My wonderful trip to Mexico! Part two.

We had one week left, after doing many amazing things like a beer guzzling boat trip, snorkeling with turtles and going to the greatest club there ever was, it was time to get a little cultured. A few of us decided to visit Playa Del Carmen again, which is the local town. It reminded me of Brighton, it has a sloping hill that led to the beach, sadly no arcades though only glorious heat! We walked around looking at the tourist shops, we took a stroll onto the beach to see these huge sand sculptures sat in the middle. Near the entrance of the beach were these cast iron archways made to look like two mermaids guarding the sea, was incredible! I noticed a lot of artistic sculptures and installations around Mexico. Just down the road from the beach there was a huge oak tree that had loads of different colored umbrellas perched in the wood. We soon got hungry and found a place to eat, after that we stumbled across a Haagen-Dazs ice cream shop, was an absolute god-send in that heat! It was a lovely day walking around and seeing the locals doing their shopping and relaxing by the beach.

The day of mine and Joe's Mayan ruin & Cenote trip came around, we were both so excited to get our little adventure going, we got picked up from our hotel at 9am and it took 2 hours to get to the Cenote. Now for anyone who doesn't know what a Cenote is, its a large naturally formed cave far underground that tends to have freshwater in the bottom that is deep enough to swim in. Truly beautiful looking. Once we arrived, we were greeted by Mayan people. They led us through a thick jungle and stood us all in a small clearing, we were then blessed by the head shaman. After that we had to go shower in our swimwear as to get rid of any cosmetics on our skin before swimming in the freshwater. We started hiking up the mountain to get to the entrance of the Cenote, there was two ways down. The stairs or to repel backwards on a rope about 50 feet down. We obviously chose to repel down.  I was petrified but when we hit the water it was one of the best and exhilarating experiences. We had a personal photographer that shot us when we were coming down the rope and when we were zip lining in the water. Joe loves to dive and he's pretty good at it, so the photographer loved shooting him diving off every edge he could find. It was such a mind blowing day just swimming round in freezing cold water with catfish swimming round too. Once everyone was finished in the Cenote it was time to go enjoy some Mayan food. We scoffed pretty much everything at the buffet then headed back to the van to go see the ruins. Once we got to the ruins the heavens opened so we sheltered in the little forest bit near by. It was just ridiculous how high the ruins were, we climbed to the top and the view was something out of a book. I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to architecture and art, so this was the best of both words. Loads of stone carvings and stories behind each one. We got an hour to walk around then it was back on the bus home.

The hotel that we went to was voted one of the best Spa hotel's in Latin America so obviously we had to go see it for ourselves. We booked in for a hydro therapy session and it really didn't cost much. We got there and one of the workers showed us around, telling us the order of the pools we had to go in. Each pool was different, they had jet streams that massaged each body part and different temperatures. We went through the different stages and when we got to the hot tub part there was also a ice cold pool next to the tubs. We were meant to go in the ice pool for 5 seconds then get out and jump in the hot tub, well i just dipped my feet in and decided i weren't even gonna try 5 seconds. Joe however sat in there for 9 minutes. I think he was trying to break some manly record with himself. After getting out of the pool area we were led to saunas. Going into a sauna in a hot country wasn't really for me but they were all fragranced differently and had different humidity's. We walked over warm stones to soothe our feet and laid on these curved stone hot beds that rocked. We also got given drinks and soft robes. I think i have slightly fallen in love with spa treatments. So relaxing and worth the money.

For the rest of the week we relaxed at the beach, played with raccoon's that stole our food and sunbathed til the sun went down. Me and Joe went to dinner at the Japanese restaurant and we were all seated in a square with a chef in the middle cooking on a huge hot plate, he chopped and diced, then threw his knives around for our entertainment. Every time our plates were empty they would fill them back up. The Japanese was definitely the best restaurant there. I was so sad to see the holiday come to an end, we drank, we laughed, we sunbathed - a lot. It was just amazing to wake up every morning and see the ocean. I definitely want to move by the coast, even if it is English sea.

