Our Journey Begins!

It's hard to believe that it's been a whole month since our whirlwind of a wedding week - but I can definitely say that it's been the best month of my life. I know the majority of you guys were probably at the wedding, so I guess I'll just start from where we last saw all of you...

When we left Bermuda Run Country Club after the reception, all we could talk about was that it was so hard to believe that after all the planning - all the anticipation - we were finally married. It was the strangest feeling; for the last year it seemed like everything we had going on was centered around or focused on the wedding. And now it was over. What are we suppose to do now?

Well, we didn't really know the answer of that question at that moment, so we decided to put it off for another week and run off to Mayan Riviera, Mexico.

Sunday morning, the day after the wedding, we woke up and headed off to the Charlotte airport to catch a flight for Cancun, Mexico. Growing up, I was lucky enough to travel all throughout Asia, Europe and South America so I pretty much knew what to expect when we hit customs and how to get around the language barriers. But on the other hand, this was Amanda's first trip outside the U.S. and it was a joy to share this experience with her.

In fact, traveling with Amanda might just be my new favorite hobby; every day of the trip, she did something to crack me up. From going through customs, to trying new Mexican snacks, to insisting on eating nachos for breakfast - everything she did, she did it with strong curiosity.

We stayed at the Grand Riviera Princess (about 30 minutes south of Cancun), an immaculate all-inclusive resort with 11 different restaurants and 9 different bars & grills. Numerous pools stretched all throughout the resort and the landscaping was beautiful.

In the morning time, we would usually take a few towels out to our favorite poolside cabana and then go to breakfast. The breakfast buffets had everything that you would expect. After breakfast we typically headed back to our cabana for a slow morning of reading and cat-napping beneath the shade of the palm-branched cabana roof. While I read "Breach of Faith" by Jed Horne (an intriguing mix of first hand Hurricane Katrina stories & an insightful report of the actions of the politicos running around during the event), Amanda kept the reading a little bit more on the lighter side. She doesn't remember the name of the book, but by my judging the book by it's cover, I have a feeling that it had something to do with dresses, dating and your every day slumber party gossip. If I had to guess the title, I'm sure it was something like "Friends are Friends Forever."

Nearly every afternoon, Amanda would grab her beach bag and I'd grab the towels, and together we would head down to the beach. One of our favorite things about the resort that we stayed at was all the different activities that they offered; our favorite of these activities was sea-kayaking. Both of us were amazed by how crystal clear the gulf waters were - even hundreds and hundreds of yards off the shoreline. We literally could see everything on the ocean floor.

Each night, we headed to one of many top-notch restaurants. It was a hard job trying to figure out what type of restaurant we wanted each night - seafood or fondue? Or maybe Japanese? - but we managed to pull through it.

Pretty much it was the same routine every day - a little bit of the pool, a little beach, a little kayaking and a lot of eating - but on Tuesday and Wednesday, we mixed things up a bit.

On Tuesday afternoon, we took a shuttle to Playa del Carmen - a city 45 minutes south of Cancun. We were told that our shuttle would drop us off at 1:00pm and that he'd be back to pick us up at 6:00pm. 5 hours in a little Mexican city? I was certain that we were going to end up with nothing to do after an hour or two... I guess in my mind I imagined us sitting on a Mexican street curb eating burritos for hours upon hours - with bike carriages zipping by us and moped scooter horns in the background.

But then we stepped off the shuttle bus and saw Playa del Carmen for what it really was.

Wow. There's all sorts of mischief we can get caught up in for 5 hours...

I don't know how to accurately describe Playa del Carmen... but I'll try. Ok, so imagine a quaint little seaport town in Mexico. Palm trees, fishing boats, little scuba diving shops & a gorgeous view of the beach peaking through every alleyway. Nice right?

Ok, now imagine the North Carolina State Fair in all it's southern glory with bars between every vendor - Welcome to Playa del Carmen!

It truly was New Orlean's French Quarter moved to a setting like Havana, Cuba.

Every where we went, we had Mexicans of all shapes, ages and sizes yelling "Honnneyyyymoonaaas! Honnneyyymoonas! (were we really that obvious?) Come look at jewelry! Very nice jewelry! Real Tiffany's bracelet!"

To Amanda's disappointment, we came to find out that nothing "real" in Mexico was truly real. Fake designer purses, jewelry and clothing... every where. However, with that being said, we thoroughly enjoyed stopping at each and every little shop/shack. Amanda found some gorgeous handcrafted jewelry (and jewelry box) and I pretty much just enjoyed the walk (truth be told, I did buy a Cuban cigar).

When we weren't shopping, we most likely were sitting down at one of the cool bar & grills that were on every block. It was amazing. My favorite place was a cool little bar (where we stopped for chips and salsa) that was open to the breeze coming off the Gulf and had wooden swings all around the bar. It was an authentic Mexican experience.

The following day, Amanda and I woke up bright and early for an adventure tour guide named "Tulum and Beyond." This proved to be my favorite day of the honeymoon.

