I have a moment of quiet as everyone else is occupied with fun individual activities and not quite ready to start the day. We are getting ready to head to Belize, hopefully tomorrow night on the night bus. This mornings tasks are: coffee (L&P) and breakfast for the kids (leftovers), taking our last small batch of laundry to the lavendaria, finding the travel agency on the island that sells ADO bus tickets and buying our tickets for tomorrow, cruising down to the island supermarket in the golf cart with the kids to buy birthday presents for Patrick's birthday tomorrow, and taking my final written exam for my diving certification.
I am especially excited about Patrick's birthday tomorrow. The dive company we've been diving with is going to take us out on the boat and first Patrick will get to do a wreck dive and then we'll both do the second dive, which will be my final dive for my certification. Afterwards we're going to celebrate with a ceviche lunch with the guys back at dive headquarters. So hopefully I'll do well on my final dive! Yesterday I had a rough start as the ocean was pretty rough with big waves throwing the boat around and my mask wasn't adjusted properly so I couldn't clear it underwater. For the second dive I tried a different mask and was fine. We saw some underwater statues, several stingrays (one passed by me swimming about 8 feet away), and a variety of sea life including a lobster hiding under a rock.
Our time here on Isla Mujeres has been a good break from travelling. There is a great snorkeling beach walking distance away that is shallow enough and big enough for the kids to play indefinitely. It's like a giant bathtub with fish swimming around in it. The island is narrow so you can walk across it in a short amount of time and the beach is white sand, glistening and gorgeous. I realized yesterday looking at the beach that I was starting to get used to the view, which was formerly only a travel dream photo on my computer screen and on calenders.
Another fun part of our time here on Isla Mujeres has been the people at our hotel. There was the big potluck dinner last week that was attended by over 30 people (our cookies were a hit!) and this week there have been a couple of happy hour events. There are people who have been here the entire time we have been and it has been nice to get to know them and have some adult conversation. People tend to come back to this hotel every year. Sofia has met more people here than the rest of us. She has gotten to go watch cartoons with her 2 year old friend in the hotel office several times. Sometimes when we meet people they say, "We already know Sofia." When we were out walking yesterday we passed by the salon where Patrick and Otis had haircuts and the stylist waved out the window and said "Hola Sofia!" Earlier in the day one of the women who cleans at the hotel recognized her on the street and greeted her by name. Sofia told me she'd like to stay here forever.
Pictured below: a walk along the east side of the ocean, art along the way, the perfect end to our dinner (not pictured was the accordian player)
No comments:
Post a Comment