There's probably a lot more i can say about this holiday but i think I've rambled enough. I'd love to hear about your holiday's and summer trips. Link me in the comment box below :)

Thanks for reading!

Love Madison
  ♥  

Ps, Viva La Mexico!

My wonderful trip to Mexico! Part one!

Hello my lovelies! I've been back from my amazing holiday just over a two weeks now and safe to say i had a hell of a lot of washing to do and errands to run before i could sit down and go through my photographs and think about writing a post about it. Saying this i am now ready. Hooray! I don't really even know where to start there's just so much!

The journey to the airport is always quite fun and the excitement of the holiday is enough to keep you awake, erm well some people, i slept on the way down to London, only because it was 3am and i was shattered from running round packing the day before. Once we got to Gatwick we headed to McDonald's, so whilst i was eating my bagel i looked up to see Tim Westwood chatting a bunch of young girls on their way to Malia. It set the tone for the holiday tbh. UNBELIEVABLE. So once we checked in we looked round the absolute HUGE duty free. I couldn't decide on anything i wanted so i just bought a really pretty bronzer from Monsoon. I did make a stupid error though, i thought we'd be coming through the same duty free on the way back until my boyfriend informed me otherwise. Gutted. So the flight was pretty uneventful until we thought we'd mix things up by ordering mini bottles of sparkling wine! Made me a bit giddy when we eventually landed. Stepping out the front of Cancun airport we were all greeted by a wall of pure heat. We had to get a transfer to the hotel and it had the most beautiful white stone entrance,  it had individual stone letters spelling out 'Sirenis'. Once we got checked in and seen our amazing room we headed to the pool and all had at drink at the swim up pool bar to toast to the start of out holiday! For the first week we kept it pretty tame, we ate at the buffet at night which had an incredible selection of everything, we sun bathed in the day, visited the local beach which also had a bar & buffet station. We watched the on-site entertainment which is always a cheese fest, we even visited the on-site 'disco-tech'. That just turned out to be an amazing night out because it was so bad that we all just got so drunk to enjoy it. After settling in it got to mid week and we decided to try the hotels alacarte restaurants, everyone got to have 3 alacarte meals a week, we chose Cajun, the Steak house (i obviously had the fish option that night) and Italian. The Cajun was okay, and the steak, well, terrible but the Italian was really nice. We didn't just eat in the hotel though, we ventured to the local town Playa Del Carmen and had real Mexican food in this little restaurant that had mariachi men performing! After visiting the town we decided to go out at night and visit a few bars, it was an amazing night, we got in to this tiny place and got all our drinks free! We moved onto a bar that was on the beach with a huge open air dance floor. 5am soon came around and we headed back to the hotel. After lazing (with an almighty hangover) round the pool the next day we booked our excursions out of the hotel. As a group we booked, Coco-bongos  a huge club that puts on an amazing celebrity themed show and a boat trip with snorkeling. Me and Joe booked to see the Mayan ruins by ourselves and to repel down into a fresh water Cenote.

The morning of the boat trip came around and we were all pretty excited to get out onto the clear blue sea and to drink some beers! We drove down to the harbor where we'd be sailing from and realized it was also a dolphin sanctuary! So whilst we were waiting for our boat we got to watch the dolphins leaping around and loving all of the attention. Once we got on the boat we sailed out into the middle of the Caribbean sea, we sailed for about an hour then they turned slightly inwards to a private beach near a reef. We donned our snorkels and flippers and got in the water. It was incredible being taken to see turtles, stingrays and starfish as well as all the beautiful coral reefs. After we were finished snorkeling we got back on the boat and headed further out to where fresh water meets sea water, in the middle of nowhere! We all dived back out again and were floating with life jackets on whilst the crew threw cans of beer at us for us to drink in the water. It was easily the best experience I've had on a boat and i got the best tan being out in the seawater.

