Spoiler. We didn’t talk like pirates or meet any. Tyler wanted to watch the Pirates of the Caribbean movie but we didn’t even get to do that. (It was played on board that day.)
We got up and went to breakfast thinking we had plenty of time since we weren’t due at our meeting place until 10, but the dining room was so slow. I ordered waffles with apple cinnamon compote and spiced mascarpone but when they finally showed up, it was just regular waffles with syrup on the side. It was truly anti-climactic. By then we only had 12 minutes to eat so I wasn’t even able to figure out what happened to the yummy toppings. We scooted over to the other dining area and were one of the last ones to check in. In the speedy exit Tyler forgot his grey hat. He wanted to go back for it, but they wouldn’t let him. We had to get on the ferry, and he would have missed it. (And I should note that he never found his hat again. It was sacrificed to the cruise gods.)
The ferry taking us was the first to leave the ship at 10:30 am. The cruise liner would later dock and let people off. We didn’t realize our excursion wasn’t in Cozumel, Mexico at all, but was 45 minutes away at Playa del Carmen. And oh what a 45 minutes. It was a bigger ferry than the normal kind. There was an inside and outside area. We went down below (mainly because that was what was left) and Sergio, our guide, came and told us were were sitting in the worst spot for motion sickness. So we moved toward the back but that didn’t stop the crazy rocking back and forth. Sergio had said the seas were not too rocky that day and I would hate to see rocky seas because it was a crazy ride. Much like a roller coaster up and down. In the window you could watch the water line go plunging from one extreme to the other. I was actually fine (amazing!) but Beth had a really hard time. She kept her eyes closed and had us talk to distract her. It helped enough that she didn’t throw up during the ride, but she did throw up at the end, in the bathroom. Poor chica. :( I was happy I made it through with no issues.
From there, we got off the ferry and onto shore. Beth looks amazing. You would never be able to tell that she struggled.
The area was beautiful but not Cozumel. We stopped and listened to instructions from Sergio for quite a while. I was surprised because it seemed we had a short amount of time, but he spent a goodly amount talking, but that spared us from extra instructions when we got there. I liked how he called us ‘my family’ the whole time. We boarded a bus and had about 15 minutes driving through the town. Tyler said it reminded him of Brazil. Many of the signs were in English and Spanish. I think they see a lot of tourism.
After that it was another 15 minutes through jungle over bumpy roads. They called it a 'Mayan massage.' Sure. It wasn’t too comfy but Bethany made it through better this time. It may be hard to see in this picture, but Beth sat towards the front, but she reached behind and held onto Jonny's leg during the trip. That is sweet.
It was pretty far into the jungle. Our excursion was called ‘Amazing Secret River’ or Rio Secreto. It was a very well organized operation. I was impressed.
The tour was of underground caverns and caves. Like a national park, it is now preserved as much as possible. There are ropes throughout the caverns that they don’t take people past. They do have some people go into the other areas for samples, etc. but those are scientists or trained volunteers. They only use 4% of the caverns for the public and they take groups along one of 6 routes. We happened to go on the Palacio or Palace route, but let’s back up a bit.
We arrived and met our tour guide, Jessy. (No pictures. Sorry Jessy.) She is originally from Montreal, Canada and she could speak French, English, Spanish, and Arabic. She is working on her Spanish, but I thought it was fine. Here we are headed over to gear up.
We hit the bathrooms first. There is NO peeing in the water since they try to keep it clean. They don’t even want tissue in the toilets. Just regular human waste. You can get water shoes which the other three did but I wore my wonderful fitkicks. You take a refreshing shower to clean off perfumes, lotions and sunscreen. Refreshing means the actual temperature of the river water, which wasn’t terribly cold, but we all opted for a wetsuit which they loaned out. My suit fit pretty well but it stunk. Like B.O. Very unfortunate. I asked the others if their suits smelled but I don’t think they understood. Once my life vest was on, you couldn’t smell it much but every once in a while I would get a whiff of myself. Yuck.
