Work has been crazy and, in all honesty, I haven't watched any noteworthy movies. I was, however, able to sneak a couple days of vacation into my nutso schedule. So this installment is going to be a bit more of a travelogue than a revue (although opinions will be included).
Sunday I got home from a 4 day, all-inclusive resort fitness weekend in Playa del Carmen, Mexico.
Nice, right?
When I was in Malaysia last November visiting my friends Rachel and Stefan, Rachel suggested that we do this fitness weekend in May. It was with the Fitness Marshall, who is a You Tube workout/dance guru who has become an international sensation.
So even though it felt weird to book a vacation while I was on vacation, I agreed and we got our tickets. Rachel and I both expected this to be huge - like a-couple-hundred-people-huge - so we were pleasantly surprised when we arrived to discover that it was capped at 25 participants! Actually, Rachel was so shocked that it took nearly 24 hours for it to sink in.
It was truly amazing to dance up close and personal with the Fitness Marshall. There were so few people that we all got a chance to have a real conversation or two and a shot of tequila (or several) with him. He is just as charming, energetic and charismatic as he seems in his videos.
Post class sweaty group
We cleaned up good for the final night.
I had never been on this kind of vacation before, so it was also really fun to connect with all these people from all over the country who came to Mexico to work out. There were several classes a day (yoga, workouts in the pool, other dance classes) and then we all got to dance the nights away at the resort nightclub.
But every silver lining has some wispy clouds, right? So here are a few of the good/bad things about my weekend.
- The resort, Occidental at Xcaret, has a 700 person capacity so it is enormous. It was difficult to navigate around, however, because most of the buildings look exactly alike. In fact, even much of the staff wasn't able to point us toward specific buildings or pools.
- The aforementioned nightclub was fun (Rachel was a bit bummed that much of the music was from 30 years ago, but I enjoyed it :) and in typical vacation manner, some guests went a bit overboard. There was one man at the nightclub on our first night that was SO hammered I thought he might fall off the small stage he insisted on dancing atop. He spilled his drink on his shirt and then, suspiciously, the front of his pants was also wet. I believe it was a "liquids in, liquids out" scenario. Disappointingly his friends didn't take him home at that point and he was back at the club the next night! Kudos to him for sheer willpower. And let's all hope he rinsed out those pants.
- The food was underwhelming in the extreme and, oddly, some of the waitstaff was quite surly. Rachel and I had a completely unsatisfying dinner at one restaurant so went to another to try a second dinner. One of our dance-mates came with us but only wanted to get dessert. When she only ordered a piece of cheesecake (which was so small it was comical) the waiter was momentarily stumped, then angrily grabbed her plate and silverware (leaving only a small fork) and walked away before Rachel and I had even ordered (he did come back). It was truly odd and the worst part about it was that it was probably the best meal we had (and by best I mean that it was edible enough that we didn't leave half of it on the plate).
My reaction to most of our meals.
- One of the coolest things about the resort is that there is a ton of wildlife roaming around. Rachel nearly stepped on a huge iguana and I almost walked into a grazing deer. We also saw a young buck with antlers that hadn't yet lost their fuzz and a bunch of monkeys (we think spider and howler) in the trees. What we DIDN'T expect to see, however, were snakes. We saw two. The first slithered by and Rachel yelled "Fuck, a snake!!" which caused another woman to drop the scuba equipment she was holding and jump nearly a foot straight up. The second we saw literally fell out of a tree right in front of us. Rachel yelled something like "Did a fucking snake just fall out of that tree??" followed closely by "That's it. I'm out." Thankfully we were checking out immediately after that.
- We also had a close encounter with something I think was related to a possum. It was in our open-air building, standing in front of the room next to ours. We were all in a rather narrow hallway and started edging toward each other. He was eyeing us and I was trying to speak in a calm manner. "Hey buddy," I said. "Please don't bite us." We were eye to eye at that point. I took a step toward our room and he ran off down the hall toward the lobby. Phew.
Monkeys...
Iguanas...
And deer...oh my!
In all honesty, I wouldn't go back to that resort. But I would absolutely do another fitness weekend. And if it was Fitness Marshall again - sign me up immediately!
(My drink pairing for this entire event is a Miami Vice. I know you would have probably bet money that I'd pair a margarita, but this is a marvelous blended concoction that I just discovered - half Pina Colada, half Strawberry Daiquiri. So refreshing and perfect for the swim up pool bar, which is where many were consumed.)
My takeaways:
#1 - Rachel has been traveling for just over a year and clearly has a new and wonderful perspective on life. She was wondering aloud what day it was and answered her own question with "May."
#2 - Doing cardio in 85 degree heat with 100% humidity is heroic and stupid all at once.
#3 - Thanks again to Nonie Rand for putting together such a well done event. If you are ever looking for a fitness vacation, check her out at Mind Body Spirit Vacations:
xoxo...hashtagSueslife
Hanging with the Fitness Marshall!