At 7:45am we were picked up from the front of our hotel by a van. Inside the van, we were accompanied by a family of 5 (two married couples and a father) from Houston, Texas. Our tour guide for the day was Edwar (who Amanda leaned towards pronouncing it "Edar" and I pretty much kept things basic, with simply calling him "Eddie"). From introduction on, Amanda and I loved Eddie. He was somewhere around 50-55 years old, with a soft voice, a wonderful sense of humor and a huge smile. It was evident all through the day that he absolutely loved his job and most definitely loved his Mexico.

Eddie started the day off by taking us to the Mayan Ruins of Tulum. We learned about the history and the culture of the Mayans and we also learned that the Spanish conquistadors were real party crashers.

I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed visiting the Ruins. Somewhere about 5 years ago (well before the movie "Bucket List" came out), I compiled a list of 100 things I wanted to do in my lifetime. Well, as you have probably guessed it, "Visiting the Mayan Ruins" was one of the most desired things that I wanted to do on my list. On one of our first dates, I actually shared some of my list with Amanda - who would have thought that we'd be completing some of the items on my list together as a married couple???

The structures were absolutely amazing. We visited the home of the Mayan king, the Temple where they worshiped their many gods ("Zuma" being the most significant) and we even visited the pit where the Mayans use to offer human sacrifices - in which Amanda threatened to push me in if I didn't stop teasing her (Amanda didn't eat breakfast that morning and we were joking about the very likely possibility of her passing out in the Mayan Temple and we weren't sure how the Mayans would take that).

After about an hour or two, our group headed back to the van and headed to our next stop - the Grand Cenote of the Quintana Roo (by the way, no worries about Amanda... the van ride was filled with a variety of snack options). For those that don't know, a cenote is pretty much a river that runs through a cave system.

FUN FACT: There are no above ground rivers in the Yucatan Peninsula. All the rivers are below ground - once again, cenotes.

When we got to the caves, we were given snorkeling gear. The water was a little chilly, but after a few minutes, it absolutely felt wonderful. From our point of entry, Amanda and I were allowed to explore the caves & cenotes. Between the various shades of bright blue water and the thousands of tropical colored fish, our view was indescribable. While in some areas, we could see or even touch the bottom of the cave floor, there were many areas that we could look down into dark, deep blue caverns where the depth was relatively unknown. The sight was amazing.

During our "Tulum and Beyond" tour, we were taken to a couple different cenotes. While the first cenote was a better snorkeling and swimming cave, the second one that we went to had some really cool cliffs that we were able to jump off of. It was kind of funny really.

When we walked up to the part of the cliff where we could jump off, everybody in our group decided that they might just walk down to the bottom of the water and jump later. I'm ashamed to say what happened next.

The group started to head down the path that led to the bottom of the cliffs where the group would eventually set down there stuff and walk into the water. But right before the group took our first steps down the path, out of nowhere, Amanda dropped her stuff and jumped. While part of me was a little embarrassed by all of the jokes that she just subjected me to by the rest of the group... I must say, I was awfully proud.

We stayed at the 2nd cenote for about an hour or so - taking photographs & jumping off the cliffs into the beatiful green and blue water.

Although we could have stayed there for many more hours, Eddie finally insisted that our group should be on our way to the next stop - a cookout lunch that he had prepared for us at a rural beach. So once again, we piled into the van and headed further south to the small fishing village just north of Campechen. If you know anything about this area of the world, you would know that this area (around what the locals call "Crocodile Rock" - due to the shape of land that resembles a crocodile with a tail that reaches into the Gulf of Mexico) has a lot of pirate history behind it. You see, this area of the coast is home to the 2nd largest reef in the world, which made it very difficult to navigate from the sea - which deemed it a perfect pirate stomping ground. Furthermore, this reef once provided the perfect hideout for the great gentlemen privateer Jean Lafitte (the former war hero of the Battle of New Orleans). I've always been intrigued by pirates and sailing so I especially enjoyed our visit to this area of Mexico as well.

Eddie's cooking that afternoon was quite possibly the best bbq chicken I've ever had. Amanda liked it because he also had cut up some fresh pineapple, made some Mexican rice and pulled out some chips and salsa. Before and after our cookout, we mainly spent the time swaying on some hammocks that we found on the beach. We loved this beach - you could look down the coastline both ways, without seeing anyone besides the occasional village fisherman. It was truly amazing to walk along a beach where the sand was undisturbed by any sort of crowds or tourists. I think out of all the places I've ever been, this beach just north of "Crocodile Rock" might possibly be the most peaceful place I've ever visited.

Although we both had a blast on the honeymoon, we both were happy to get home and start our life together in the real world. We also had enough time over our trip to Mexico to figure out that we didn't need to necessarily figure out the answer of "what do we do now?" I think we realized that if we could survive customs in Mexico and the market places of Playa del Carmen together, we would definitely be able to figure out, each day, how to walk together through the real world.

*I apologize for how lengthy and time consuming this post most likely was for you as a reader. However, we've been asked a million times about our honeymoon and we figured that it might just be best to tell it one good time instead of a million little times.

Here are a few more pictures of our honeymoon that ya'll might like...