at the resort.

It is also pretty much how we spent every other day at the resort. (Oh, how we loves us a good swim-up bar…)

A la Castaway, please meet Wilson and Spaulding… our new BFFs.

We forgot this guy’s real name…

…we reverently refer to him now as “Mr. Kept The Mojitos And Ceviche Coming…” He was fabulous and was our pool butler for the week. He was such a sweetie that he even set towels out in order to reserve Base Camp for us each morning.

Each night at dinner we would spend hours just sitting and talking at one of the 3 amazing restaurants on the grounds.

We took a tequila tasting lesson.

We were very good students.

By about the 4th day, we thought we should go check out the Mayan ruins at Tulum. As we headed off of the resort for the first time, we stopped in our tracks.

Holy Crap!

An iguana! Check it out! Get a picture of him!

Oh look. There’s another one. And another one. Holy Sombreros, they’re all over the place!

Oh.

I guess they don’t come into the pool or the bars. That explains why we didn’t see any until now.

The ruins were amazing, we checked things out, did a bit of shopping and went right back to the resort …and back to Base Camp.

May I have another mojito, please? And some ceviche?

I give you all of this back story to illustrate just how laid back our week was. We did not go anywhere. We did not do anything but relax. The people at the resort expected us to continue to do so.

I should also explain, that even though we are Lucy and Ethel, we take turns being Lucy. Eva may deny it, but she was Lucy this time. I figure we cheated death 5 times in one day. (I counted.)

The next morning at breakfast, Eva said she would like to go snorkeling. Our waiter suggested an area not too far from the resort. He said we could rent snorkeling gear when we got there, it was a nice area… populated, but not too crowded, and we could simply hop on the shuttle bus and get dropped off right near the beach. And the best part? He said that it is one of the best places to view sea turtles.

Sea turtles!? Eva was sold… We were going snorkeling.

Lucy and Ethel go to Mexico. (The Shark Story) Part 2

Lucy and Ethel go to Mexico. (The Shark Story) Part 3