Western Caribbean: Cozumel, Mexico

 The morning we ported in Cozumel was a bit rainy and windy, but it didn't last long and ended up being a beautiful day.  Alex and I opted to do a tour of the Mayan city of Tulum  which is on the main land.  So we had about a fourty-five minute ferry ride to the mainland which turned out to be quite an adventure.  We laugh about it now, but we were very glad to say goodbye to that ferry.  The waves were pretty big that morning and that ferry just rolled with each one, instead of cutting through them.  Right after starting off, a worker came by handing out little pastic bags to everyone.  It took us a minute to figure out that they were barf bags.  We declind thinking there was no way we needed one; Alex never gets sick, and I had my sea sick patch on.  Well, long story short, I have never seen so many people throwing up in one place in my life.  No joke; half of the entire ferry (about 200 people) got sick, including poor Alex. Workers were just going around handing out paper towels to people and cleaning up vomit.  We agreed that that job would be the absolute worst in the world. I am sure that had we been in the U.S., they would have made us wear seatbelts.  But there were no seat belts and people were actually being thrown out of their seats.  Some people tried to get up and use the restroom and were thrown off their feet into the wall.  Anyway, we were very glad to walk off that ferry and onto dry land.

Our ship in back and the dreaded ferry of doom (yellow).

This is me and Alex making sick faces on the ferry.  It wasn't too
much later that the sick faces were real.

We found this guy on our walk into Tulum.

Tulum was a fortified city with a wall running around three sides, and
the ocean protecting the fourth.  Here is Alex going though the small tunnel which leads into the city.

Our guide Juan.  A body was found in this building, who was one of the important
people of the city.  Archiologists found that the body had no osteoporosis at all
which told that the Mayans had a very healthy diet.

This is the largest building at the site.  The ocean is at the bottom of the cliff just behind this temple.  Tulum
is the only known Mayan city that was right up against the ocean.  People still come to study this temple from all over the world.  They discovered that it is actually a calender and a clock.  There are holes built into the wall that the sun shines though the same time everyday and this helped them tell time.  There are larger holes that the sun only made it all the way through on inportant calender days, like the summer and winter solstices.  We saw pics of these evenets and it really looked like something from Indiana Jones.  The sun didn't just show through, but is very blinding and and beautiful.  There are also still murals and inscripions on the walls inside that tell stories of the people.  We couldn't go inside, but they discribed some to us and they sound an awful lot like things from the scriptures:)  It is amazing to think that these are the lands and people from the Book of Mormon.

These are some of the holes in the back of the temple that the sun shines through on sertain days of the year. (I circled them to make them easier to see).

You can see a little of the ocean in the back.  Some years back, the government asked the famous diver and marine biologist, Jacques Cousteau  to come find out what was happening to the reef surrounding the walled city.  There was a place where the reef was missing and nobody knew what to think.  These divers found that the reef wan't dying, but it had been chiseled away a very long time ago.  The Mayans had chiseled out a small section of reef to allow their boats to come in and out, but not big enough to allow enemies to get in.  Enemy boats would just end up hitting the reef.

A head carved into the corner of a building.

It was amazing to see how small the doorways were.  The Mayans were actually very short people.   Now when I hear  from the Book of Mormon the term "large in stature", it makes me think how really tall those men were?  He He.  Being a very tall Mayan probably meant you weren't really that tall in today's terms.

Side view of the big temple

One of the corner towers of the wall.  This was the most beautiful beach we saw on our cruise.  You can go down there and swim, but we hadn't brought our swimming suits.  We really wished we had.

Our ship is the bigger one in back

I snapped this on our way back to the ship.
It still doesn't give you a sense of how huge those ships are.

I saw this cute little guy at an outside cantina on Cozumel.

Our ride back on the ferry turned out to be better.  The waves weren't as big and we didn't get sick:)  We had a wonderful day.

Next Post:  Belize

Western Caribbean: Ship Life

We just got back from our first cruise and we both loved it.  What an amazing adventure.  We had so many wonderful people help us with our kids while we were gone, THANK YOU.  Me and hubby went to the Western Caribbean aboard the Carnival Glory with my sister De and her hubby Jason.  It was so fun to hang out with those guys.  I have so much I want to post, so I'm breaking it up into days.  My first post comprises the days we were at sea and other on board stuff.  We had two "at sea" days, and four port days.  We sun bathed, ate, saw a show, ate, shopped, ate, sun bathed, ate, nightly comedians, ate.  Anyway, you can guess that we ate a ton.  Some of the best food I have ever had.  All you can eat, twenty four hours a day.  Several buffets, plus pizza, burgers, dessert carts, ice cream, plus the actual restraunts.  It was awesome to have all our food included.  I have some major work to do now:)  We are already starting to save for our next cruise.

Miami skyline from the Glory.

                                      

Leaving Miami.  You can see two other ships leaving just ahead of us.

Waiting for the super bowl to start.   I had packed my swim suit in my carry on bag, but Alex didn't
so he had to wait for our bags to be delivered to our room.

Enjoying my first pinia colota (virgin, or coarse:) Only one of several.  We got some pretty looks from the waiters when we ordered all our drinks without the alcohol.

Alex one the water slide.

Our feet.  I took a lot of feet pics.  I like feet, what can I say.

Super Bowl.
We had a pretty funny guys behind us who was enjoying his drinks just as much as the game.  He was pretty funny and Jason named him John and he called us all Utah.  "Hey Utah, hows it going."

Watching the game.

We found some big hammocks up on the observation deck, and were all alone up there after dinner one night.  You can tell Alex is half asleep.

More feet on the hammock.

Awww, my feet love the ocean.

Sunset

My favorite appetizer.  Chilled strawberry bisque. Yum.

One of our two formal nights.  We were just fine with going "semi-formal" and just took our church clothes.

Alex and Jason were thrilled to find the lobser and shrimp on the menu 

during our first formal night.

One of our many towel animals we would find in our room.

This is what we look like at 2:00 am going for an ice cream run.
There was a  24 hour ice cream station.  I made several trips in the middle of the night.

Alex discovered the Fish n' chips buffet.  He was in heaven.

Our last night on board.  Windy, but beautiful.  We were laughing so hard on our way back to our room, because the ship was rocking so much that we were falling into the walls.  People probably thought we were drunk.

This was called Molten Chocolate cake and
had hot pudding in the middle with ice cream on the side.
I think we ordered this for dessert every night.

Our hilarious waiters: Putu, Mattel, and Melvin

De and Jason in the hot tub.

Us at the big deck party.  It was pretty windy up there. But it was great people watching.
Drunk people are pretty entertaining.  Alex actually stayed up there with me until 2:00 am. 

This is me and Alex at the deck party. My voice sounds retarded on this video.

Next Post: Cozumel, Mexico