Mike and Sandy decided to swap their 2010 time-share week in Maui for a week at a brand-new Westin resort in Cancun, Mexico, and invited long-time friends Buzz and Doreen to go along. This resort has only been open a few months, and since none had stayed in Cancun before, it seemed like a good exploration.
The resort is about in the middle of the "Zona Hotelera," a narrow strip of land that has the Caribbean Sea on one side and a big lagoon on the other. It's about 15 miles long, runs from the airport area up to the city of Cancun, and is quite "internationalized" -- that is, it doesn't look or seem much like Mexico, practically everyone speaks English, at least somewhat, and the U.S. dollar is widely accepted.
Our resort was somewhat similar in layout to our "home resort" on Maui, but with a few twists. One big "gee-whiz" feature was the ocean water - a beautiful tourquoise, familar from trips to the Virgin Islands and the like, but quite unlike that in Hawaii and other Pacific Ocean spots. One especially nice feature was being right across the street from a really big shopping center, laid out with canals and bridges to faintly evoke being in Venice. It had all sorts of shops and restaurants, markets, a drug store, etc.
And speaking of restaurants, we had great meals every night (other than the day we did our all-day, 8am to 9pm, excursion, and settled for some pizza.
The weather was OK all week, ranging from acceptable to good, although we had more wind on most days than we would have liked. Nice and warm, though, and not too humid. And the sunrise across the ocean was beautiful !
Our first excursion, recommended by the resort staff, was to get on the public bus, ride into the city of Cancun, and visit WalMart. WalMart in Mexico, like in many other countries, is sort of like we are used to in the U.S., and sort of like what you'd expect a local store to be like in that country. So this WalMart had lots of different "sub-stores" (not only McDonalds, which you sort of expect, but a bank, a photo shop, a florist, a hardware merchant, etc.), and it had LOTS of noise and music -- every few aisles, we encountered a loud-speaker, often playing mariachi-style music, big colorful banners about this or that, etc. Generally, a rather festive atmosphere. And we also visited other shops along the waterfront.
Another outing was on a ferry boat over to a small island off the coast, called Las Mujeres (not to be confused with the more famous BIG island off the coast a little further south, called Cozumel, a favorite stop for cruise ships). Now this was more like it - a dusty little town, pretty much all the signs in Spanish, and nothing at all to do but rent a scooter or golf cart and drive from one end of the island to the other to say you had done it. Oh, we also had a nice lunch at a sea-side Mexican restaurant.
But perhaps the biggest event of our week in Cancun was our day trip to the Mayan ruin at Chichenitza (say "chicken pizza" real fast, our helpful guide suggested to ease our concerns about pronounciation). It was about a 3-hour drive, on a very nice bus, with lots of refreshments, etc.
This complex of temples, ball fields, an observatory, and numerous out-buildings, is around 800 years old, and quite impressive. In some ways, it reminded us ofthe Inca's Machu Pichu down in Peru, although it is just a temple and ceremonial site, and not a complete city like Machu Michu.
Much of the Yucatan Peninsula is limestone, so a fairly common feature is big "sink holes," called senotes in Spanish. Many of these are discovered only by accident, as when someone falls into them, but others have been commercialized, and made into swimming holes, used by tourists and Mexicans alike.
Buzz and Mike braved the rather chilly waters down in the hole, while Sandy and Doreen sort of cheered us on from the comfort of the railing up on the surface.
Another night we went to a nearby club, where we enjoyed a nice Mexican buffet dinner, a band and singer, and a beatifully-costumed "Caribbean" dance show, with elements from Jamaica, the West indies, Mexico, etc.
There was some foolishness with balloons at the end, and a good time was had by all.
