August 27, Tuesday
Emily
and I got up at 7:30 AM to get ready. Our meeting time was 9:05 AM but they
asked us to be 10 to 15 minutes early. We were running a little behind and came
down to get some food at about 8:45 AM. I told the porters if our ride comes to
let them know we just went to get a bite to eat, and he informed us that we're
supposed to meet them down the driveway and that started making me nervous. We
walked over to the café to get a quick bite and thankfully they had a lot of
nice things available just sitting out in the middle so we could easily grab a
plate and have a few things. Emily wasn't very hungry and just had some fruit
but I had some potatoes, eggs, and sausage. We ate quickly and then we left. It was 8:56 AM by the time we
walked to the shuttle and they were already there waiting for us. We found out
at the end of the day that they had waited for us for 10 minutes so I'm
embarrassed about that but we did what they asked so it's not our fault.
We were the last ones to be picked up so we headed straight for the cenotes.
They are in Puerto Morelos. The drive wasn't super relaxing because he drives
really fast and it's pretty bumpy.

The guy's name was Ader and he played some
terrible music. Once we got
to the jungle area, we lost phone service. I decided not to worry about my
phone for the rest of the day. I had a waterproof holder for it but I didn't
use it. All I took with me each time was my goggles. Emily and I left our
valuables on the bus in my locked bag. Emily didn't take anything. Our first
cenote was called fire. The first thing we did was shower off the chemicals off
of our body and get life vests. We had to use a life vest all the time we were
in the water which was good.
We took a short waterslide into the first
cenote. I was glad I brought my goggles because my face got wet immediately. I
had thought maybe I could spend the day and not get my hair and face wet but
that was out the window already. The water wasn't as cold as we feared it was
going to be. It wasn't warm, but it was bearable.



We swam around some stairs and went up the
stairs and got on a zip line with monkey bars. I was the last one to go. I was
so afraid I was going to slip because my hands were wet and I couldn't get them
dry. The lifeguard let us use his arm to try to dry off our hands but that
still didn't help. They insisted it would be OK because there were grippers on
it but I still didn't trust it. Thankfully, I did fine and got as far as I
needed to then dropped in the water. Emily was afraid of slipping too but she
did great. She went right before me. It was nice to have a cheering section
already in the water waiting for me. There was a photographer with us all day
and she got some good pictures of all the different things we did.
Once we all landed in the water from the zip
line, we had to swim 200 m. I kept thinking, that's two football fields which
is kind of far. It was exhausting but we made it.
We ended at a cave and got out on some stairs
and went to a place where we could jump off. We watched everybody else jump off
but Emily and I felt like it was too high and we didn't want to. After that,
they had a little picnic break for us with fruit and pastries and drinks. Then
it was time to go to the next one. The second cenote was called earth. This is
the one where we repelled way down into the cenote. It was pretty scary and I
tried not to look down but I did glance. It wasn't exactly like repelling
because you didn't have to use your feet on the side of the hole or anything
like that, you just rode the thing down in a sitting position so it wasn't too
bad. I also didn't have to jump in, thankfully.






However, that was the coldest water we were in
all day. We assume it's because it was in a cave where no sun gets to it. There
was also a place there that we could jump off that wasn't quite as high. I had
no interest in doing that but Emily braved it and did it. She said it wasn't
that high up but it was just that the water was so cold.



Then Ader gave us a lesson about the formation
of cenote. He said it was caused by a meteorite and he showed us where there
was proof that the heat had burned the coral reef and we were underneath the
coral. He also showed us the beginning of a stalactite. At one point, when we
were riding to the next cenote, he played Welcome
to the Jungle and Emily and I chuckled and I said loudly, "We're literally
in the jungle," and people laughed. The third cenote was water. The first
thing we did was kayak. Emily and I did great! I think everybody else was
holding their paddles upside down. We passed one person and we could've passed
the other but we were afraid to bump into them so we just stayed where we were. We had to kayak around a little island and then
go back.



