Turquoise Blue

Its nice living so close to the beach and ocean, but it has nothing on the shores of the Yucatan Peninsula. The turquoise blues and greens that I saw last week were amazing, along the white sandy beaches of Riviera Maya. Valentin Imperial Maya, the resort we stayed at, had such beautiful landscapes. 

I love all these pictures from the beach.

I had such a great time, but its nice to get home. I have to admit that I am already planning my next trip abroad for next year. I'm itching to get out of the country again and explore!

Aventuras Mayas

While in Riviera Maya, I did a snorkel tour. I've snorkeled in Hawaii and loved it. I've taken a greater liking to snorkeling compared to scuba diving. This tour gave us a little bit of everything, visiting three different ecosystems. The Aventuras Mayas consists of a cave, a cenote, and an inlet. 

The Cenote.

 I'm not a huge fan of zip lining because its really not a huge rush for me, but zipping into water was pretty fun.

Cliff-jumping. 

The Inlet.

If you are in Riviera Maya, I would highly recommend this snorkel tour. You get to experience a little bit of everything. 

Happy Wednesday! We are almost to the weekend...

Photo Credit: Aventuras Mayas Photographer and me.

If you like Pina Coladas...

My go-to drink of the trip was the piña colada, by the pool. Valentin Imperial Maya did things right by having two swim-up bars for easy access to cool drinks all day. 

They had a bar by the beach with swings too. The Moon Palace (Cancun, Mexico) actually had a swing-up bar, with swings around the whole thing. I suggest that every resort have these!!

VIM was absolutely gorgeous.

We had fun with a couple activities VIM offered. I made an appearance at the rifle shooting once. lol.

I didn't win, but it was fun. 

More from my trip on the blog tomorrow!

Riviera Maya

I headed down to Rivera Maya, Mexico last week and stayed at the Valentin Imperial Maya, which is an all-inclusive adults only resort. All-inclusive is the only way to go down there. I've been to the Moon Palace before in Cancun, Mexico and both were great experiences

The first morning I ran the beach. It was gorgeous, but very tiring. Running on sand is not the same as pavement or a track, thats for sure! One side of the resort's beach was rock and the other was for swimming from beach straight into water. These pictures were take around 6:30 am, so the sun was just starting to come up.

 This resort had six different restaurants to choose from each night, with buffets for breakfast and lunch. Don't get grossed out by the word "buffet." These are unlike any buffet you've ever been to. Beautiful presentation and amazing food. They had restaurants for all of the following cuisine: Mexican (of course!), French, Indian, Italian, Hibachi/Sushi, and a steak house. Each one was fabulous and presented in the most elegant way possible. 

Below is my favorite dessert from the French restaurant... Cannolis! I love them and these were a new twist on the cannolis I'm used to. 

 Part of the Hibachi dinner was an appetizer of sushi. They were the perfect size and delicious.

Knowing my sweet tooth, you can imagine that I got pastries, cake, and ice cream at each restaurant. My favorite pastry is the one below. It reminded me of a doughnut hole with powdered sugar on top. There was a light butter on the inside, but after sitting for a bit it turned into a boston cream filled doughnut taste or cream puff. Super light. I loved them so much, we asked for the name and recipe. However, it does not translate to english. 

You can't go wrong with mimosas at breakfast each day either...with this view.

Out of all the restaurants,  I would have to say that its a toss up between the Italian and French restaurants. I had filet mignon at the French and ravioli with beef medallions at the Italian. And as we know, I run on ravioli, so I was in heaven. They were delicious too. 

That is all for today, but I will share the rest of the resort and our snorkel adventure later this week!