Babymooning in Mexico

Babymoons, for those of you unfamiliar with the concept, are vacations taken during the second trimester by the burgeoning preggo and her mate - typically under the assumption that vacations, relaxation and travel will all be difficult to accomplish once the baby has escaped out into the oxygen and started screaming at you.

With that being the case, it will probably surprise you to discover that this particular burgeoning preggo and her mate were not, in fact, escaping on a romantic vacation together, but were accompanying Sandy's mother, and teenage brother and sister, on their vacation. Not ideal circumstances for romance - particularly with an adjoining room. However, since Sandy's mother very kindly offered to pay our way, who were we to argue? Also, when one is beginning to resemble a camel with the hump on the wrong way, romance is overrated. Or at least bloody difficult to achieve.

So - at 4 a.m. on a Saturday morning, I got up. I finalized my packing job, took the dogs out to go to the bathroom, showered, got dressed, re-finalized my packing job, ate a bowl of cereal, and we tossed our stuff into the car and drove over to Sandy's mom's house. We were there by 5:30. We were all being picked up by a driver at 5:45 a.m because our flight was at 8:50. Only once we got to the airport, it turned out our flight wasn't at 8:50 any longer. It was at 11:15. Some kind of wing-flap mechanical issue. I LOVE hearing our plane is having mechanical issues before flying. Doesn't everyone?

As it happened, the mechanics were able to fix the wing flap much more quickly than anticipated, and we were told that our flight would be leaving as soon as the plane reached the bay - wings up by 10:15! Hurrah! We left the first class lounge*, and hustled down to the gate.

Only then it turned out that the flight crew for our plane had been told, "Um, don't rush - plane won't be ready until 11:15" - so the flight crew was all "still at the hotel." Only when the flight crew came ambling down the hallway around 11 o'clock, it turned out that "still at the hotel" meant "at McDonald's getting breakfast, and doing some light shopping in the airport." Yeah - I'm not kidding. They were all carrying shopping bags with magazines and gift items, and all the stewardesses had big cups of McD's coffee and little wax-paper bags full of donuts. I considered killing and eating them. The stewardesses, that is. Also, the donuts. That bowl of cereal had been a long time ago, and I haven't had the best track record with airport food. Or airplane food. I was starving. And as it turned out, I really, really should have killed and eaten them, because the food they served on the plane (a "Breakfast omelet" at NOON!) was nothing short of criminally disgusting.

Thank god for the stash of Cliff bars I had in my carry on.

Anyway - the flight went about as you'd expect it to. We were in first class, which was awesome apart from the food which was horrifying, and the seats were truly epic - fully reclining, plenty of elbow room even for a woman carrying a basketball around under her jumper. I ate a Cliff bar, put in my ear-planes**, reclined my seat all the way into a bed, kicked off my shoes, did some ankle, foot and calf stretching exercises to stave off swelling and blood clots etc, and then attempted to fall asleep.

Only I couldn't. Because as soon as I would doze off, I would feel myself releasing untold quantities of gas. Something about altitude causes my guts to go completely haywire. Either that, or we could blame it on the hideous omelet which I had attempted to eat. Whatever caused it, I knew that terrible things were happening. At first I thought maybe it wasn't that bad, even though there was so very much of it because I couldn't smell anything. But then I realized my nose was stuffed up, and I saw Sandy scrabbling desperately with his fingers at his overhead air vent fan thing in the seat next to me and I knew. I knew you guys. I went to the bathroom as often as I could, but Pregnancy Gas is no respecter of time or place - and I think we all had cause to be grateful that the flight was only 3 or 4 hours long. And even that probably felt like an eternity to everyone around me.

When we got to Cancun, we made our way to the baggage carousel where everyone else found their bags almost immediately. I had carried my luggage on, because I wasn't taking any chances with the damned airline losing them and me being stuck in Mexico with NO maternity wear. I would have had to wear a caftan for a week. Luckily though, no one's bags were lost, and we were among the first from our flight to make our way through the airport and to the place where all the drivers were waiting to pick folks up.

