The End of the Cruise

Our third stop was Cozumel, Mexico. Paul and I joined the rest of his family at a morning beach break. This particular beach included a huge inflated floating play structure out in the water. Apparently Paul wiped out a few times. He tells me it was very slippery - uh huh. There were also several pools, some water slides, and free food and drinks (yay for virgin pina coladas!). It was the perfect way to spend our third and final stop.

We had one final day at sea before the cruise ended. I gave the rock climbing wall a go. While I didn't make it to the top, I made it past halfway, so I consider that a success:

My mother-in-law also gave it a go and got just as far as I did.

Paul and his sister also tried out the Flow Rider. Paul stayed up for over a minute, and then kind of had to decide to wipe out to give the next person a turn. Most people make it only a few seconds. Sometimes it's hard not to hate him a tiny bit. Then again, I didn't try it, so who knows, I might have been amazing. Ha!

Lamanai

Nothing like waiting a few weeks to finish writing up our cruise.

Our second stop was Belize City, where we took a bus and then a speedboat to the Mayan ruins at Lamanai. The speedboat was pretty intense... er, fun! They drifted around many of the bends in the river. It's kind of annoying that the word 'drifting' is used for two very different boating experiences. I don't mean the version where the power is off, and you're just drifting with the currents. I mean the one where they make sharp turns while going quite fast, so that the nose of the boat cuts the tight corner and the back of the boat swings around wide. Check out this video Paul shot - you can kind of see it there. You can at least see how fast we were going:

They also took the time to slow down and point out some interesting wildlife, including this crazy plant growing on a tree (I can't remember what it's called):

Lamanai itself is pretty neat. There are three main pyramidal structures. Here's one:

Paul climbed to the top of two of them while I opted to wait below:

We also got to see monkeys in the wild! Way up in the trees:

I honestly don't remember a lot of what the tour guide told us about the site, but a few tidbits stuck with me. First of all, they aren't sure how much more remains unearthed, but they speculate there is quite a lot more to it, which is fun to think about. Our guide also told us about a sports game where the winner was sacrificed in what sounded like a pretty unpleasant ritual. Quite a few of us wondered if folks might try to lose on purpose - seems like that could be the game that never ended. However, of course, it was an honor to be sacrificed, so the competitors were motivated to succeed. I think they also believed in reincarnation so death wouldn't have been the end for them. I really should have paid better attention. Or written this blog post a few weeks ago....

Out at Sea

Ah, cruise ships. Such a mixed bag. On one hand, a wonderful way to see a variety of different locations while having one luxurious home base that provides all your meals. On the other, a festering Petri dish of illness. While it was a nice trip, I think it will be quite a while before I go on a cruise again. Between the norovirus, a head cold (which kicked in a few days after the cruise ended, thankfully), and still feeling like I'm rocking on a boat a week after getting off the boat (more than likely prolonged by the head cold, to be fair), I think I prefer other methods of travel. Paul did not get sick, lucky guy.

But enough whining - we went on a cruise! To Central America and Mexico! With Paul's parents, and his sister, brother-in-law, and their three kids!

We spent the first two days at sea. We explored as much as the ship as we could. Here's us hanging out on the helicopter landing pad:

The ship had a rock climbing wall, which Paul and his sister immediately had to try. I won't say who climbed faster (they didn't start at the same time), but both made it to the very top. Paul is on the far right, his sister on the far left:

We also enjoyed the opportunity to dress up for a formal dinner:

Coming up on day 3: I get to cross an item off my bucket list!