It all started on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 sometime around 3:30 in the morning. I was so excited! We were going to Cancun, Mexico! There, it would be warm, sunny, and bright. We would stay there for six days. But since right now we were in California at 3:30am, it was c-c-c-cold. At first I did not want to get out of bed. But finally I did. Brrrr! I told Mommy I was shivering and she said it was because I thought I was shivering. I dressed quickly and stopped shivering. I didn’t feel so cold either. When we went downstairs we packed banana bread and ate one or two wheat club crackers. Then, we were off!
We parked in Anza parking lot in Burlingame. We had to take a shuttle to our terminal. The plane was ready to board as soon as we got there! We had to take two flights to reach Cancun. First stop, Denver! We flew on United airlines, flight 1670. As we approached Denver, we could see the Rockies covered in snow. I couldn’t really see them since I didn’t have the window seat, Leah did. I read the “Saucy Jane Family” book during the flight. I didn’t finish it though. Our connecting flight from Denver was almost immediately! So, guess what? No waiting again! We boarded the Ted Flight 834 to ….Cancun! We got a snack box for $5.00. Mommy got a ‘Smart Pack” and I got a “Mini meal”. They both had all sorts of yummy things in them. Mine had delicious things like Milano cookies, potato chips, salami, crackers and dip. And Mommy’s had scrumptious things like Bagel Chips, Pears and Fruit Mints. The gum Mommy had in her bag was old and bad. I was not happy at all because I had nothing to chew during descent. I ate the Mints instead.
Yeah! We are in Cancun. Once we landed there we had to go through immigration and customs. We got the green signal, so we went through fast. We got picked up by a taxi from Cancunvalet. The driver pronounced daddy’s name as ”Yon”. The driver dropped as at “The Westin”, our hotel. We liked the hotel at once. We got cool towels to freshen us up as we walked inside. It was much cooler inside the lobby. After we checked in, they took us in a golf cart, a very long one, to the Royal Beach club. Our room was on the fifth floor, room number 2508. There was a little balcony, facing the Nichupte Lagoon. Beautiful! We watched “Tom and Jerry” for a little while and then we went exploring. First we went to the beach. It was so fun! The sand was so smooth and white. And the water was sparkling and dazzling in the sun. It was a light blue, turquoise, pretty, color. I liked it a lot. I was wearing my new pink robe that Leah chose for me, in California. There was a special Christmas program for kids at the hotel. We all got to sing a Mexican Christmas song in Spanish, wearing special scarves that Mexicans used to wear. And then the kids got to hit a piñata. Leah got the first turn, since she was the smallest. I didn’t really get a turn because the boy before me cracked it open. I might not have got to hit the piñata but I did collect a lot of candy. Then, we went to the cocktail hour at our hotel lobby. I stuffed myself with ham and cheese burritos, ham, cheese, lettuce sandwiches and other yummy appetizers. I even had a Virgin Mango Daiquiri. I really liked it. It was so good! Then, we went to our room again. After a bath (we soaked in the tub for a while), we went for a short walk. Then, we had our dinner at the El Palmar restaurant. I couldn’t finish my chicken nuggets and fries because my tummy was still full of the appetizers. So I ate a lot of appetizers but not my real dinner! We went out to the beach and sat on some chairs. I didn’t really sit though. The chairs had some sand and I guess I didn’t want to get my pajamas dirty. I just walked around (in front of Mommy, Daddy, and Leah because Mommy and Daddy wanted to see me.) After a short time, we went back to our room to sleep. I read a little bit of a Pippi Longstocking book called “Pippi on the run”. Soon I fell asleep. What a long, busy, and fun day it was!