Cancun airport is very well organized in terms of that - before we reached the pick up area there was a large group of formal greeters who checked with us that we already had transportation, and let us know how to find our specific tour group. We didn't really have a tour group, per se - but our travel agent had arranged our delivery to our hotel through a tour group. We found the guy, he found our driver, the girls got flowers, we all piled into a van after standing around for a while, and we were off to the hotel. Hypothetically. Only it turned out after our driver had dropped us off in front of the "Secrets - Maroma" hotel, that that wasn't the hotel we were staying at. Doom. The guys at the front gate were able to catch our driver, who turned around and came back for us. We were all pretty glad we weren't staying at Secrets, since it was a) gigantic b) cement and c) looked like the loading docks at the Mall of America from the outside.

Back in the van, and a short but very bumpy ride later we were unloaded in front of the Maroma Resort. And THIS place looked a bit more like our sort of thing.

Our hostess, whose elbow you can see in the above photo, took us around the resort, showed us where everything was, and then brought us to our rooms. Which were exceptional. She told us about the aromatherapy oil diffuser in the room - you selected one of four choices and the maids would fill the diffuser in the evening with your choice for you - then you just lit the little tea light underneath the oil when you got in of an evening. Though we weren't there during the buggy season there were two big coconut-shell citronella candles on either side of the bed as well, that the maids would light at night. And a bug net that was quite possibly the most annoying thing in the entire world, (I was obsessed with trying to keep it closed and every time I moved during the night it would open, and I would sit up and wrestle it closed again). Still, I suspect the bug net was less annoying than being eaten alive by bugs.

Our bedroom is pictured below - the design on the bedspread was made with flowers and leaves. Very pretty.

The hostess, after seeing us settled into the room, then asked us what we would like for our coffee service in the morning, and when we would like it. *purrs* I love this about vacation. I wish I could have this at home. Oh puuuuuuurrrrrrr...

Sandy and I put in a request for a pot of tea, an espresso (for Sandy) and some fruit to be delivered at 7 a.m. The hostess laughed and said, "yes - just oranges and bananas right?"***

And sure enough, every morning tea, espresso, and bananas and oranges were delivered to our patio. Hurrah!

After putting our bags down our very first priority was to get some food. We were starving. We went down to the beachside bar and ordered some snacky food since it was well after lunch but a few hours remaining until dinner. Sandy won the "not sure what to order so I'll try this" lottery with his choice of Fish and Chips. They were freaking delicious.

The walk from our rooms to the beach and bar

Some of you may have figured out that this trip was the reason I was trying on maternity bathing suits so early in the season. After having our snack, we returned to the rooms to change into bathing suits to catch a little sun before nightfall, and dinner. I'm a ridiculously quick changer, and so I was out on the beach beds long before the rest of my party arrived. And by "long" I mean about 10 minutes. Which is the exact length of time it took me to get heinously sunburned, since I moved into the shade of an umbrella as soon as they all showed up. *sigh* Not unexpected, but *sigh* all the same.

And if I thought trying on maternity bathing suits was humiliating, it was as nothing to having to lie on a beach chair in one, all bloated and unrecognizable, next to Sandy's ridiculously attractive, (and extremely thin), teenaged sister. (DOOM!) She very kindly told me my bathing suit was cute. I joked that the locals were going to spot me lying next to her, call in any nearby marine biologists, and then start sponging me with water and digging a channel in the sand from my chair down to the ocean, so they could drag me back to the place where whales belong. Greenpeace would probably have to get involved.

And apart from dinner that evening, that was our first day in Maroma.

*A note on first class lounges - the people who hang out in there are total dicks. If you're traveling by yourself, do not go to a booth that has an enormous table and 6 chairs, and spread your shit all over the place. Leaving large families to try and cram themselves and their things into tiny cafe table & chair combos that only have enough seating for three. That's uncool.

** If you've EVER had issues with sinus pressure or ear pain during airplane travel - buy these things. I'm not kidding. They are awesome.

*** A few weeks before we left for this vacation, I'd emailed the hotel to ask about the credentials of their staff doctor and explaining that I was pregnant and a bit nervous about traveling...and the person who replied had sent back a total non-answer that also included the usual sales pitch about wanting to make our stay as wonderful as possible, and including something along the lines of "wouldn't you love to have us welcome you with a bottle of champagne and some fresh chocolate-covered strawberries?"

I confess, I was a little snarky in my response when I said "Thank you so much for the kind offer, but as previously mentioned, I am pregnant and therefore must skip the champagne. Also, I'm afraid my doctor has advised me to avoid any raw fruits or veggies that I cannot peel, so strawberries, chocolate-dipped or otherwise, are right out. Bananas and oranges are okay though."

Clearly, word got around.