Cancun, Mexico

Beach view - from hotel room at Me by Melia

As my second trip to Mexico, I had Cozumel in mind as a level of comparison.  My verdict, Cancun is Cancun, Cozumel is Cozumel. As beautiful and peaceful as Cozumel was, Cancun was beautiful in its own way (albeit a slightly more "man-made" way).  Whereas the beaches of Cozumel were rocky, the beaches of Cancun are very sandy (some quite obviously were not "natural" though), and here is where I experienced the long stretching sandy beach with beautiful blue waters that one that sees in posters and dreams. 

beach view on the "strip"

The waters were also much more treacherous (it was again a new years trip) with much bigger waves.  Unfortunately for me and my friends, we really were not prepared for how powerful the waves were and required the life-saving skills of lifeguards at one point.  It was only waves deserving of a "yellow" flag, so it really is lack of swimming skills, but I'm thankful to God that despite my over-estimation of my abilities, my life wasn't taken that day as it nearly could easily have been.

"BOB" personal submarines

Despite this mis-adventure, we continued our water outings and tried the "BOB" personal submarine system, which essentially encases your head in an air bubble and lets you "dive" without diving equipment.  I thoroughly regret doing this, as it made me extremely nauseated and I ended up vomiting afterwards (not a pretty sight!).  If I could do it over, I'd much rather have just gone for the real diving, which I skipped due to being scared, so  my lesson: better to face my fears than take the "easy" route because often that "easy" route becomes much harder than one realizes!

We also did the swimming-with-dolphins thing, which was actually much much funner than the pure tourist trap I anticipated.  The funnest part was where they had the dolphin by, and we would then grab on to its fins, and then the dolphin would take off very quickly.  What a thrill to experience how fast they go! However, be careful of the photos because they do try to gouge you...after some negotiations we were able to get a lot of photos but still ended up paying too much I thought. Ah well, guess these trips don't happen all that often =P

All in all, a good trip and fun time with friends was had.  Some lessons were learned, including how precious and fragile life is...



Sunrise from hotel room on our last day