We had SUCH a great time in Mexico. With 8 girls traveling together for 5 days there was bound to be some drama...but there wasn't at all! We all got along great and had a completely wonderful time.
I was admittedly a little anxious about our accommodations. Having made the reservation, I was hoping it would turn out to be a clean, safe place that was as close to the beach as advertised. It's always a little hard to know what you are getting when you do a timeshare exchange, but we were MORE than pleasantly surprised. We stayed at the El Cid El Moro Beach in the Castilla tower. It was a 2-bedroom (one room with a king bed and another room with two double beds) with a murphy bed in the living room. It was very spacious - plenty of room even in the living room, dining room, and kitchen, and there was a balcony that stretched the entire length of the suite. Also, there were 3 full bathrooms with tons of counter space, which really came in handy when 8 of us were getting ready to go out for dinner. So, all in all, it was a GREAT room! So happy about that! In addition, the resort was clean and safe, and there were two nice pools just beneath our room. The resort was right on the beach, and the beach was nice as well. We had the GREATEST view of sunsets from our balcony. Here is a picture:
We left the states at 9 on Saturday and had a direct flight to Mazatlan. When we got checked in, we put our suits on immediately and went straight to the pool. We had a few hours to relax there before some of us went grocery shopping and then we went out for dinner. We ate at Gus Gus, which was a great little open-air place with yummy Mexican food and live music.
On our first full day, we decided to hang out at the pool and beach. We all just did whatever we wanted to throughout the day - walking the beach, grabbing snacks and drinks by the pool or in the room, laying on the beach, reading, chatting, playing the resort games (darts, volleyball, etc.), and on and on. It was a very nice, very relaxing day. We took a taxi to a different part of the city for dinner. It had a cute, vacation-y atmosphere and we ended up eating at Pedro and Lola's - more good Mexican food!
The next day we did an excursion to another beach where we rode horses, rode a banana boat in the ocean, relaxed in the sun, got fake tattoos, and talked and laughed. It was fun to change our scenery and get away from the resort for the day. That night we went to a nice Italian restaurant just across the street from our resort.
On our last full day, we did another pool/beach day. Every morning we ended up waking up pretty early (by vacation standards), which was nice since it made the days seem long and relaxing. After another great day of sun, we got more dressed up for our final night out and went to a place (that I can't remember the name of) that a few of the girls had been to on other trips to Mazatlan. There weren't many other people there, so we took it upon ourselves to start a dance party after dinner. A really fun final night in Mexico!
We didn't have to leave the resort until noon the next day, so we were able to be at the pool for a few more hours before we left. I was so glad that we didn't have to rush off in the morning. We wanted to soak in all of the sun and relaxing that we could! Of course all eight of us stood in the pool lamenting the fact that we were leaving and planning our next trip :)
The best part of the trip was having extended time to talk with my friends. We make good efforts to see each other pretty regularly, but a few hours in an evening is nothing like having hours by the pool to chat. We also had fun conversations at dinners - one person would ask a question and then we would go around the table answering the question. It was refreshing to share about our lives and have so much uninterrupted time together.
I loved this trip and I'm so thankful for my friends that made it so memorable. I feel REALLY blessed to have such fun, beautiful, godly women in my life. I feel even more blessed that we were all able to escape reality together for an extended time. I know that isn't something that everyone gets to do, so I was soaking it all in!
I have a few more posts I could do about this trip - the advantages and disadvantages of traveling "internationally", things I forgot to pack, the advantages of traveling with girlfriends, etc., etc........I promise I'll get to these posts at some point! But my next few posts will be about the plane tickets I bought this week - to Vegas and London! Wheeeeee!!
