Flavours of the Caribbean Day 2 - Tuesday 12th April, Cozumel, Mexico.

Cozumel is an island to the east of Mexico proper sort of on the way to Cuba. We woke this morning to glorious turquoise blue waters and hot sunshine. The water is so clear we could see the fish below from the top deck. Beautiful.

Today's tour was simple enough. A bus ride to the Mayan San Gervasio ruins

This building was a palace I believe

Our tour guide was Alex. He, like many of the people in the area, was a Mayan descendant and was very knowledgeable, and also very enthusiastic regarding the Mayans.

And this one was used as the administrative HQ - for the politics of the day.  (But I might have got the buildings mixed up)

I learnt that they were descendents from people that had originally travelled from Mongolia via North America, all about Mayan calendars, and birthmarks funny enough. Alex was so enthusiastic, I had to remind him to stop, otherwise we'd have never got back in time for lunch.

This arch was the entrance to the city.  The Mayans walked, not using wheeled transport or animals to help them.  The road was painted white, and the Mayans only travelled by night.  It would have looked amazing in the moonlight I reckon.

There were iguana's all over the place too

This is the temple of the "red hands", because of the red hand print decorations on the wall.  

The Mayans worshipped the Moon Goddess, Ichyena, (I know I've spelt that wrong, I'll correct it later).  She was depicted as a kindly old woman, very wise (she has a serpent around her head to prove it), and was also the goddess of fertility.  

From the ruins, we were then taken on a beach break.  It was a wonderful stretch of coastline (but maybe not quite as fantastic as the place we found in Costa Maya).

We did find some hammocks, which of course we had to test.

And of course, there were iguana's.  This one was quite a handsome beast I think. 

Then it was back on the bus back to the ship.  We were late back, but at least we managed to get lunch.  (Imagine all them grumpy passengers if we'd have missed it).

It was too late to go back ashore after lunch, so we napped until the fire drill, and then attended the lecturers meet and greet.  We have a new entertainment manager for this cruise, Emma.  Emma has a degree in Art, which made her so much easier to talk to later regarding the equipment for Peter's classes

The last event for our day was the Welcome Show in the evening, where Peter had to stand up and do his intro.  He did threaten to lock the passengers into his class?  But I think they knew he was joking. 

Tomorrow is a sea day but not a sea day.  We reach Havanna about 5pm, so it's not a proper sea day and Peter doesn't have any classes.  It doesn't really matter as to the reasons why, what it actually means is he has a day off.  Yippee!