I woke up at 6am but I fell asleep again. Then, when I woke up again, it was almost 9:00am! I put on my swimsuit and my new robe. We went down for breakfast. I liked the sausages a lot. After breakfast, it was…..pool time! I swam backstroke and elementary backstroke. The water was cold. I was a bit scared to swim in a new pool. Then we played in the beach for a short while. After that we went to our room, got dressed and went out. We went in a bus to the Ferry station at Embarcadero. We saw “The Pirates of the Caribbean” boats with pirate flags and even characters from the movie painted on them. We had a lunch of tacos, hot dog and nachos. It was good. We got into the boat called Mexicana at 12:30pm. It went very fast. It made lots of white bubbles behind it. Leah said it looked like a waterfall. I said it looked like milk chasing after us! I took a short nap on the boat. I woke up a little before we reached the island, Isla Mujeres. As we walked down the pier, we saw little fishes in the water. They were so tiny. I pointed out that they looked like little pieces of grass! There were tons of those tiny creatures. That is why you could see them. If there was only one fish, I don’t think you could see it! We walked around to explore the place. I pointed out a nice necklace that I really liked. Mommy bought it for me later. It was a beautiful pink colored necklace with a pink locket. Leah got one just like that too, except it was purple. We went to the beach – Playa Norte. We spent a long time in the water……even Leah! We played tag with Daddy, we pretended Leah was a mermaid named Rosie, and I was her dolphin friend, Coral. Even Daddy played. He was the merman, King James! After we got out of the dazzling water, we got ice creams. Leah got a Nesquik chocolate ice cream. I got a cone ice cream with chocolate on top but vanilla ice cream underneath. I bought it thinking it was a chocolate ice cream, looking at the top. But it was really vanilla! Kind of confusing!! Daddy rented a golf cart and we drove around the island for an hour. I got to hold the steering wheel (Not when we were really driving, though I wanted to!) As we were waiting for our boat to come, a kind lady from Orlando bought Leah and me a cotton candy. She said I could have one and Leah another. But Mommy said, we wouldn’t finish two. So we had one and the lady had one. We ate our cotton candy on the boat. Leah, Daddy, and I ate. I even offered Mommy some, but she didn’t want any. I kept asking her, “Are you sure?”, “Positive?” and so on. Then, Leah and I took a nap. When we reached Embarcadero, the pirate ships were all decorated in lights. They even had a Christmas tree on them. It looked so pretty! There were some pirates, skeletons and even a pirate with a parrot on his shoulder, walking around. We took the bus to the La Isla mall. There was a huge Christmas tree in front of the mall. Also, we saw a big cookie monster in front of the Toon store. We took pictures with him. We had dinner at the Thai restaurant. Each table was in a little hut. Some of the huts were on stilts over the lagoon. Ours wasn’t. May be you have to pay a little more to sit there. Or may be you have to reserve in advance. Anyways, ours was just fine. There were many lights all over. There were tiny read and blue lights to light up each hut. I liked them. I enjoyed my chicken satay and fried rice. After dinner, we took the bus back to “The Westin”. By the time we reached, the free cocktail hour was over. But that was okay since we had had a good dinner at “The Thai”. We went up to our room. After bath, I told my family a little story (that I was making up as I went along). Leah liked it. I read more of the Pippi book and then went to bed. Good Night!
Yawwwn! We woke up early for our trip to Chichen Itza. After a quick breakfast, we went to the hotel lobby. Our bus came around 7:15am. They picked up others from other hotels and dropped us at Embarcadero. We got our tickets and got back onto the exact same bus! It was an almost 3 hour drive. I brought a book with me. Also, daddy kept on giving me some Geography lessons. After 2 hour drive, we stopped at a big souvenir shop near a small Mayan village. We bought some tomato chips. When Daddy opened a bag and tried one, he said it was too spicy for us. So we returned Leah’s unopened packet and got regular chips. But guess what, when I tried the tomato chips, I liked it. Both, Leah and I liked the tomato ones better than the plain ones. So Daddy was wrong! Somewhere around noon we reached the Mayaland hotel near Chichen Itza. First, we had a buffet lunch. I wasn’t really hungry and I didn’t eat much. There was a pasta stand and I got some pasta for myself. They had lots of Mexican dishes, fresh tacos and pasta, salads and more. I ate some hot dog and some macaroni. I didn’t eat the whole thing because a fly landed on it. Some dancers put on a show while we ate. The dancers balanced bottles and trays on their heads. It was so cool. Each woman partnered with a man. Then, we went to archeological site. There were pyramids, temples, cenotes (wells), ball game court, all from the time of the Mayas. Some from the time of the Toltecs, who were more mean and believed in human sacrifice. One of their Gods was Chacmool (who Daddy actually liked a lot!). It was very sunny and hot. Finally in the ball court, we found a shady spot near the walls and Mummy, Leah and I (who were a little grumpy) sat down. Once we got back to the Mayaland hotel we bought lime popsicle for Daddy, mango one for me, and a strawberry one for Leah. In the hotel, we sat with our feet in the pool for a little while. We wanted to jump in the pool. But there was no time! There was a peacock roaming around near the pool. A peahen was on the roof. Soon it was time to return to the bus. Our bus number was 159. It was a straight ride back. Which was good because we didn’t want to miss the cocktail hour and the mango daiquiris. Then we had a nice bath, watched some TV, and read, before sleeping. And then, good night!
