Rosewood Mayakoba. May 3, 2021. Day 2. The Day Tzvi Ate Endangered Fish and Sweet Potato Ice Cream.
I woke up this morning. It was 5:56, which is still only 6:56 AM in NY, so what the hell happened? I don’t know. I’m being punished for something. We stayed in bed for a while, texted to make sure the kids got to school, and got up maybe around 8 AM.
We eventually left for breakfast, which is at a restaurant by the lobby called Casa Del Lago. Our breakfast is included with our room, which apparently means we can have the buffet and order anything on the menu. Not one item from the menu -anything from the menu. As much as we want… uh oh. The buffet is set up really well. Everything is packaged separately, pastries are in their own bags, individual servings of fruit etc. We also ordered some egg avocado chip thing and Tzvi got chilaquiles. There’s a good looking French Toast on the menu, but the server told me not to get it because it’s too sweet. I don’t know, I think I’m going to need to try it.
We biked back to the room to change for the pool and then biked to the pool. Thank God for all this biking. Today we opted for the regular pool by the beach. We sat in a “cabana,” nothing fancy or anything (and no charge), just a shaded structure. Problem was, the ceiling of the cabana was pieces of fabric with some spaces between them, so I got some random patched burns from where the sun poked through. Also, I don’t think the sunscreen they provide is that great. Anyway, the pool was great. There were kids, but it was nice to see families enjoying themselves and not engrossed in chaos. Gives me hope for the future.
At some point while we were in the pool they came around and handed out little bowls of onion rings, which were delicious. They were also handing out these huge coconuts filled with coconut water, and Tzvi kept complaining to me asking why they weren’t bringing one to us. Finally they came over and Tzvi took one for himself and one for me. Well, neither of us liked it very much, but at least he was happy he got it.
We didn’t order lunch until around 3 pm. We had a server come over but Tzvi wasn’t ready to order so he asked him to come back in a minute. Well, 45 minutes later we finally ordered. I had a real Caesar salad (apparently Caesar salad was invented in Mexico by an Italian immigrant), and Tzvi had a salad with sweet potato and coconuts. We also had a pink cocktail. We had to leave at 3:30 to get ready for our massage.
On our way to the spa, we had an incident. My cover-up got caught in the bike gear. I had to pull over and stand there until someone stopped to ask if I needed help. Then when he couldn’t help me he called for backup. It was so hot, and there we were, three Mexicans and myself trying to get some fabric out of a bike. Eventually they were able to take off the gears and free me. Then we headed to the spa.
Unfortunately my dress incident made us about 15 minutes late. We had planned on spending a half hour in the spa facilities before our massage (you have to reserve the entire sauna, steam room, jacuzzi area for 30 minute blocks because of Covid, and we had reserved 4-430), but instead I had a 5 minute dip in a jacuzzi. To get to the massage room we had to walk through the jungle, which was very pretty. Our massage therapists were very nice. The problem is, it’s difficult to understand people through a mask, a face shield, and an accent. The massage was 90 minutes – I think the longest massage we’ve ever had – and it was great. I think we both fell asleep during parts of it, because it didn’t feel like 90 minutes, but we were both very relaxed at the end. We ended the experience with a hibiscus drink in the relaxation area.
After the spa we went back to the room, where we facetimed Hallie and got to experience a few minutes of her nonstop coughing. It’s pleasant. Then we dressed for dinner.
For dinner, we headed off property to the neighboring Andaz hotel (still part of the Mayakoba complex). We took a golf cart to the lobby and then another fancier golf cart to the Andaz. We were joined in the second cart by a very Jewish older couple on the cart (sheitel and all), but they were headed to the Banyan Tree where you can get kosher food.
(notice the hotel worker photobombing us)
We ate at Casa Amate, which I think is supposed to be the nicest restaurant at the Andaz. The hostess took us walking through four rooms of the restaurant – the library, the living room (where a fireplace was lit), the garden where the Amate tree was and the “Mexican room.” Then she told us we could choose to sit in the library or the living room. We chose the less crowded living room. We didn’t realize this until the next day, but the place is called “Casa Amate,” which means House of Amate, so it was like we were being given a tour of the house and all of its rooms. When we sat down the only other couple in the room was an older couple there from San Francisco (both vaccinated in case you’re worried).
We started with delicious rum cocktails (which was nice for a change since we’ve mostly been having tequila and mezcal) and a bread basket. Then we shared some raw tuna salad. Tzvi ate the tuna, I ate some vegetables. Then I got some other vegetable thing that was called “Sweet Potato and Pipian” that came with coconut rice, which was delicious. Tzvi had smoked totoaba fish with plantain (which tasted like banana) and prune and the same rice. Fun fact, apparently totoaba is “critically endangered,” so good job Tzvi. Dessert was the weirdest part of the meal. I had some caramel thing called Alfajor that was basically a cookie with dulce de leche and some kind of coffee ice cream. It was good. Tzvi had something they called “Trompo Dormilon,” which was listed in English on the menu as “Chocolate Spinning Top Toy: Creamy rompope, chongos zamoranos and braised sweet potato ice cream.” Well, it tasted as weird as it sounds. Tzvi actually liked it, but more in a ‘this is very interesting and it doesn’t taste bad and I’m glad I had the experience of eating it’ kind of way. I think “rompope” is eggnog and “chongos zamoranos” are some kind of cheesy Mexican cookie. I just thought it was weird. Ultimately, I admired the artistry of the meal, and I’ll just leave it at that.
We took a golf cart back to our hotel, but this time they took us in through some back entrance to the Rosewood (still had to go through a security checkpoint) and it took maybe half the time to get back. Very confusing.
When we got back to our room we decided to go for a dip in our plunge pool, but then we saw two raccoons walk across the patio and decided to stay inside. Anyway, good day!