May 31st, 2010

In the morning, we went out on the deck and watched the ship dock at the island of Cozumel, Mexico.

At 10am, we left the boat for our excursion to the ruins of Tulum. We took a ferry ride to the mainland and then boarded a bus that took us south to a gift shop. There we changed into swimming clothes and bought a few souvenirs.

Our tour guide liked to talk a lot. He was chock full of information and wanted to make sure to pass it all onto us. This was cool at times, but he certainly went on for too long once we were inside the ruins. We wanted to walk around and explore and hit the beach, but he had a million things to tell us. The tour lasted about one and a half hours and he didn’t even take us to each building.

The ruins were surrounded by walls on three sides. The fourth side was a 40 foot cliff that ended at a nice little patch of sand by the ocean. The building on the left atop the hill in the next picture was built crooked so that it would withstand the winds coming in from the sea.

Even though the Mayans were protected on all sides, you can see that they had a nice view.

We ended up with around an hour to go swimming. The beach was amazing after standing in the sun for so long. It was really fun, I just wish we would have had more time. Especially since this was the only time we went swimming in the ocean for the whole vacation.

On the way back to the bus, we stopped at a restaurant where we bought some ice cream and I got some fish tacos. I was kind of afraid that I’d get sick from all of the heat, swimming, and moving on the bus, but it ended up being okay and the tacos were really good.

After an hour and fifteen minutes, we were back on the boat and getting changed for another excellent dinner. We ate dinner later this day and got a chance to watch the entertainment put on by the waitstaff. They stood on tables and performed the dance number from the end of Slumdog Millionaire.

For the final activity of the day, we went to see a comedian juggler. The show was both funny and impressive. Out of all the ship’s shows, we enjoyed this one the most.