It was the day to go to Xcaret, the waterpark. I was so excited. Daddy rented a car from Thrifty to go there. We reached there around 10 in the morning. Xcaret was carved on the rocks near the entrance. Actually it was carved all over the park, on rocks. We saw macaws, which were very colorful. We took pictures with them. We even saw flamingoes, which were stinky as usual. We saw an aquarium, and lots more. The most impressive were the turtles. Their shells looked as though they were painted on. Then we went snorkeling in the lagoon. I was scared at first and the water was cold. But then I got the hang of it. I saw lots of fish. I was a little scared of some. I wore snorkel, flippers, goggles and a life jacket to do the snorkeling. The goggles covered the nose. So I had to breathe through the snorkeling tube in my mouth. Mommy and Leah spotted a crab just sitting on the water’s edge. Then, we had lunch by the beach. I had a cheeseburger with French fries. After lunch, we went to the beach. We floated in clear floaties. We connected our floaties by holding hands or the handgrips. We had lots of fun. After a while, we went to take a shower. You had to pull a chain to make the waterfall. It was pretty cool. We walked around and saw the rest of the park. We saw pumas, a scary looking black panther, and a leopard. We went to the butterfly pavilion. But I was so scared when one big one landed on my arm. I just hugged Mommy. There was a beautiful waterfall there. We went down through an underground tunnel. Leah was a bit scared of that. In one part we could look up and see the sky through a hole. We got out of the tunnel and got to what looked like remains of an old Mayan village. There were tree trunk bridges across the river. While we were walking by we saw a man with two parrots. We could let the red one sit on our shoulder or hold the green one like a baby. Leah and I held the green one and took pictures. We saw a stable in which was a big bull with a gigantic bump on his back. It looked weird and funny. We saw an old cemetery. We didn’t go in. I thought it was too spooky. We saw some models of all the Mayan archeological sites. The biggest is Tikal in Guatemala. It was time for the show. We went inside the stadium. There were folks dressed up like ancient Mayans to welcome us. We got special seats because we had reserved for dinner with the show. We got a pink cocktail that tasted really good. We watched the show and ate dinner. The first part of the show was about the history of Mexico till the Spanish took over. They had live Mayan music. After the break, there were songs and dances from all parts of Mexico. I really liked one of the songs. It was a song about the sea. They had people dressed up as octopus, jellyfish and crabs. There was an acrobatic show by the Flying men. We had sherbet for dessert. I fell asleep on the way back home. So good night!
Next morning Daddy went snorkeling in the National park (ocean). Leah and I played in the room for a while. We went down for a late breakfast. We checked out the kids’ club. Then we played in the pool for a long time. I didn’t go to the big pool. Just stayed with Leah. We played holding our breaths under water. We went to our room, washed up, changed and watched some tv before we headed for lunch. While we were eating lunch, Daddy joined us. He said he had a wonderful snorkeling trip in the reef off of Peurto Morales. He also said he had a whole fried cod for lunch. He kept on saying how good it was that Leah got a bit annoyed. Then we all drove to Tulum. It was an old city by the sea. We checked out the ruins and then played on the beach for a while. It was cold and we didn’t have towels, so we didn’t get into the water. We drove back after sunset. We had dinner at a restaurant called Sand and stones by the beach. They gave marinated raw meat to be cooked on hot stones on the table. I thought that was pretty cool. It was tasty too. Later, Daddy and I spent time on the beach under the full moon. I drew in the sand, danced and sang. I tried making different kinds of marks on the sand by walking on tiptoes, running and so on. Soon all got washed away by the waves. Then we went back to our room. And then…good night!
It was our last whole day in Cancun. We had chocolate donuts for breakfast. We spent all day in the beach and the pool. Daddy got me a boogie board and I tried that. Leah and I collected tons of shells. In the evening we went in a bus to a market to get some souvenirs. We bought Mexican dresses, Tshirts, necklaces and other cool stuff for our friends. We went for cocktails. We had our usual mango drinks. Mummy tried taking pictures of the full moon over the sea. Later, we watched Cirque de Soleil on tv. That was so cool. Especially the little boy acrobats. Daddy said that Mommy and he watched that show live once, before I was born. I didn’t like the idea of leaving Cancun with its’ sunny beaches. But I had to! Good Night!
Next morning, we packed up. Daddy went for a morning swim. Then, it started to rain. We were so lucky that it didn’t rain before. We went down and had breakfast and then went to the lobby to check out. We got a taxi to take us to the airport. At the airport we saw a Christmas show with Santa, Nutcracker, fairies and elves. We took a picture with the performers. The elves were very acrobatic. While Daddy was looking at Tequila, we secretly bought a perfume for him as Christmas gift. Bye bye Cancun!!
Our first flight was to Denver. There was a kids’ song artist in the flight. She had some free CDs. We could play a game of guessing the steward’s age to try get one. I played and got one. The artist said, she saw me reading and thought I would like one. It is called Rockies Rhyming. It is mostly about the Rocky Mountains. There was also one song called “Practice Makes Perfect.” I knew I could use that one. We got the same snack boxes for lunch. From Denver we took another flight to San Francisco. We had dinner at Leann’s (which sounded like Leah Ann) restaurant. I realized I left my “Seattle” cap in the plane. I was sad about that because Mommy had got it for me when she went to Seattle. Daddy and Mommy said it is okay. We drove back home.
How, I would miss Cancun!
THE END