Cocobongo's was insane. We got VIP tickets so we had our own private table that had a bottle of vodka and mixers waiting for us so we could help ourselves, we had our own barmen that came round and offered tequila shots straight from the bottle into our mouths, i sadly have not got the stomach for that. It was situated on a high balcony so we could see the stage and all of the show. The show was basically the dancers dressing up as different celebrities and performing their songs and dance routines for us to enjoy. As well as giant balloons, confetti canons and acrobats dangling from the ceiling. Because we were so close to the stage and as a group of 13 we attracted attention. All the girls got taken up on stage and given these long balloons to wave around and dance with whilst the dancers performed in front of us. When we were allowed to return to our seats we were asked if we wanted to dance on the stages podium in between acts. We were all pretty drunk at this stage so we agreed. The 4 of us went up onto the podium and danced in front of around 1000 people (felt like more). They had two big screens either side that showed us in high definition to everyone. It was an amazing experience but i really hate attention especially because i dance like a fish out of water. It was easily the best club i have ever been too, it was like Broadway meets Reading festival. Was just incredible!

Well that's just part one of this story, because it's a lot to fit in, in just one post. Hope you enjoyed part one of my Mexican adventure.

Thanks for reading!

Love Madison

   ♥    

Hanging out with a dear old friend.

For months i have been waiting for the  arrival of a very dear friend of mine, he is my absolute best boy mate and he came to visit England from Canada, Toronto. Not to just see me though, he has family and friends here because he grew up in my hometown. I've known Adam since i was 12 and we've been close ever since. His mom and stepdad decided to move to Toronto when he was 18, which was heartbreaking for me but pretty exciting for him as he attended an amazing art university over there. I genuinely thought id never see him again but true to his word he visits pretty much once a year. His gorgeous twin sister Nat stayed in England and went to Leeds uni so that's pretty much the obvious reasons for his visits but he always makes time for me when he's here.

He only had a two week visit this year so he came to Leicester for the day. We hung out all day, went town so he could pick up some of the boyish British stuff he can only get here and then we had Ed's Diner milkshake. Now if you've never been to an Ed's and had milkshake you are seriously missing out. Its the cutest American diner, complete with red leather booths and juke boxes. The milkshakes are made with ice cream and are favoured with syrup. I had coffee flavour as usual, Adz had banana. We sat and chatted for ages then headed to the pub. After grabbing some drinks and playing some pool, which i lost appallingly we headed home to go meet Joe. I was nervous about Adam meeting my boyfriend for the first time because he's such a brotherly figure, i kinda freaked and thought what if he hated him? Instantly they became friends and sat there talking about trainers and cars. YAWN. When Steph and her boyfriend Luke got home we headed out to Ask Italian and stuffed our faces, drank wine and laughed till it was dark. 

The night wasn't over though, we met up with some other friends spontaneously after dinner and decided to go to this little field by my house that had a brook and a tire swing. We grabbed some drinks and firewood on the way. After a few attempts at making a campfire we finally got it started and it was amazing, sat round playing music and drinking. The perfect way to spend time with everyone. When it eventually got to 1am we called it a night because Adam was going London early the next day.

Saying goodbye to him is always hard because it just doesn't feel like he ever left, there's never awkward silences to fill, we just chat and laugh like we've always done. We always message each other and whenever I'm in a rut about something, Adz is always the first person to help. I see him as a brother and he ain't never leaving my life! Me and Joe are gonna try visit him in Toronto next year, it'd be an amazing trip and he'd know all the best places to go! I've always thought if you try hard at long distance friendships they do work out, i really can't imagine ever falling out with someone because they live too far away.

Hope everyone had a wonderful sun filled adventure Monday like i did! :)

Thanks for reading

Love Madison

(I was actually meant to post this just before holiday and totally forgot! The next post i do will be complete Mexican madness so keep an eye out!)