#1227 back home from Isla Mujeres

Hello!

We are back from our vacation in Isla Mujeres, Mexico. What a lovely little island! We had good flights both ways and really enjoyed our time on the island. I was happy to go and you know what, I'm ok with being back home, too. Of course you always want to stay a little longer, but I feel happy with the time we were there.

I have several topics and photos to share, but I'll do that over the course of days so that this post isn't so huge that you don't want to read it. :)

Many people have asked me where Isla Mujeres is, so I'll tell you how we got there.

First, we flew to Phoenix, Arizona. The flight is just over an hour long, about 75 minutes. From Phoenix we flew to Cancun, Mexico. The flight is about four and a half hours, so we're looking at nearly six hours of flight time.

We took a private transfer van from the airport to Puerto Juarez there in Cancun. The ride took about half an hour. We then rode on a ferry across the bay, about 20 minutes, to get to Isla Mujeres. You can see the island from Cancun; you can see Cancun from the island.

T took this pic of Cancun when we were on the south end of Isla.

When we got off the ferry, we decided to walk, with our luggage, to the hotel. It was only five blocks - no problem, right? Walking wasn't an issue and we were far from the only people pulling their suitcases along the sidewalks. The thing is, it was hot and steamy there! The temperature was probably around 85 degrees (29C), but the humidity was at least 85 percent. We were dripping wet with sweat when we got to our hotel.

We stayed at the Nautibeach Condos. They are located right on Playa Norte, a really gorgeous white sand beach on the northern end of the island. I was charmed by the location and the gardens at first glance and the pool made me even happier. We checked in and went to our room.

We stayed in Condo 3 and I totally loved it! There was a main room, open plan, with a kitchen, dining area and a sitting area that had a sliding glass door out to a little patio. The view from the main room/patio was the pool and beyond that, the sparkling Caribbean Sea. The decor of the condo was exactly to my taste, with lots of dark wood furniture, very simple and navy blue cushions on the couch and colorful pottery and paintings against white walls. It was adorable.

The sitting room

The view from our patio

There were two bedrooms. Our room had a queen size bed and a little dresser with six drawers plus a closet. T's room had two beds, a full and a single. There was also a sink in there (?) and a dresser and a closet. T didn't unpack, but used the single bed as his dresser. MT and I moved in and unpacked everything and we were quite content.

The bathroom was cute, too. It was a three-piece bathroom: sink, toilet, shower. The sink was a bowl that sat on a pedestal. It was pretty cool. My favorite part was the shower. It was a shower with a frosted glass block wall and a big rainhead shower. So awesome!

So now you know where we were big picture (the island) and little picture (the condo).  I have lots more photos and words to share, so I'll try to gather my ideas into a coherent story and I'll tell you more tomorrow.