Playa del Carmen, Mexico
Is it all over so soon? It seems like yesterday we were sat on a plane, the remnants of 2012 and those Christmas festivities still in full flow, saying goodbye to the grey skies and rainy days of London... and hello to Mexico, Mayans and merrymaking.
What a couple of weeks it's been. There's a big sigh of resignation as we sink down into those purple airline seats, spotting Lee from Steps who'd also been on our outbound flight, and buckle up for departure, bracing ourselves for the harsh realities that await us.
We'd booked a taxi to pick us up from Gatwick on the way to Cancun airport and the controller had warned us that they're expecting it to be minus 4 overnight with a forecast for snow. Let's hope our central heating has kicked in as planned as suddenly our shorts, flip flops, sunglasses and straw-hats seem utterly redundant. So as soon as we board we dig out the cardigans and fleecy jogging bottoms we flew to this tropical paradise in and get changed ahead of take off.
But at least we know we've had as much fun as humanly possible, and we'll be carrying that burst of winter sunshine with us for the weeks to come. We're also carrying eight bottles of very decent wine secreted in our luggage as we had hundreds of dollars of resort credits still to use last night and, determined not to let any go to waste, we persuaded Jazz, the maitre'd of the Italian restaurant, to let us 'buy' a whole set of fine wines from his cellar with them.
So having been awarded $2500 of free credit to spend on check in, we check out having managed to spend $2496 of it on massages, excursions, romantic dinners, fine wines, golfing lessons and even haircuts that the pair of us book in for on our final day. Pretty good going I think you'll agree, especially as when we were negotiating the black market vino, Coman managed to spill half a bottle of shiraz all over the table almost splashing the chef making fresh pasta next to us and Oscar, the executive chef who'd come over to enquire if we'd enjoyed his special dinner last night.
Our final morning sees Coman going for a run while I opt to have an extra half-hour in bed before stretching out on our usual lounger on the beach. When Coman joins me the sun is baking down but slowly bigger and blacker clouds roll their way in and Cozumel disappears from the horizon. As the first speckles of rain appear our fellow sun-bathers start looking peturbed and within a minute are huddling under beach umbrellas to avoid the first proper rain-shower we've had since the night we arrived. It's a strangely appropriate finale to our trip and a sign that all good things must come to an end.
We even find that Julia in the PR team who had been so helpful in the first few days has disappeared under mysterious circumstances, various staff members telling us she "no longer works here" with a hint of something sinister. Has she been sacked for giving Honeymoon Dinners to strange men, we wonder?! But various other staff members on learning we're departing today come to say goodbye as we eat lunch, telling us they'll miss us and to make sure we'll be back.
We load up our bags which are, by now, ridiculously heavy being full to the brim with souvenirs and clinking bottles, and check out. Yet once we've left the little bubble we've been so happy in we're confronted with the soul-destroying horror of hundreds of other Brit-bound holidaymakers at the airport, mostly from the mega-resorts at Cancun.
We'd forgotten quite how grim their shrieking ways could be as the sunburnt hordes all queue-barge to the front, shouting "Oi, Wayne, over 'ere you cahnt, gissa swig of that!!" and generally turning our snobometer up to 11. It's a firm reminder that package holidays can be heaven or hell and we'd managed to create our own little bit of heaven. It could have been so very different.
Who knows what we'll choose next time around - but for now, it's adios mes amigos... we'll be
back!
