Five years ago today, I timidly stepped off the plane in Cancun airport. For the first time. That began my adventures in the beautiful Mexican Caribbean!
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| Cancun from the airplane |
I am looking back today at how it was for me then. We took the ADO bus from the airport to the fishing village of Puerto Morelos, about 15 minutes south of the airport. This was certainly the most luxurious bus I had ever been on!! Window shades, air conditioning, plushy seats, movie playing on the screen overhead...Matt had been coming to this part of Mexico for over 20 years, so he was used to the routine. Good thing!! Because everything was new to me!! VIVA MEXICO!!!
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| On the street outside Abbey del Sol II |
In the beginning we stayed at Abbey del Sol II in "downtown" Puerto Morelos. We strolled down the streets with the barking dogs,, amazing beach homes, and an occasional vehicle or two to share the road with. We ate our meals at many of the fine restaurants in Puerto, hoping that our favorite ones would still be there the next year we came to visit.
It was a modest little town then, an extension of the thriving metropolis of Cancun, stretched between that and the big tourist playground of Playa del Carmen.
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| Just a little fishing village! |
I began to get in the groove of being in Mexico. I tried not to let the geckos and the mosquitoes bother me, I dealt with the issues of not putting any toilet tissue in the toilets and using bottled water, and I enjoyed the coral beach (your feet don't get hot when you walk on it!) and the beautiful azure water. I also brought school supplies from my students back home and got to present them to first graders in a local school.
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| first graders in escuela in la Colonia |
I loved Puerto so much that I came back on my own that June with my mom, oldest daughter, and son-in-law. We talked Matt into joining us for a few days, even though Mexico in the summer was not usually his thing! I thought I was a veteran after just one visit! Hahaha, did I have a lot still to learn!!
LOVELY BEACH SIDE OF PUERTO...
from the rooftop palapa
Chichen Itza
and
Cenote Ik Kil
June 2010
During that visit we also started a home search. Matt had decided years ago that he when he retired he wanted to spend every winter in Mexico. After 60 years in the Minesota cold and snow, he vowed, "Never again!" He had already found a desirable property in the small area of the Colonia de Pescadores, but the acquisition fell through. The Pescadores was a small community between the beach area of town...between the mangrove and hwy. 307 to Cancun. It seemed like a perfect area...close to the colonia on the other side of the highway, and very accessible to town by bus or bicycle--a mere 2 km away.
So, here we are, five years later...that home search is when the story gets REALLY interesting!!!!
TO BE CONTINUED...five year reflection...
