Alec Saunders SquawkBox

It’s 6 AM, the sun is rising over the ocean, and it’s already warm. As the advertising says — "another day in Paradise".

Today we’re planning an uneventful day. This is the day we organize our itinerary for the next two weeks, and recover from yesterday’s travels. It’s "Walmart and the beach" day. One of the things we’ve learned about coming down here is that you can eat relatively inexpensively if you buy and cook your own food, and you plan ahead. The key to eating well, and inexpensively, is Walmart.

Walmart Cancun is about a 10 minute cab ride from the hotel zone, but well worth the trip. You see, it’s like no other Walmart you’ve ever been to. It’s stuffed with local cheeses, freshly made corn tortillas (you can see the ladies make them, and they’re hot when you buy them!), fresh fruits, vegetables, seafood, meat and wonderful locally made pastries. In addition to the food, you can buy a 40 oz bottle of Kahlua there for under $10 US. You can also buy all the essentials you forgot to pack during the last minute rush to get out the door (like sunglasses, and sand toys for the kids).

It’s Day 1 of our trip to the Yucatan. We’re staying at the Royal Sands, one of the best resorts in Cancun. We had to get up at 3:00 AM to catch a 6:00 AM flight. As a result, even though it’s only 8:20 PM, everyone is fast asleep. Good opportunity to do a little blogging.

Over the next couple of weeks, we plan to do some diving, visit some archaelogical sites, and indulge in as much of the local culture as we possibly can. Today, though, was a travel and collapse on the beach day. The travel itself was mostly uneventful, although when you combine last week’s collapse of Jetsgo with the first day of spring break, it was pretty busy.

The customs line in Cancun is always a hassle, although it has gradually improved over the last five years. No matter what you do, it always takes a long time, and there’s always at least one obnoxious spring breaker who can’t keep his excitement in check. This time, it took us a little over an hour to wend our way through the lines to the mexican customs posts, but my in-laws, who arrived a little later, reported a three hour wait.

Mañana.