January 16th, 2015

Cozumel, Mexico today!  For today's shore excursion, Donna and I booked a tour of the Mayan ruins of Tulum.  This entailed taking a ferry from the island of Cozumel to the mainland of Mexico, then an hour's bus ride to Tulum.Unexpectedlly, on the half hour ferry ride to Playa del Carmen, on the mainland, I got a bit seasick - not bad, just uncomfortable.  I was sitting in the enclosed, lower part of the ferry - on the way back, I sat on the upper deck, at the back, in the open air - and had no problem at all!  As soon as we reached the dock, we were hustled off to the area where the excursion groups were meeting, then pretty quickly walked through part of the town to meet our tour bus.  Our guide this time was a tad boring, unfortunately - not like the livewires in the previous two excursions. Still, a very interesting drive to Tulum, seeing the places along the way where Mayan ruins have been found but not examined, due to lack of funds.
The Tulum site, itself, is clearly a tourist mecca:  the busses park in a large, clearly designated area;  passengers disembark, walk through a veritable town of craft, clothing, and food shops; then either walk or ride a trolley down a road about 1/2 km long to the entrance to the ruins themselves.  A stone tunnel marks the entrance to the ruins, then a path goes first through a riot of tropic plants and trees, then opens out into well kempt fields dotted with the ruins.  Lots of interesting history around these stone ruins - apparently, one used to be able to touch and even climb them; however, about five years ago, a few tourists graffittied some of them, so now it's forbidden to get close enough to touch them. Our guide was very knowledgeable, but I'm afraid that this sort of history has never really captivated me - all right, I got bored - but Donna was taking notes and after the guide finished his spiel and we were given time to wander independently, she was in her glory. Me? I had heard about the beach and went to look for it - had my bathing suit with me.  However, the beautiful sand and water were at the bottom of a very long, steep set of wooden stairs and by the time I got to the top, I had half an hour before I had to get back to the bus - so, regrettably, I didn't get to swim.  Sigh.  I had ordered a cartouche, to be picked up by the bus, so I hurried over there to pay for it - it has the letters of my name in Mayan on it - pretty cool!  By then, time was getting short, so we beetled back to Playa del Carmen to the ferry and were given preference, since we had to be back for our ship, which was scheduled to leave soon.  We were ten minutes late getting off the ferry and had to walk the very long deck to get onto the ship - as we were making that walk, they were casting off some of the ropes! We hustled to our room, changed for dinner, and made it to the dining room just in time for the start of dinner.

Excursion ticket!

Walking through town to catch our bus - mainly tourist shops

Cool metal horse sculptures 

Donna in a caught 'ya moment

We both bought Playa del Carmen hats

A lovely rat - one of several - in the bush along the road

Our tour bus

Our guide

Yep, even here . . . 

Mayan ruins just there on the side of the road - we didn't even get out of the bus to see this structure

Our guide told us to use this shop as a directional aid on the way back, as we would have to find our own way back to the bus

And a Starbucks!

From the trolley

Heading out of the town area to the actual ruins

Our wordy guide

Cool trees!

Some very, very large mother-in-laws' tongue

Gotta love those palms

A mockup of the ruins' area

Through the stone tunnel

Ta-da!

Donna taking notes

Cute, rather large lizard

Brain-shaped rock!

One of my fellow tourists was determined to photograph me to look as if I were holding the ruins in my hand . . . 

The enticing beach

But not enough time for all those stairs , , , 

From the ferry - two huge metal mermaid sculptures

Two other ferries

These people were part of a group of eleven - incredibly loud parents - they kept passing the baby around as she squealed and cried and  generally behaved like a baby

Stragglers hurrying back to the cruise ship

Every evening, the staff put a different towel figure on one of our beds. I put my new hat on this one!