From there we hiked on trails into the jungle. Jessy was awesome and she gave us so much information. She talked about fire trees whose sap would burn you and healer trees that grow nearby the fire trees, whose bark would cure you. There are plenty of snakes in the jungle but we didn’t see any wildlife except a few birds. We stopped briefly by a man so he could chant a blessing in Mayan asking for safety and permission to enter the caves. He put some yellow powder in a chalice and it smoked out.
The jungle is just above the caverns and often you could see roots extending down into the caves. Sometimes you would see a collapse and you could see the jungle above but not often. As we entered the caves, a bat was flitting about. We actually saw half a dozen bats throughout the tour. They were so cute.
The caves are made out of limestone and there are some amazing formations created over the centuries. Depending on the hurricane season sometimes the caves are flooded and you can’t access them. Apparently the last few rainy seasons haven’t brought much precipitation, so the water level was a little lower. There was water through most of the cave. Jessy mentioned at the beginning not to watch your feet the whole time but sometimes you really needed to watch your feet so you didn’t trip. Most of the ground underwater was quite uneven. Jessy would point out obstacles and then you would pass the info back to the person behind you. There were only seven people in our group. Our four and then another family with a boy, girl, and grandma. I actually couldn’t tell how old the younger two were. The girl...early 20s and the boy could have been between 14-22. It was a nice cozy group and I think we could all hear well from wherever we were standing.
At one point she stopped and told us that if we saw any insects we should point them out. We looked around and I saw a spider like thing and Tyler saw a bigger one. And Jonny saw a moth. And that was it for the whole tour. Random she would ask and we saw them right then. The spider like thing wasn’t a spider. It had six legs and was related to crabs. It had antennas that were actually whips. It whips its prey, stunning them and eating them after. I guess they get pretty big and can eat cockroaches. They are called a whip...something. *Ok, I looked this up just now. It is called a whip spider. They are spiders. They look like they only have six legs, but the antennas are actually a long set of legs they don’t use for walking. It seems they grab prey with their pincers. Close Jessy, but not quite.
Most areas we were just wading but sometimes the water was deep enough you had to swim. Jessy would show where we could dive/slide into the water. The grandma was so cute. You could tell she was hesitant but she was a champ. The water was cool but with the wetsuit it was just fine. Refreshing even! :) One area we floated in the water and Jessy had us lie on our backs. We closed our eyes and while they were closed Jessy and Andreas turned off their lights. We all had helmets with headlights. We had the lights on most of the time, but sometimes we turned them off. Andreas took pictures the whole time since we weren’t allowed to bring cameras. Sometimes we turned off our lights so they wouldn’t interfere with the pictures. When the lights were off and we were all floating, it was pitch dark. It is so interesting that most of the time all these beautiful formations and stalactites are in complete darkness and no one can see them.
There was a lot of sediment in the air and on the water. If you put your hand in the water, your natural body oils would push the sediment away and make a circle.
What else did I find interesting? We saw some catfish in the water but they are blind. That particular tour was named for a cavern at the end that looks like a palace with all the stalactites hanging from the ceiling. In some of the inactive stalactites, you could see the hole in the middle where the water drips through. Everything was so cool. We walked, and floated through for an hour and a half. There was really only two swimming spots. When asked, Tyler and Jonny reminded me of a couple more things. There was a cool formation that looked like a palm tree. Also a ripple effect called cave flag. And the layers of sediment soaked up light. So if Jessy shone her flashlight on them and turned it off, it would glow for a few seconds as the light found its way out of the layers. Also the sand was so pretty and fine. It isn't supposed to get super hot. Obviously in the dark that isn't an issue, but later, we tried this out on the beach. Despite the hot sun, the sand was just fine; warm to your feet, but not burning. It was so fine and white (light cream) and the water was so blue. Just like a postcard!
Needless to say, it would have been an amazing place to take pictures, but they don't let you take ANY devices in. Not even waterproof cameras. So at the end, we splurged and bought one picture to remember the amazing experience. Here it is...the most expensive photo of the trip. Yep, $25 for that glorious image.
