My Trip to Central America- Part Cinco

Part Cinco- Costa Maya Mexico

Even though it cost us a little extra we had decided to see the countries we were porting at and did onshore excursions at all ports. Our first port was Tuesday March 31st in Costa Maya, Mexico. The ship docked at 7 am and it was already 90*!

Costa Maya was hit by a hurricane a couple of years ago and they are finally starting to rebuild. One thing that I thought was great was that all the construction sites had hammocks so the workers could take their afternoon siestas! It's a practice I think employers in the US should adopt!

Our excursion- Kohunlich Mayan Ruins left at 8am with a 2.25 hour bus ride from the boat. Most of the small "towns" that we went through would consist of a random speed bump in the middle of the highway and where there was a speed bump there was a vegetable/fruit stand and a few houses. We did go through 2 larger towns that had restaurants, convenience stores and churches and they were the size of Dunbar or Pembine!

Our tour guide was Luis and once at the ruins he would blow into a conche shell to round up our group! The ruins were so amazing and the stories/theories were even more so. Restoration on the Kohunlich ruins was started in 1969 and continues today.

Because Costa Maya is a small town and not yet overrun by tourists it makes it a very popular area for running drugs. There were Mexican Army troops with scent dogs posted at our ship to ensure no one was bringing drugs into Mexico or trying to bring drugs back on our ship. There were also random army checkpoints along the highway we took to and from the ruin sight. Infact, going back to our ship after the tour there was a car pulled over and the troops were going through the car.

Once back to Costa Maya we did a little shopping and walked along the beach in the water. The wind had really picked up and the waves were amazing. Little did we know that those waves would enable us from getting off of the dock that night and we would actually get stuck in Costa Maya for the night. Missy and I went to one of the fancier restaurants that night and had a nice bottle of wine and delicious Beef Wellington only to have the captain come on the speaker and announce that we were trying to get off the dock but the wind and waves were just crashing us back into the dock (yes, the boat was rocking terribly). We apparently got off the dock sometime around 4AM which was much to late to make it to our Wednesday port in Santo Tomas de Castilla, Guatamela. We would have an additional day at sea.

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