Mexico 2022. Day 2. I'll Stay Here.
I think I woke up this morning at 6:46, but thankfully fell back asleep until 8:45. We got dressed and headed to our first breakfast!
Breakfast was definitely more elaborate than last time and I guess that is because last time we were dealing with COVID restrictions. There were pastries (puff pastry, blueberry muffins, croissants, chocolate croissants, donuts, cinnamon pastries and more). There was a whole table of cheeses and lox, granolas, fruits, yogurt. There was this grilled bread with a ton of oils and dips that were out of this world. There was also the cutest kids station with kiddie foods, cereals, cookies, yogurts etc. THEN you have the entire à la carte menu to choose from. We ordered the avocado eggs, which is eggs scrambled with avocado, serrano chiles, cilantro, and tortillas. Chef Juan Pablo said this was his favorite dish. Apparently he had been eating it every day and then at some point said ‘why don’t we just put it on the on the menu.’ Tzvi got the special of the day, which was basically a fried tortilla with eggs and salsa and a layer of fried cheese. Of course we also shared an order of French Toast, which was a thick brioche with a berry compote and a maple ice cream. I wanted to get it today because I knew I’d be too full to get it on the last day (which happened last time). We saw our British friends from last night and they asked, “how’s Harry? He looks a little fragile.” They all looked pretty good and the women had even done floating yoga that morning. There is something I don’t need to try.
As some of you loyal readers may recall, the way to get around this hotel is on bikes (and golf carts). So, we took our bikes and headed down to the beach. It must have been close to 11 but it was very empty. We got the first row of chairs by the water. By 11:30 we already had cocktails.
The beach is right by the adult pool so we basically went back and forth between the beach and the adult pool. Our new friends from Michigan were there as well. For lunch Tzvi had the fish tacos recommended by Juan Pablo and I had hummus with veggies and chips and guac, except instead of chips they give you a tlayuda, which is basically one massive chip. I also ordered a Diet Coke with Diet Coke ice cubes, which really is the only way one should ever drink Diet Coke.
The water was pretty warm, but there’s tons of sea weed in it. They actually have a team of guys walking up and down the beach raking seaweed out of the ocean. But it was still so nice. At one point they came around and gave out pineapples filled with pineapple juice and rum.
At around 4:15 I headed back to the room and then went to the gym.
Then Tzvi came back from the beach and we got ready for cocktail hour, which apparently happens every Thursday night. The cocktail hour was set up next to the sushi restaurant and there were complimentary cocktails and apps and sushi, and a kids table as well. Hotel staff hangs around and talks with you, which was really nice. We met two people on the Celebrations team and I asked them about Ally Love’s wedding (for those living under a rock, Ally Love is a Peloton instructor). They said planning the week-long affair was a lot of fun and Ally was great to work with. They asked me which event was my favorite which was funny because it was just assumed that I had obviously followed everything on social media (which I had). We also met a nice family from Texas - parents and three teenage kids. Somehow we were talking about what is the first thing you think of when you hear Texas. One of the kids said most people think cowboy boots. I was just like, “GUNS.” Tzvi said he agreed with cowboy boots. Hey, at least I didn’t say abortion. We were talking about what we do and I said something like I work at a non-profit and it raises money to send to Israel and the father piped up and said that his company was working on a project in Kiryat Gat. So random.
For dinner we went down to the beach for the Mexican Grill. There was live music and dinner was a buffet consisting of several different stations. When we walked in we were given a cocktail and then shown to our seats at a table in the sand. We were already full from the cocktail hour so we couldn’t move for about a half hour.
Finally we started to make the rounds at the different stations. There was a great salad bar that had salads, ceviche and some veggies. Then there was a Mexican corn station.- I basically had plain corn, but Tzvi got the works with mayo and cheese (ew). Then there was a station where they were just doing grilled veggies and I got a huge chunk of grilled cauliflower and sweet potato. Next was the fish station with grouper and salmon. After that we had quesadillas with grilled veggies (except mine didn’t have cheese, so it was really more of a taco). There was also a ton of great looking meat that we couldn’t eat.
At the fish station, Tzvi filled up a little bowl with green salsa, which he assumed was just a green tomatillo salsa. He then put his fish in a tortilla and smothered it in the salsa. Well, turns out it wasn’t tomatillo, it was habanero. It was the hottest salsa that they had in the resort and Tzvi ate a ton of it. He started panting and drinking water and tortillas to try to calm his mouth, but that didn’t work, so he went to the dessert station and got a bowl of ice cream. Thankfully that helped.
Finally there an awesome dessert bar where they had several different ice cream flavors and then tons of toppings, including churros, taco shells, cinnamon chips, chocolate chips, chocolate sauce, berry compote, dulce de lece, whipped cream, brownies, cinnamon crumble, cheesecake pieces and more. If you were a normal person you would get a bowl with a scoop of ice cream and then cover it with a reasonable amount of toppings, but that was ridiculous because there was no way to fit all the toppings I wanted into a single ice cream bowl. Luckily, I found a solution. I got an extra large plate and filled it up with toppings. It was delicious. Tzvi managed to fit all his toppings in one bowl with vanilla ice cream, but he also got a second bowl so he could try the mango ice cream since that didn’t go with toppings.
We could barely move so we sat for a while watching the live music. When we finally moved it was only about ten feet to sit by a fire pit.
We saw a large Gecko and then went back to the room. Good Day.
