Tropical Christmas

 Will surprised me a few months ago when he came home from work and told me that he booked us a trip to Mexico for Christmas.  It wasn't a total surprise because we had talked about it and both decided that it would be fun.  But it was he that called a travel agent and found good flight rates for a direct flight from Salt Lake City to Cancun.  We spent the week of Christmas in Mexico.  It was so warm and nice and relaxing!  Our first night we stayed in a hotel in Cancun and ate at a local restaurant.  We just ordered the buffet because I felt more comfortable about seeing what the food was before putting it on my plate.

 The food was excellent, especially these desserts!  We think the cake was Tres Leches.  It was so delicious!

 We found the LDS church and attended the Cancun Ward's Sacrament meeting and Sunday school.  Of course the meeting was all in Spanish.  I understood bits and pieces.  I enjoyed singing the hymns in Spanish.  Will said it was awesome and it reminded him of his mission. 

 After church we drove South to the Tulum Ruins.  They had these flying guys performing and this was the guy walking around asking for money.

 The ruins were great!  Much bigger than we expected.  We just did a self-guided tour as we didn't have tons of time to stay here.  We saw a lot of iguanas.

 It was a gorgeous view of the ocean and beach down below.

 Sunday night we arrived at our main destination, Costa de Cocos resort in Xcalac, Mexico.  We stayed here 5 nights and did 3 full days of fishing and 1 half day of snorkeling. 

 This was my first bonefish on.  We each caught several bonefish.  Will had a tarpon on for about 30 seconds but then it shook the hook out of its mouth.  It was so cool to see it.  Most of what we did was sight fishing. 

 We fished from the boat as well as waded the flats. 

 Bonefish.

 We are thankful for sun protection!

 Snorkeling was fun.  There are so many types of fish that you never see unless you snorkel or dive.

 Banana trees.

 This was our rental car and the building behind me is the main restaurant common area of the place we stayed.

 We fished for permit, too.  To fish for permit you walk really slow and soft and look for the "nervous water".  We saw several schools swimming around but didn't hook up with any.  It was really neat to see them.

 Most nights we ate at Costa de Cocos, but one night we went into the small town of Xcalak and ate at Tobi's Restaurant.  The shrimp and fish were so delicious!  A good cultural experience.

 Our last day of fishing it rained some so we were glad to have our rain gear.  It was so cool to fish in the rain though because it wasn't cold.  It was a warm rain.

 This fish is called a Jack.  They were SO fun to fish for because we mostly used a popper and so we could see the fish coming up after the popper on the surface.

 During a rain storm!

 We purchased a waterproof/underwater camera for this trip and I'm glad we did because it was nice not to have to worry about the camera getting wet during the rain.  I guess it had some rain drops on the lens in these two photos, though.  Overall it was a nice camera and easy to use, though.

 Friday morning we got up early to watch the sun rise.  It was beautiful.  I took about 100 photos of the sun rising but this one is the most vibrant I think.

 This is our beach cabin that we stayed in.  It was awesome!  So relaxing.

 the views from outside our beach hut.

 Inside the restaurant where we ate breakfasts and dinners.  We had lunch packed on the boats for us. 

 On the drive back to Cancun, we stopped here briefly at this beach.  They had a sign that said they did spear fishing tours.  Maybe we'll have to try that next time?

The trip was great.  You know how usually we always have some crazy thing that goes wrong on our trips and adventures?  Well this trip didn't have anything like that!  It was amazing.  We were so blessed to not get sick, to not get too sunburned (thanks to sunscreen and sun-protective clothing), not have any mishaps or anything. 

Top 5 things I enjoyed about the trip:

5.  The warmth!  The weather was so beautiful and nice!  A few times I caught myself saying "it's so hot", but then I quickly had to remind myself that that was one of the reasons we came on this trip.  I enjoyed it.  The first step off the plane back in Salt Lake at the end of our trip was miserable as the temperature was below zero and we had our sandals and shorts on!

4.  A great cultural experience.  I feel like by renting a car and kind of planning our own vacation instead of doing an all-inclusive-type resort, we got to see a lot of Cancun city, and the surrounding area on our drive and take it all in.  

3.  It was so relaxing!  It was nice to be together and not have to worry about work, or phones, or any stress.

2.  The fishing.  It was awesome!  Just like we had read about and seen videos of. 

1. Being together with my husband of 7 years--today.  This trip was kind of a celebration of our anniversary, as well as Christmas.  We have so much fun together and it's fun to go on adventure with Will.