Soaking up the Mexican Sun - Vegan Style

I had an absolute blast in Mexico I cannot believe that I am already back home and working again. Gosh, why do I live in Saskatchewan?

I actually don’t know where to begin this post because there is so much to tell… We stayed at the Grand Bahia Principe Coba in the Riviera Maya in Mexico. We were about an hour away from Cancun and 40 mins outside Playa del Carmen, kinda right in the middle of it all. Our resort had 2 other sister resorts on it called Akumal and Talum, which offered more restaurants, buffets and activities that we could use throughout our stay. This made the trip easier and more fun seeing as we could mix it up a bit with food, pool and beach settings. You could go to a different spot everyday if you wanted. I snorkeled a lot, I ate guacamole a lot, and had way to much fun with my friends. It was the best trip I have ever been on (mainly because it was two weeks) and definitely exceeded my expectations. I would do anything to go back there right now!

Since I have been home I have had a lot of people ask me “did you survive down there?” meaning, did I find enough food to eat. The answer is yes, too much. I was initially concerend about being vegan and going to an all inclusive but I shouldn't have been, the selection was great. I had 2 large platefuls of cantaloupe everyday for breakfast and it wasn’t until the last three days that I totally caved and had a peanut butter and banana sandwich. And holy crap was it good, I really miss peanut butter. However I have now developed an addiction to cantaloupe and cannot get enough of it, I have eaten 3 since being home and I need to go get more.  

My lunches and suppers at the buffet usually went like this:

Greens, diced peppers, zucchini, cucumber, mushrooms, guacamole, pico de gallo and any other fresh veggies I could find, all pilled together like a big salad and a side of vegetable sushi. Well actually the sushi didn’t make it to the table most days. I usually went there first put about 6 on my plate and ate them like an appetizer while walking around the buffet searching for other food. Some days I would venture out and eat fries, rice and beans, vegetable stir fry, but I had to put my fears of cross contamination aside because when you are eating at a buffet it is hard to get around it. I would ask the cooks what was in each dish making sure there wasn’t any meat, dairy or eggs in it. But there is the concern of the utensils and method of cooking. If you are SUPER strict vegan its totally possible to avoid all of that, but your options are limited. As the days went by I wanted some variety and did the best I could to avoid consuming any animal products. For snacks I would ask the milkshake-maker lady for 2 or 3 bananas everyday, plus I had vegan granola bars that I got from Costco. I would take those on excursions and to the beach for something to snack on which usually held me over.

I had my first drink, a Mojito, which I stole from Devon on Sunday at 4:00pm.

Some people were surprised that I waited that long!

First day on the beach!

I have always wanted to do one of these pictures!

I surprisingly found two restaurants that offered vegan choices, like labeled on the menu vegan option offered. I was so pumped and had to take advantage of their burgers. The first one I had was from Akumal beach and it was a chickpea curry burger that had fried egg plant on top and it was awesome. Egg plant is something I have yet to venture into, but after having it a couple times in Mexico I really need to try cooking with it. The second one was from Tequilaville and was a black bean and corn burger and it was fricken HUGE. I asked them to take off the coleslaw and to replace my bun because there was mayo on it, but that was unnecessary because I didn’t eat the bun. I was way to full from all of the pico de gallo that I could only eat the burger.   

Curry Vegan Burger I found at a restaurant on Akumal Beach

Black Bean Burger from Tequilaville



Garlic Hummus from Tequilaville, I asked for veggies instead of the pita bread.



This is my first and last pina colada of the trip and holy crap was it worth the wait. I didn’t know what was in the premade mixture the resort used so I didn’t take the chance and I stuck with sangria. We met some people at Tequilaville in Akumal and they invited us to their beach house for some drinks the following night. We were a little apprehensive the next day wondering if we should go or not because we were all quite drunk when they invited us. But in the end we were up for an adventure and luckily we did go, they turned out to be super fun people and a blast to hang out with. One of the wives decided to make homemade pina colada’s and I was surprised to learn that there is only 3 ingredients to them: fresh pineapple juice, fresh coconut milk and rum. Which equals vegan! It was the best drink I had all trip and I got to drink out of a fancy cup too!

This is the beach front house that we went to. I love that pool!

This is the view from there roof top deck., and those umbrella huts on the beach is our resort. 

My meal from the Mediterranean A la Carte, sautéed eggplant, tomatoes, onions and peppers.  

One of the A la Cartes we went to was Brazilian and everyone raved about it… me not so much. Basically it was an all you can eat meat-fest. The waiters would come by your tables with swords of different types of meat and you would have a red and green card to let him know if you want any. Green means, meat please, Red means, no meat please. Naturally, mine was always red. Everyone at the table stuffed themselves with massive amounts of meat, hence them all passed out in the picture. However I felt great eating my asparagus, rice and beans, hummus and beats, I was full but not to the point of a meat coma! 

When we weren’t eating tons of awesome food we were exploring all the wonders of Mexico! The first week we were quite active because most people only had a week there, so they wanted to get as much done as possible. We did everything from snorkeling, going to the ruins, playing volleyball, and going to Explor. For those who don’t know what Explor is, it’s an adventure park type thing where you can do zip lining, ride ATV’s, and swim and paddle yourself through caves. It was only around $100 per person and was totally worth it, you could do the activities as many times as you want and their buffet was huge! We kept very active during our time there, which I loved. There were a couple beach and pool days, but we were still walking a lot from resort to resort and those lazy days are what a vacation is all about. I know that by keeping active is what helped me not gain any weight while I was there, I weighed myself as soon as I got home and I was sitting nicely at 130 pounds! I was actually surprised because I was probably eating 6 avocados per day with the amount of guacamole I was eating! 

However the most important thing we got to experience down there was the marriage of our two friends Amber and Aaron. They had given us almost 3 years notice of their wedding, giving all of their friends and family time to plan and save. Well it definitely worked because they ended up with an audience of 74 people! It was the most beautiful day at around 28 degrees with a slight wind and no clouds, they couldn’t have asked for a better day.

Devon and I at the wedding! I loved that everyone was barefoot, even the bride and groom!

Zip-lining at Explor, and no thats not a real croc! 

When going through the zip lines there are two ways you can go. The first way leads you through about 10 zip lines, one of them you have to get to by using a water slide! And 2 others you crash land through a water fall and into a pool of water! The other route you can take only has one waterfall crash landing, but needless to say you get really wet!

 I had so much fun in Mexico, it definitely exceeded my expectations of what I thought it was going to be. I cannot wait to go back and do the things that we didn't get a chance to do. I am super jealous of my mom and sister right now because they flew out this morning to go to the same place we were at, just at a different resort 20 minutes away! I hope they get to have just as much fun we did!