Cancun Catastrophe "Not Bad"

I finally found a chink in my "Healthy Choices in 2010" armour during our Cancun vacation last week.

It started with the breaded pork cutlet that I ordered during a pre-trip lunch with my Ciaramitaro grandparents at a Greek diner. The pork cutlet was actually two chops (with bone), breaded and DEEP FRIED. I picked at one of them but the lunch sat in my stomach like a rock and within a couple hours I had to take Gravol to control the nausea. Dinner was a quick trip to the grocery store for strawberries, ginger herbal tea and wheat crackers which I ate sparingly. It helped.

The next morning we were up and off to the airport by 4am and the airport hotel buffet was not out yet so we had planned ahead with bananas, more crackers and ginger tea.

By 10:30am, when we arrived at the Ocean Spa Hotel in Cancun, we were all hungry. The first room they showed us to had 4 cochroaches waiting for us...I was back in the lobby with our luggage immediately requesting a room off the main floor. There was a large gap under the door which faced off an alley so it was only logical to assume that if we could get up off the main floor, we would get less bugs. They showed us another room that was unacceptable and I got pretty serious with the front desk at that point. The third room they offered was acceptable but not cleaned yet so we had to wait all afternoon for that to happen.
In all this chaos, brandishing our all-inclusive bracelets, we made our first visit to the hotel breakfast/lunch buffet which was open from 6am-12pm.

Now, if you've been following my blog from the beginning, you know how I feel about buffets. Poor food quality is common and food temperature questionable. Our Ocean Spa Buffet was the epitome of my worst buffet nightmares. Chicken pieces in green sauce (guacamole-based maybe?), scrambled eggs with chopped weiners mixed in, cucumber slices with the centres carved out...many unidentifyable or unappealing food mixtures that made me cringe. I found a few items that looked safe but when I tried them, they were lukewarm and tasted different to what I was accustomed to.

I tried opting for a freshly-made omellette that a chef prepared in front of me, but the neon yellow of the egg mixture and the equally unappealing taste had me sampling my daughters freshly-grilled hot dog. "Hmm...Not bad". I had visions of eating hot dogs morning, noon, and night. I hated that I wasted so much food that I had tried and couldn't bring myself to eat beyond a bite or two. I was seriously concerned about food poisoning and determined to try and eat freshly prepared foods as much as possible.

Between the meal and our room situation, I was struggling with panick. We were stuck in Cancun for 5 days and this was going to be our existence. I was trying not to show my misery but Shawn caught it and asked if I was going to be okay. Did I mention that it was also pouring rain? I had researched Cancun's weather in April and rain is not supposed to happen. The shuttle driver had told us that it was supposed to rain for two days and then it would be sunny. Immediately afterwards he had looked at his pal in the front seat and laughed! The weather forcast on tv actually confirmed this growing unease I was feeling. Rain was forecasted for the whole week!

I tried to readjust my expectations. I had been on a mission trip as a teen and this was bringing me back 22 years in time to a month in Guatemala. This wasn't a mission trip. It was supposed to be our "dream" vacation and things were not looking good. Well, we were going to make the best of it and have a good time no matter what. We had solved the cochroach issue and we would find better restaurants in our resort and it's affiliates. We would survive!

Well, the rain lasted two full days but we stayed in our bug-free room, did a 1000 piece puzzle, watched a couple of the english-speaking tv channels, read and napped. Eating at the various restaurants took on a brave, foraging quality and when someone found an item that was "not bad", we celebrated it. "Not bad" became a statement that would define our entire eating experience no matter what we had. All except the Myian coffee dessert that I finally broke down and ordered and the virgin Pina Colada's that we supplemented our diet with at will--yes, sugar and caffeine! It took two days for me to break down and decide that survival was my only goal and if I could find anything palatable beyond "2 eggs over medium", and fresh fruit, I was going to go for it! Even then, I stuck to bottled water and ginger tea as much as I could bear.

We had one glorious day of sun before we headed back and despite all the obstacles, we had a great time. We got plenty of rest and really enjoyed each other without distraction of work, food prep, cleaning, internet, phones etc. We also received incredible service from the hotel staff who served up their fare with dignity and hospitality beyond anything I have experienced in North America. I have a feeling this will be one of those vacations that we talk about for years to come.

"Do you remember that trip to Mexico we took when we were kids and you and dad argued over whether he was eating chicken or pork? What was he eating anyways?"

"Absolutely no idea--there wasn't a sign on it...but it wasn't bad!"

We're back in our native country of Canada, in our beautiful, clean home, sleeping in our comfortable beds, and eating our absolutely wonderful food and I feel like royalty. We are so blessed to have the luxury of the lifestyle choices we have available to us and I am more determined than ever to make the best of them!