TRAVEL BLOGGING: Our Winter Mexican Escape…

TRAVEL

TRAVEL BLOGGING OUR WINTER MEXICAN ESCAPE

This cruise out of New Orleans (our 5th one!) was a sort of delayed anniversary trip (21 years married as of December 2016! Yay us!) but truth be told, we were way overdue for a getaway trip when we finally took this one. 2016 was one for the books for a lot of us, and not totally in the feel good kind of way. But I don’t want to linger on the sadness and loss of 2016, instead let’s get into how much of a good idea and how much of a good time this trip was.

A 3-4 day cruise is perfect if you can’t really get away for an entire week or 10-14 days, especially if it’s between a Thursday (departure) and a Monday (return) because that’s basically just a long weekend. Our ship, the Carnival Triumph sails from New Orleans to Cozumel, Mexico then back and even though we’d visited Cozumel a few times before, we decided to be a little more adventurous on this trip. We’ve taken cruises before where Cozumel was one of the stops, we’d get off the boat and explore the Cozumel town square then re-board the boat, no big deal. But this time, we didn’t want to do that. Town square? Been there, done it. This time, we wanted to get out of the city a little bit and see more of the island. And what an awesome idea that was!

So first I checked the cruise excursions to see what was available. I saw a few interesting things, but the Private Jeep Tour stood out to me in particular. What didn’t stand out to me was the per person price and if you know me, you already know I will go on a mission to see who offers something cheaper. Well mission accomplished, because I found the exact same tour outside of the cruise offerings for a whopping $30 cheaper per person! And let me just tell you, that search was worth it. We had a private guide (Yared) we weren’t with a large group, we were able to pick and choose where we wanted to go, stay as long as we wanted, leave when we were ready, drive if we wanted to or be chauffeured; our Jeep tour felt intimate, exclusive and private. Our guide Yared explained points of interest along the way, but he also gave us all the space we wanted. Ron has been learning Spanish (for his work) and it was great to see him be able to communicate with Yared in Spanish. I just hate that I didn’t get any of it on video.

We visited Playa Uvas Resort, Punta Sur Park, saw Mayan ruins, had a breezy beachside lunch, drove to the other side of the island, hung out (and took naps, lol) in colorful beach hammocks, tasted organic tequila and just had one of the best days ever. And not to get all political (which means I’m about to get a little political), but we LOVE experiencing and learning about other cultures in our daily life and when we travel, that’s why I’ll never understand people with desires to exist in a solely homogenous society. Our differences are what makes us all unique and interesting, are they not? I’ll choose diversity over sameness any day of the week, thankyouverymuch. Anyhoo, we had a great time and we can’t wait to do this again soooooon.