Cozumel, Mexico

After enjoying the gorgeous blue of the Carribean, our second port of call was the island of Cozumel, Mexico.  Having always been fascinated by archeology, I was very excited to be able to visit some Mayan ruins and had made that my must excursion of the cruise.  Tiffini one upped me by finding an LDS tour guide and spending a little extra to get a private tour.  The ruins we picked were Tulum, a port city with a beautiful beach.  We started the day with great expectations.

We headed out, taking a taxi to the ferry and then taking a hour-long ferry back to the mainland.  We were supposed to meet our tour guide at unique restaurant which was right next to the ferry dock.  We sat and waited there, and no one showed up.  It was an unbelievably hot and humid day, and we were sweating to death sitting there.  We also had a constant stream of salesmen trying to get us to go with them instead, and as we sat and sweated it became almost comical to them, and they just smiled and laughed at us.  After about 45 minutes, we finally called our tour guide.  She apologized profusely and said that she thought we were not coming for another month, but agreed to come right away because she was a local and could be there in a couple minutes.

About 45 minutes later, she finally showed up.  By this time I was not in a great mood, feeling like we had wasted a huge portion of our day and wishing we had just stuck with the cruise line based tour.  We found her car and her nephew drove while she gave us a brief history lesson of the people in the area, tying in Book of Mormon references throughout.  She focused particularly on the descending god, the son of the primary god of the ancient people who was always shown head down descending to earth.  On the primary temple structure in the city was one particularly interesting example, a building with three alcoves across the top - one the father god, one the descending god, and an empty alcove that represents the unseen world of spirits.

Our tour was nice if a bit rushed.  She was able to frame things in a gospel light which was fascinating.  She also let Tiffini borrow her umbrella to give us some shade.

In the end had only a few minutes to play down on the gorgeous beach on the backside of the city.  Getting in the cool ocean was completely refreshing.

We spent a little time getting some souvenirs, with Tiffini showing her bartering prowess, then headed for the drive back to the dock.  On the way we ate our lunch, which was probably the worst Subway-brand sandwich I ever had - apparently the franchise standards are a bit less in Mexico.  We ended up missing the Ferry we were hoping to catch so we wandered the streets looking in shops, annoying the vendors when they realized we didn't have any significant cash left over.  The ferry back felt much longer somehow, and by the time we got back to the ship we didn't even bother with our dinner group, just showering and taking the causal dining instead.

All in all it was an exhausting day of driving, boating, and sitting around waiting with, but one we probably will never forget either.  And the day ended with a gorgeous sunset.