Back in February, Natasha sent us a link to this AirBNB she’d found–a house shaped like a seashell in Isla Mujeres. We just had to book it, and the next available opening was all the way in November. November 9th, to be exact. We spent nearly all of 2016 dreaming of this trip, and realized only a couple months before we left that it was the day after the presidential election.
We thought, “this’ll be great, right? A group of women, staying on the island of women, celebrating a woman president.” Turns out, only two of those happened. I cried in the airport the day we left. The whole day we spent traveling to Isla Mujeres was generally a pretty huge bummer. But once we got to the house, it took my breath away. I felt like what was a poor decision at first was actually a wonderful decision for all of our hearts and minds.
The house was shaped like a seashell, inside and out. The doors had spiral patterns painted on them. The chairs were sculpted like shells. The faucets, knobs, and sink basins were seashells. Everything was white and light streamed in through the sheer curtains in the morning.
The food was awesome. We changed our money to pesos and got to eat awesome food for every meal. After breakfast one morning we wandered up to an open air seaside chapel, looking over the balcony into the ocean below.
There were all kinds of beautiful seaside homes, each unique and detailed. This one I think was called “two million dreams.”
Even at night, the house was gorgeous, reflecting in the pool.
We went to this awesome Cuban restaurant on the water, El Varadero – I took one of these Bubblis of our dinner, the audio is worth checking out.
Elizabeth and Alyssa found a sculpture garden and we walked up there one morning to catch the morning breezes and walk through these tunnels carved into the rock.
On Friday we went to Zama, a day spa on the other side of the island. They served frozen margaritas blended with spinach (“margarita chaya”). I’ll probably make these at home to uh, get my nutrients. I had to leave Zama early to go back to our house and work for a few hours, but it was unbeatable.
Alyssa and Natasha had some friends who own a hotel on the island, and they sent us to an amazing restaurant called La Lomita. The host was amazing, so friendly and made us laugh.
We were walking through the water one day when Alyssa tripped over a starfish. She grabbed it away from my foot to save me, I decided to not spend too much time in the water after that.
