Next stop on our cruise was the port city Costa
Maya, Mexico, a stretch of Caribbean coast on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. We
signed up for a lengthy excursion to see the Chacchoben Mayan Ruins; Costa Maya
is the closest port of access to many of the lesser-known and substantially
less excavated ruins, including Chacchoben. The port itself is a fun, festive,
and very colorful tourist area sporting saltwater pools with swim-up style
bars, small shops, restaurants, and souvenirs galore, and I had almost as much
fun just hanging out in the plaza as I did taking the tour.
Our guide for our tour was Alexandre and he was
very knowledgeable, as all our guides were. I was quite impressed that our
local guides were all so fluent in multiple languages. This trip involved a
long bus ride to the ruins, where ancient native populations lived, worshipped,
and gathered for celebrations. Chacchoben flourished around 360 A.D., and
incredibly, the main pyramid type structure was built to capture the light
during the spring and autumn solstices in such a way that the light coming down
the side of the structure created the image of a giant snake. I wonder how
people had the knowledge, skill sets, and tools to do such a thing so many
centuries ago. One might think that “ruins” would be out in the middle of
nowhere, an ancient and neglected pile of rubble with no other forms of
civilization around it. Not so! This site was in the middle of a busy tourist
area that accommodated several tourist buses at a time with a small shop set up
to sell souvenirs and snacks.
This was a very, very long day. We left at
11:30 a.m. and didn’t get back to the ship until 6:30 p.m. It was a really long
drive out to the ruins, then after we toured there, another very long drive to
a beach club where a vegan buffet and open bar was set up for us. But, we got
there later than all the other tours going there that day and the food line was
very long, and we only had 30 minutes at this stop, so we never got to the
food. We had a couple of beers and a shot of tequila, and it was time to
go. We were both very frustrated, as we paid a lot of money for the
excursion, and it didn’t deliver what it promised. We were supposed to have a
long time at the beach club, which really was on a beach, and told to bring our
bathing suits and be prepared to relax, eat, and drink. We were both cranky
(and hungry) by the time we got back to the ship.
But, we did get to see a part of Mexico we
hadn’t seen before, and the history of the ruins was interesting, as was
actually being there at this ancient site. These are the pictures from the
tourist plaza in the port, and the ruins. We didn’t take pictures at the beach
club, we were too miffed. I wish we had now, it was a rather lovely setting.
No comments:
Post a Comment