Luna de Miel (Moon of Honey)

When I was in Oaxaca, Mariana (our TA), mentioned that she and her family stayed at the Quinta Real in Huatulco, Mexico, and she recommended that we go there on our honeymoon. At that point, Jeremy and I were thinking about going to the Galapagos or Greece, but we cut the Galapagos once we heard that it's not very romantic...in fact, we would have to stay on a boat (in bunk beds, no less) for several days with a bunch of strangers in order to see what the islands had to offer. It sounds great, but maybe not so much for a honeymoon. And, I talked Jeremy out of Greece...actually I am DYING to go to Greece, but not for a short trip like 1.5 weeks...some of you will recall that when we went to France for Brad and Jacqueline's wedding, I cried the whole 6 hour flight home from NYC. We had been traveling for 30 hours by that point and my seat was broken and didn't recline. I just couldn't sleep all hunched over like that, even though I was exhausted and was desperate for some relief. I think that was the trip we decided that we were never again going to go for the cheaper ticket that had layovers and connections. It took us 36 hours to get to the south of France (where Brad and Jacqueline were getting married), and just about the same to get home, and again, I CRIED the whole way home...just miserable.

Anyway, on to happier thoughts. HUATULCO! I posted our entire Flickr set here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hopemeng/sets/72157602425714917/

We have been thinking about getting a new camera, and we settled on the Nikon D40X. J was trying to decide between the Nikon and the Canon Rebel EOS series but ultimately decided on the Nikon for its interface. Whatever, I was just happy to have a nice camera! I am still trying to figure out how to manipulate it...I finally figured out how to take nice photos on the Powershot, but I still need some more time with the new duds. Anyway, here's what we were able to manage...

We had a really ugly flight in...we left SFO at 11:30PM, flew to Mexico City (a 4 hour flight) and had a 5 hour layover until our flight to Huatulco). But one we got there, this is what we saw from the plane:



When you get to the hotel, the "doorman" (I put this in quotes because there are no doors) greets you with two towels soaked in ice water so you can wipe your face, and two little teacups full of some house-made ice cream (made from local fruit). Now that's what I call service!!!

This is what our (first) hotel room looked like:



And here's what the pool looked like:



When you're standing on the pool deck, you can see the beach...



J wasn't sleeping well in the first room because the mattress was kinda saggy and soft, so he complained at the front desk. Since they couldn't get us a new mattress before we left, they decided to upgrade us to a nicer room. Eff yeah!!!

This is our second room:



And here is the view from our deck:



Yeah, it was really too much. So pretty there!!! We spent most of our days reading (2.5 books for Jeremy and 1 for me, plus every single New Yorker we had, cover to cover), relaxing by the beach or pool (J said he now knows he can lay on the beach for 10 days with nothing to do--I could have told him that!), and eating (though getting here was pretty cheap, eating in Huatulco can rival SF prices). We also went diving one day (our first dive was preceded dramatically by me having an asthma attack) and snorkeling for 2 days. Our favorite beach was San Augustin, which had an abosultely AMAZING coral reef system) much of it was in bad condition, but WOW! the fish were in great abundance. Here are some photos from that beach...some taken from under Charly's palapa:





There were soooo many fish under the water at San Augustin...as well as eagle rays. These creatures were truly beautiful and very curious about us weird humans. Here is a photo I took of them from shore. They were huge!!! In the background of this photo is this crazy guy we met from Slovakia named Jan.



It was a really wonderful trip, and perfect for our honeymoon, as we had to work our A's off both before and after the 'moon. In closing, I leave you with two more photos on things we got really comfortable with in Huatulco...

J really loved the whole fried fish they served up there...



And I really got to know the in-pool chaise lounges...