Day 2 - Time To Explore

Waking up after a nice ten hour sleep, I was feeling refreshed. And excited. I love arriving in a new place and exploring, seeing what the place has to offer. Throwing back the curtains I was thrilled to see it had finally stopped raining and the sun was slowly coming out from behind the clouds. Chucking on some clothes, we ventured out to get breakfast. The humidity hit us as soon as we opened the door, we were finally on holiday.

The hotel was beautiful; our apartments were right by the pool, surrounded by sun loungers and palm trees, complete with a pool bar and volleyball net. There was a restaurant just overlooking the pool with outside seating so we chose to sit outside in the sun and enjoy our first holiday breakfast. As soon as we sat down, we had waiters come and pour us fresh orange juice and coffee and then we were free to roam the breakfast buffet. Breakfast is my favourite meal of the day; it can be hot, cold, savory or sweet and there's so much differentiation in one meal. My eyes lit up at the sight of all the choices. There was a range of fresh fruit including melon, mango, peaches and pears, endless choices of yogurts from peach and strawberry to banana and honey with oatmeal, a selection of breads, hams and cheeses, fresh pastries; donuts, cinnamon buns, pan o chocolats and countless brands of cereals. Then there was the hot food. Crepes, waffles and pancakes, sausages, bacon, eggs - scrambled, fried, boiled, cinnamon toast, baked bean, mushrooms, tomatoes. I just didn't know where to begin. So I had a bit of everything. I was certainly not fit to be seen in a bikini for a few hours.






One of the many pools, this one with a pool bar







All so full, we decided to look around the hotel at the other pools, restaurants and the entertainment programmes. We found a lazy river complete with rubber rings, another three pools, two more buffet restaurants, seven international restaurants including steak house, BBQ and grill, Mexican, Cajun, Creole, Italian, Japanese and Mediterranean - what didn't this place have! The entertainment programme was also amazing with Spanish lessons, cooking & cocktail classes, dancing lessons, yoga, bike rides and the chance to hire snorkeling gear and kayaks. How we were going to cram this all into two weeks was beyond me!

We grabbed lunch at the beach bar which had solely tacos and fajitas, my favourite, and spent the rest of the afternoon swimming in the sea and lying in the sun. On the way back to our apartment, that's when we saw it. A lizard. About two feet long basking in the sun. We all began taking hundreds of pictures, when we saw another one a few metres along. Then another. No one else seemed to be paying them any attention, but we all found them so fascinating, how often do you see lizards just lying around?!

After a lovely dinner in the main buffet restaurant, my sister & I headed down to the lobby bar to try out the cocktail menu. We decided to slowly work our way through it, beginning with a mojito, then a caiparinha, a glass of champagne and an apple sour martini. Due to the time difference however, once the clock hit 11 we felt as if it was 5 in the morning and headed back to our room. Just outside our room, was a racoon. Having never seen one in real life, as Over The Hedge does not count, it was hard to control our suprise and excitement. And they were so friendly, happy enough to have its photo taken whilst it ate an entire plate of chicken wings. After ten minutes of watching tranfixed upon this poor creature we collapsed in bed.