Favorite Trips Series: Honeymoon, Part I

As I mentioned earlier, I wanted to do a blog series on some of my favorite trips that Richard and I have taken together. These will be in no particular order and some will be from pictures taken of my scrapbooks, while others will be straight pictures. By the way, if you need a better look I think you can click on any of the pictures to get more detail.

Since I absolutely love surprises (well, good surprises), Richard kept our honeymoon destination a surprise. He was originally gonna have me pack two bags, (one for the beach, another for a colder destination) but decided that would be a little too much, so I knew we were going somewhere warm. When we got to the airport he sat us down a few gates down and then told me where we were going (since I'd see it at the gate anyway). I remember him saying, "We are going to Akumal." I looked at him blankly. Turns out it was "Akumal Beach Resort," an all-inclusive resort about an hour and a half south of Cancun. It was great because it was on a private beach so we didn't have to ward off vendors. Evidently a lot of Europeans go there. We actually met a couple there from London (the girl was originally from S. Africa) and later when we went to Europe (you'll see pictures of that trip soon!) we met up with the couple at a London pub!

We stayed at the Omni Mandalay (significant because we got engaged at Mandalay Canal in Las Colinas). They had black swans and...Room Service! and a great view. We actually got upgraded to a better room. Richard had gotten the rooms without telling them it was our wedding night, so when we showed up in our wedding attire, they gave us a better room.
 

Views at the resort. See the pool water compared to the ocean?? The same color!! Oh, it was so gorgeous!
 

Moravian stars are significant for us, because of Akumal. On the left side you can see pictures of them during the day, and at night (the pinpricks of light over our heads). On the right is a picture of me on our balcony (which had the view that you see in the previous picture of the pool and the ocean)
 

We saw all kinds of fun critters on our trip. That was when I "officially" got into photography. The center picture (of the lizard) was a shot I got while on my belly. I was very proud of the depth of field of that shot. We also went snorkeling. It was amazing because the only interruption of the pristine blue/green water was a spattering of brown--they were reefs! You could just swim out there from shore and see beautiful fish and sea turtles (the pictures can't do it justice).