Just Yesterday I Was There...

Last night we got back from our one week vacation to Huatulco, Mexico. I've posted lots of pics below (though there are tons more) to try to give you an idea of how beautiful it was there. I would go back in a heartbeat - it was gorgeous, the people were friendly, we felt safe walking around no matter what time of day or night it was, and it was just what I needed to get myself back on track and forget about things that I've been trying desperately to let go of.
My favourite part of any flight - that moment when you go above the clouds...it feels like you're in a whole other world, miles away from everything. Magic.
The view from our hotel room. We ended up on the very top floor of the hotel - the 10th. But as you'll see from the picture below - it wasn't really in floors, but more in levels of buildings. We were the top floor, in the highest building built into the mountain - our view was the best there was.
The picture above is of buildings 8, 9 and 10, from the 7th building bar. Our room is the very top floor, on the left - I measured our balcony to give you an idea of how much space we had on ours - it was 30 feet long, enormous!
We had heard through the grapevine before we left that if you had a room in the 10th building that you could have a shower and see the whole view. That rumour was true - our jacuzzi/shower had it's own set of patio doors that we could open and look out of while we showered - sigh, I wish I was there now.
Since our building was so high up, if you didn't feel like walking there was a shuttle service that would zigzag up the mountain and drop you off on your floor. My mother-in-law, father-in-law and the husband are on this shuttle - it was the day we got in and we were on our first trip up the mountain.
Here's the husband in our jacuzzi relaxing one night (and no, you can't see anything). I took this picture from our bed - it was weird, because to the left of him is the patio to look out onto the ocean, to the right there are 2 marble steps leading into the rest of the bathroom, and he's looking at me lying on our bed. Why there was an opening that way I have no idea - but it made for some interesting viewing while one of us was in the shower.
This is a pineapple plant that was growing on the seventh floor - there was a line of about 20 of them lining the bar.
On our second last day we took a catamaran tour from Santa Cruz of seven of the local bays and did some snorkelling. This is a view of the town as we were pulling out into the ocean.
This is also from the catamaran trip - if you look closely you'll see a face in the mountainside. They say it's a natural face - it was really cool, it looked like a little old man.
This is my mother-in-law (and the husband) one afternoon on the beach. My mother-in-law and I had been drinking pina coladas for a couple hours by this picture and she was in the middle of a drunken laughing fit.
We went shelling almost every morning on the beach - this was my treasure from just one day.
A perfect little shell that I found one morning on the beach.
Two HUGE rock lobsters at a restaurant not far from our resort. We ate at this place twice because it was so cool - you picked what you wanted and they would cook it right in front of you on a homemade grill.
Here's our waiter cooking our fresh lobster and a steak for my father-in-law.
Some of the decor at the restaurant - of course I laughed my ass of when I saw these two cows being naughty, it required a picture, naturally.
The view from our hotel room at dusk.
There were three hammocks that hung from palm trees in our "backyard" on the 10th floor every day. The husband and I took advantage of them nearly everyday.
My mother-in-law buying some Mescal (aged tequila) at the market in La Crucecita, where we went shopping a couple of the days. The first day we went, the lady in the background kept giving us samples of all the different types of tequila (every single bottle behind her is filled with a different flavour of tequila, just to give you an idea), so we were pretty happy walking around the market. We ended up buying our liquor limit in her store - damn that Mango mescal was awesome!
This is one of the churches in La Crucecita - I have tons more pictures of it, you just can't imagine how beautiful it was. On the ceiling is a 130 foot painting of the Virgin Mary, it was breathtaking.
This is one of the resorts just down the beach from us, I think if we go back to Mexico we'll stay there - it was smaller, but we were allowed to go onto the grounds and look around, and it was so secluded and beautiful that it made you feel like you were in another world.
Here's Squinty (aka the husband) and I from our balcony.
A quiet shot of the beach at about 8:00 am one morning. Totally deserted except for us.
Here's my sunburn on the third day. And though I did burn quite a bit - surprisingly it has turned into quite a nice tan. Although I have no doubt that I will be teased about not being tanned from my co-workers. I was wearing sunscreen with an SPF 50 everyday - and still I burned this way. Yeesh!

So, overall we had an amazing time. We were up at 6:30 every morning, having breakfast just after 7 and on the beach by 8. From then until 1pm we would lay in the sun, swim in the ocean, go shelling and stroll down the beach before walking a few steps to the lunch buffet. Then we would lay on the beach for awhile longer before heading up to our rooms to shower and put on fresh clothes.

We found a little coffee shop that sold amazing chilled coffees - so nearly every afternoon we would stroll down there to sit on the patio and watch the world go by, then check out the shops on that strip. Finally we would make our way back to the resort for dinner, then watch the entertainment crew put on an amazing show before either heading up to bed, or sitting by the ocean.

My in-laws were in bed by about 9:30 every night, but the husband and I stayed up some nights to check out the disco, or sit by the ocean, or sit on our balcony and marvel over how beautiful everything was.

So okay, my in-laws drove me a little insane. It's just because they were with us 24/7. As in together from 7 till bedtime every day. I quickly got into the habit of having a "nap" everyday after lunch to have some time alone. Then the husband and I would shower and sneak out to the hammocks to swing in the breeze and chat, or read, or listen to music. Or we would actually nap or do other fun, um, grown up things (wink).

It would get soooo hot laying on the beach everyday and one day in particular was crazy hot - the temperature on the sand that day was 116 degrees fahrenheit! Insane! That was the day I got that crazy sunburn in one of pictues above.

Anyways, that's all I can think of right now - I'll do another post tomorrow of all my treasures and of my tan - just so I have proof that I really did tan.

And as I told you all before, I really missed you all - like crazy! And as sad as I am to be back in the cold weather, I'm happy too because now I can get back to reading about all of you.