After that, we went snorkeling. We had to go
through this tunnel that had bats so he told us to be quiet. That was kind of
freaky. We actually saw the bats. Then we got in to snorkel under the cave with
stalactites and we got into a really deep pool. We swam around a bunch of lily
pads. They had it closed off with ropes so we couldn't get close, but we were
able to go underneath the water and see them pretty well because of the sun
shining in.
After that, it was time for lunch. They had a
little buffet to make sandwiches and lots of lunch meat and vegetables and
salads and things. we sat at a picnic table across from a couple in our group
from Illinois and chatted with them for a bit. They were staying at Secrets: The
Vine resort. The fourth cenote was wind. It had long zip lines going both
directions. Once again, I was last. Emily decided to do wrecking ball style,
where she put her foot in the swing and leaned back.
He said the most boring kind was queen style in
the swing but that's what I chose. I told him "aburrido" and he
chuckled. That was fun and this time the water stopped me and I didn't have to
jump in so that was nice.
From the other side, you could do the same zip
line methods or you could also jump in. I wasn't interested in either of those
options. Emily decided to do the zip line again and this time she did swing.

After that, it was time to get ready and head
back. Thankfully, they gave us time to go back to the van and get our things
and get changed into some dry clothes. I had debated maybe staying in my
regular clothes but it was nice to be fresh and dry on the ride back. They made
a stop to drop off some of the people in our group because they were going a
different direction. They were a nice family from Gibraltar. It was the parents
and two teenage children, a boy and a girl. I had spoken to her on the shuttle bus
earlier and she was talking about how they were there for like 10 days and she
had something planned for every day practically. At that point, we were able to
buy the pictures that the photographer had taken throughout the day and she
let me pay cash so that was perfect. The ride back seemed shorter than the ride
there. It was getting close to 5 PM by the time we got back to our room. I
decided to take a shower and wash my hair and get ready to go to dinner.
Our reservation was for La Joya which was the
Mexican restaurant that had a mariachi band. It was a beautiful restaurant! It
was on the side of the hotel toward the street so they probably have people
coming there that aren't staying at the hotel as well. People always look at me
funny when they offer me a wine list or offer drinks and all I want is water. I
know I'm wasting some of the value from what I paid but oh well. There's no way
around it.
They played Coco on the wall
They brought us chips and salsa and bread. Emily
ordered barbacoa tacos for an appetizer and I ordered the al pastor ones. I got
short ribs for my main dish and Emily got the fish. She was already pretty full
and couldn't eat it all. Mine was delicious and I ate every bit.
Mariachi
Emily didn't want dessert but I got one that
said puff pastry with guava. It was OK.

Once again, I felt like I could do better on
dessert. We stopped at the café and Emily got a brownie and I got an opera
cake, which had a chocolate ganache topping and multiple thin layers, and we
took it to our room. We sat on the balcony for a while again. There was a party
going on right outside the lobby near the pool. Everybody was wearing white and
we could see the screen said All White Silent Party. We thought it looked cool
and wish we had known about it. We asked about it later, and they said it's for
anybody at the resort. You have to get headphones and then you listen to the
music so that's why it's a silent party. By then, we weren't that interested and
we didn't bring white clothes. Emily turned on the TV and watched a little bit
of Across the Spiderverse. Then Michael called and we talked to him for a
little bit. We thought about getting room service but I also thought it would
be nice to go to the buffet and see what they have for desserts, but really
they seat you and it's a full meal and we weren't sure if they would let us do
that since we already had dinner so we stopped at the café and I tried some
banana split gelato and we went back up to the room and ordered room service.
By about 10 PM, we turned on the TV and it was at the beginning of Live Die
Repeat on HBO. We left it there and ended up watching the entire thing. For
room service, we ordered two orders of French fries, chocolate ice cream and
apple pie with vanilla ice cream, and two Coke Zeros for Emily. She's been
spoiled with Coke Zeros this whole time. He came in and fully set the table for
us, including a little flower, salt and pepper, ketchups, nice silverware and a
cloth napkin, the whole works. He chatted with us for a little bit and I gave
him a tip and we were pretty excited about our fancy little room service order.


It was a perfect snack for the end of
the day. I don't know what they put in that vanilla ice cream, but I think it's
the best ice cream I've ever had in my life. We relaxed in our beds and played
on our phones and watched the whole movie. We both said we don't know why we
like that movie so much because we don't normally like those kinds of movies
but that one is awesome. Another movie called Voyagers came on and we almost
watched it but we looked at the bad reviews and read the synopsis and called it
good and got ready for bed.
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