When we exited the caves, we walked back to the beginning area. They do a special toast at the end for making it through. It was some kind of honey tequila. We didn’t have any, but the other half of our group did. Even the 16 year old? boy. We just had aqua shots. It was funny. I heard one group toasting. I heard arriba, abajo...and I said to Tyler, “Upstairs, downstairs?” and then some Mexican guy came over and said they raise their glasses ‘arriba’, lower their glasses ‘abajo’ hold them out to the center, like going to the town and then drink them down. Fun toast. I’d make my own version but...I don’t drink.
Back where we took off our suits, Tyler got a sniff of mine and thought it was me. NO. Gross. But it really smelled bad. We joked because it wasn’t hot at all on the tour, but maybe I had been panic sweating. :) Clearly someone had before. But we coined the phrase ‘panic sweat.’ Later on Jonny made a joke about ClaustrophoBO. Oh my word, that is a perfect description. I'm sure someone was sweating from the enclosed spaces. Still gross.
They had a lunch prepared for us with authentic Mayan food. So delicious. I really love Mexican food and this seemed similar enough. There was chicken and pork and even some cactus. Here is one of the worst pictures from the trip. It is so dark but that is where we ate lunch.
We also took some pictures around the Rio Secreto area. Tyler was using his Portrait setting and it really takes some nice photos. I really like the sign of rules since it was in English and Spanish. I was able to practice a lot of my Spanish reading out there.
From there we went back to the dock but Sergio took us around to do some shopping for a minute. I bought a beaded hummingbird from some boys selling by the busstop. The bead work is amazing. That is something that would be fun to learn. The shop Sergio took us to had lots of souvenirs. We bought a couple shirts, a spoon holder and a small bag for Pearl. We got matching shirts with Beth and Jonny to wear on Saturday while biking. They have so many interesting things in Mexico.
Back at the pier, we bought some Mango. Tyler and Beth were in heaven, especially Tyler who was probably reliving his Brazilian days. I had a slice and it was very tasty, but I didn’t want to take too much from them. Too bad mango doesn’t come that way in the states. We took pictures on the beautiful beach. Please look closely at these pictures. They are our beach glamour shots. They are a little different from each other. :) Apparently some of us are more glamorous than others.
Finally, we reluctantly made our way to the ferry. Beth got on at the very last minute and this time, we were upstairs in the breeze. It seemed better and Beth made it through by keeping her eyes closed and chatting again. Crazy. We were up top (two story boat) in the middle but we could still feel the spray from the ship splashing through the water.
We didn’t have time for naps when we got back. The excursion took the whole day. Instead of going back on the boat, we were dropped off on a different pier and we had to walk around to our dock. So technically we were in Cozumel for five minutes. We made the most of it and got a ton of pictures. I think we would have enjoyed spending the day in Cozumel as well.
We changed, showered and went down to dinner. I ordered some amazing flatbread and tilapia. Yum. No showtime tonight. That is a first.
After, we headed down to see Vintage Pop, another show by the same cast from last night. This was their last show. They had been doing this for nine months straight and now they were going home. Crazy. Who wants to go on a nine month cruise? I wonder if they went to the same destinations or different ones? Looking into the crowd I saw a brother from another mother. What's up Shazier!
The show was good but just not as fantastic as the other one. There were some fun costumes and great dancing. There were more lifts and throws, but the song choices weren’t as great. Still a really fun show to watch. We had been keeping track of a very drunk guy during dinner and he also came to the show. We didn’t think he would make it through but he did. I would never want to be so drunk that everyone could tell and feel sorry or be annoyed with me.
Here are just a couple other fun photos. We saw Mr. and Mrs. Potato head. Jonny and Beth went to stand by them and Tyler was going to take a picture, but they made him put his camera down. (Remember, they want you to pay.) I sneakily stood behind the lady and took one myself. Yes people...this is an illegal picture of Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head!!
This other picture. Just take a minute to look closely and soak it all in. Enjoy.
It had been a long day and without naps, we went straight to bed. Goodnight Senor Dinosaur.
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