Escape From Rochester - Cruising to Mexico

The final segment of our south Florida vacation was a cruise on Royal Caribbean's Independence of the Seas.  Leaving from Port Everglades in Ft. Lauderdale, we visited Costa Maya and Cozumel.  We boarded the ship around noon on Saturday and sailed at 6:00 PM.  The process of boarding 4,300 passengers with their luggage is quite fascinating.  The process included issuing a ship card that was used for identification and for all charges for any purchases on the ship.  They also took our photo which was tied to our digital record so that when the card was scanned when leaving or boarding the ship, our photo came up for the officer in charge to view.

As we left port, we were escorted by the Coast Guard and by a pair of pelicans.  Both were interesting and comforting though in different ways.  The Coast Guard left when we cleared the port but the pelicans stayed around until we sought shelter from a shower.  With the clouds, there was no visible sunset that evening.  Click here to view other pictures of our first day on the ship and leaving port.

Starting the next day, I saw a spectacular sunrise and sunset each day of the cruise.  It was getting to the point where I wasn't really taking that many photos since I already had so many.  I have gathered the best of all those into a separate photo album.  Click here to view it.

Here is the promenade, two football fields in length
right in the center of the shipl

The first full day was spent cruising past Key West and Cuba on our way to the Yucatan Peninsula and Mahahual in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo.  There were 15 decks on the ship and we explored all of them.  We spent most of our sun time on decks 12 and 13 which were just above the three swimming pools.  There was a walking/running track which was just under a quarter of a mile and we walked three or four miles each day.  On the two cruising days our routine was about the same.  I would get up early to see the sunrise.  Marilyn would get up later and then we would eat breakfast choosing from extensive breakfast buffets.  Then the walk on the deck followed by lying in the sun reading.  I finished Carl Hiaasen's latest novel, Razor

Girl.  This was followed by lunch from those extensive buffets and then more sun time.  Around 2:00 I would go inside and enjoy different expresso drinks and continue reading.  We had decided not to buy wi-fi on the ship and we enjoyed being disconnected for these five days.  After a quick turn on deck to view the sun set, we then had dinner in one of the dining rooms.  There were delicious entrees followed often by two or more desserts.  I mean two desserts for me.  One night we even had two entrees since the lobster tails were bit small.

After dinner, we would take in one of the shows.  We saw an ice skating show, Strings on ice, as well as two musical presentations.  The first was an A Capella singing group, The Edge Effect.  They were very entertaining.  We had a hard time believing that there were not instruments involved somehow.  Their interaction with the audience was also very pleasant.  There was also a 90 minute production of Grease which was amazing.  Not only were the actors very good but the staging was almost unbelievable.  All sorts of sets were rising up and disappearing including a full size automobile.  And of course, those songs and dances are just as entertaining as always.

Our first port was Costa Maya on the Yucatan in Mexico.  The port itself is fairly recent and was constructed only for tour ships.  The actual town is Mahahual which comes from the Mayan word for a type of local tree.  I had booked an excursion but not through the cruise line.  I found an interesting looking tour from Native Choice.  It included a tour of Chacchoben (Mayan ruins), a local lunch, and beach time at a local lagoon.  Since it is an independent vendor, Native Choice was not allowed inside the port.  Thus we needed to walk four blocks through the town to reach their office.  This bit of extra effort was rewarded with a very professional and truly local operation.

Our tour guide was Diego and our driver was Alesio.  Diego explained a great deal about the local area on the van ride to the site including the fact that he and Alesio were both mixtos, that is, a mix of Mayan and Spanish ancestors.  Diego grew up in this area and still lives here with his wife and two young daughters.  He had a university degree in forestry but had been unable to find a job in that field that would have permitted him to continue to live in his home village next door to his mother and close to his two sisters.  He had worked for a while at a hotel but the hours meant that he was not able to spend enough time with his family.  Being a tour guide was to his liking since he didn't work every day and the hours were more reasonable.  This is a great example of the central importance of the family in Latino culture.  Most Americans would and have pulled up roots to seek appropriate employment.  For Mexicans, the economic circumstances must be desperate to leave their families, enter the US and take demanding jobs to send money back to their families.

Temple of the Sun 

This eventful day began with a visit to Chacchoben, ancient Mayan ruins.  So far three large structures have been excavated along with several stairs.  The Mayans were here by 200 BCE and the ruins themselves date from around 700 CE.  "In the 1940s a farm was established near the site by the Cohuo family, but the ruins were officially reported to the Mexican government in June 1972 by Dr. Peter Harrison, an American archaeologist who was working on a project for The Royal Ontario Museum, and who also made the first maps of Chacchoben. Harrison stumbled upon this site while flying a helicopter over Mexico and noticed numerous
hills in  predominately flat lands. Harrison realized there were temples beneath these hills, which were naturally covered over a period of 2000 years." (Wikipedia)   Archaeological excavations began in 1994 and the site was opened to the public in 2004.  There are ongoing excavations in the site.  Click here to view more photos of Chacchoben.

After our tour of the site, we stopped for a delicious lunch served by local people at a roadside restaurant.  Then we headed for the final stop at Lago Bacalar also called the Lake of Seven Colors.  This "is a long and narrow lake in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. It is approximately 42 km long measured from north to south, and less than 2 km at its widest. The lake is renowned for its striking blue color and water clarity, partly the result of having a white limestone bottom. Like most bodies of water in the Yucatán peninsula, the lake is fed by underground rivers or cenotes."  (Wikipedia)  The lake reflected the blues of the sky just as the ocean does.  It was spectacular.  We spent a little more than an hour swmming, kayaking and relaxing on the beach.

This location had once been a spot where local people would board boats that traversed the 24 miles of the lake.  Before there were roads in this area, the lake was a major transportation link.  Eventually a resort was built but it was clear from our exploration that it had been abandoned.  This provided opportunities for some marvelous photos of Marilyn especially.  The colors were intense and I couldn't stop taking photos of the scenery.

As we returned to port to board our ship, I noted another cruise ship docked next to ours.  This was a Carnival ship and it appeared to be listing a bit.  I was glad to see that ours was nice and level.

Click here to go to the album with pictures of our excursion this day.

We cruised over night to Cozumel, an island just off the eastern Yucatan coast.  We had booked another excursion.  This one included some snorkeling, lunch on the beach and then a ride in a dune buggy around the island including a stop and our of the ecopark at Punta Sur.  I climbed the light house which stands at the southern end of the island.  From there I was able to get a magnificent view while Marilyn was checking the goods at the three shops in the park.

Click here to see photos of our day on Cozumel.

We continued our dune buggy ride to the middle of the island along the beach and then turned inland to cross the island on our way to a tequila tour and tasting.  I had wanted to drive the dune buggy but it turned out that it was sized for Mexicans rather than 6'2" Americans.  Actually that turned out well since I could enjoy the sights without worrying about navigating an often troublesome and well used buggy.  The male part of our companion couple graciously drove the entire trip.

Our final stop involved an extensive educationa bout tequila including why organic tequila is the best tequila.  By Mexican law, tequila can only be produced in the state of Jalisco where only blue agave plants are used in a ten year production cycle that cannot include any other ingredients.  This is similar to champagne which can only come from the Champagne region of France.  There are other champagne just as there are other tequilas but they are not real.  If you want to learn more about tequila, check out this Wikipedia article.

We cruised the day and arrived back at Ft. Lauderdale the morning after that.  We were not sure if cruising would be something we enjoyed but our experience with this one convinced us that this will not be the last one we take.