PARADISUS, COMPADRES, AND BACK TO REALITY

Well, it has been a while since our return from San Miguel de Allende and our last blog posting. We spent four weeks in Puerto Morelos, Mexico at our favorite resort, Paradisus. The first four days we had a lot of rain. It was raining so hard that the jacuzzi on our balcony was filling up with rain very rapidly. This is very unusual for this time of year. We had several nice days and then we had four days of heavy winds. The winds were so strong that the authorities closed all of the ports for water sports and small craft. The winds blew the sand into drifts just like the snow in Michgian.  We both said if one travels often, one is likely to encounter all kinds of weather. So we enjoyed meeting people and reading our books.

Our friends, Lourdes and Peteco, joined us for 8 days from Buenos Aires, Argentina.  Lourdes and Sam have celebrated their birthdays for the past four years at Paradisus. We met them in April 2006. Lourdes’ birthday is the day before Sam’s. The hotel staff decorated our bed for Sam's birthday.  They spelled out, "Feliz Cumpleanos" in rose petals.  They also delivered a beautiful bouquet of flowers.  For dinner, the general manager had a nice chilled bottle of champaign for us.

Bob snorkeled as often as he could. Many times he snorkeled twice a day. There will be another blog posting about his snorkeling adventures. In the morning after breakfast on most days, Sam would swim a mile in the pool. One day she was so ambitious that she swam two miles; one mile after breakfast and one mile after lunch. All this exercise was enjoyed but was necessary due to the abundance of food and wine.

Two weeks into our trip, we were informed that Sol Melia was no longer managing the hotel. The new management company is AMResorts and the new name of the hotel is Now Sapphire. AMResorts is an American company headquartered in Pennsylvania. They also own Apple Vacations and the airlines, USA3000. At present, all of our friends and contacts are still there. However, we both have been through mergers/acquisitions/buyouts, etc., during our careers. We will have to wait and see what will happen at our “Beach House”.

The highlight of our trip was a visit to our compadre's house one Sunday afternoon.  We saw Robertito and his two brothers, Ryan and Uly.   Robertito is growing up fast.  He is 11 1/2 years old.  He doesn't want to be called Robertito anymore...just Roberto.  It was a nice afternoon.

We really enjoyed our trip. We met several nice couples over our four week stay. The employees always treat us very well. On several occasions, the chefs would prepare special dinners for us that weren’t on the menu such as racks of lamb, lobster thermidor, and a very special dinner on our last night.  The chef at the French restaurant prepared three different appetisers, lobster ceviche, shrimp and basil, and scallops with bacon.  All of these appetisers have been on previous menus.  For the main course we had short ribs.  And of course, the captain of the restaurant presented us with a nice bottle of red wine from Spain.   That evening, we had our favorite waiter and the table was beautifully decorated.  We are so very lucky and count our blessings every day.

We arrived home on April 12th to cool and rainy weather; however, everything is very lush and green. For the past four days, we have been pulling weeds. We have never seen so many weeds in the spring. We now know that April showers bring WEEDS!! And there has been a lot of rain. We still have a few more days of weed pulling before we are ready to put down mulch, plant the flowers and vegetable gardens.

The good news is we rewarded ourselves each evening with a refreshing cocktail after a hard day’s work in the yard.  This cocktail is a very delecious Mojito...Sam's specialty!!  Now back to reality.