"Because it's a made-up city," Tim explained. "The government built it so the cruise ships would stop."
Well, it sure worked, because there was another ship already docked when we got there, and a third one pulled in shortly after.
We walked a lot on our Jamaica day, which took a toll on my dad. My mom decided afterwards that he should skip Costa Maya, although she phrased it a little less delicately.
"We voted you off the island," she told my Dad. "You're staying on board when we get to Mexico."
We all cracked up, but my dad didn't really mind. He was thrilled to park himself poolside and claim his spot at the soft-serve ice cream machine. But it turns out karma has a sense of irony, because my mom woke up feeling a bit dodgy, and didn't go on land either. We were all disappointed, Tim most of all.
"She WHAT?!?" Tim gasped, when I told him Mom wasn't coming with us. I was touched by his concern, until he added, "She's our translator! Today's the only day we really need her, and she's letting me down!" I guess he inherited empathy from my mom.
But hey, it's Tim, so even a missing translator didn't really slow him down. He was going to get us to the big tourist destination in town--Mayan ruins--with or without my mom.
We exited the pier through an outdoor mall filled with souvenir shops and guys in warrior costumes who took pictures with us.
"Smile!" Kim called out, as the photographer snapped us. "Look scared of the Aztecs!"
"Mayans," one warrior corrected, and she answered back, "Aztecs, Mayans, same thing." He frowned and I smiled, quickly guiding us away before they turned into REAL warriors and attacked us.
To my chagrin (but not surprise), Tim stomped right past all the buses and vested people, and glanced around. He literally stood in front of every tour guide and bus driver in the city, and the only question he had for them was, "Where are the taxis?" This port didn't have a fence, but if it did, Tim would've been looking for a driver on the other side of it.
I knew the ruins were far away--45 minutes to 2 hours, depending on which ones you went to. "Can you even take a taxi out to the ruins?" I asked a friendly-looking tour guide.
He shifted around nervously. "You can," he started. "But...they only spend an hour out there, and none of them speak English. My tour is only $35 a person--you get an English-speaking guide, an air-conditioned bus, and a couple hours to walk around."
That sounded perfect to me, but Tim was already gone.
"He said the drivers don't speak English!" I called out to Tim.
"Whatever," Tim scoffed. I think he forgot that we were English-only speakers, except for Nic and Hannah, who also speak French--not that it did us any good in Mexico.
Even at 8 a.m., it was already hot and humid. I followed Tim, watching the other cruise passengers drive away in air conditioned buses, and I knew I wasn't going to be nearly as lucky.
Tim did find us a very nice cab driver named Valentine. He proved the other tour guide correct by being just as proficient as English as we were at Spanish--which is to say, not at all. We spent the first few minutes asking questions, pretending like we understood his answers. He was kind and spoke slowly, patiently, but that didn't make us understand any better.
We asked how far away the ruins were. Valentine mimed the road, pushing his arm out straight, and flashing 10 fingers at us twice. Suddenly, he jutted his arm left, and flashed his 10 fingers twice more. He was completely accurate--we drove straight down the road for 20 minutes, until suddenly the road turned a sharp left. Twenty minutes after that, we arrived at the ruins.
Valentine turned onto a small dirt path, which opened up unexpectedly to a tiny parking lot. He pointed toward the entrance and a winding path, tapped his watch and held up one finger, indicating we should return in an hour. We headed toward the ruins.
The place was gorgeous. It was a tropical rain forest, filled with tall plants, palm trees and birds whooshing by overheard. Someone warned us about monkeys, which immediately set Mark and Nic off in a fit of monkey-calls, but luckily, they were the only howlers we encountered.
I walked leisurely past a group of tourists just as the tour guide was telling them the name of this old town.
"We call it 'Chacchoben,'" she said. "It means 'red corn,' which was a staple in the Mexican diet. You couldn't grow a lot out here because of the weather, but you could always grow corn."
I overheard another guide say that Chacchoben had two seasons--hot and VERY HOT--and I was glad we were visiting during the first one,. Still, by 9:15 a.m., I was drenched in sweat.
The ruins were awesome.
A second set of ruins featured a huge stone staircase leading up a hill, which the kids immediately ran up. I decided I didn't get many chances like this, and went too, praising and thanking my bad knee, hoping it didn't give out halfway up. It did me a solid, and didn't.
The view from the top was spectacular. We stood over the treetops, and you could see the flat, swampy land go on for miles. It was truly breath-taking.
Some tourists were taking photos in front of a grand pyramid. As I waited for them to finish, I saw my family disappear out of my peripheral vision. I wasn't worried, because it was a small area, and there was only one way in to and out of the ruins, but damned if they didn't lose me while I was snapping my photo. (This is not uncommon when traveling with Tim--he has ditched me at literally every amusement park we've ever visited. But this is the first time he ever ditched me in a desolate rain forest, a foreign land, where I don't speak the language.)
So I wandered the grounds on my own, enjoying the lush, peaceful tree tunnels and the dry soil crunching under my feet. I admired the giant crumbling structures, occasionally eavesdropping on the tours. It was very cool.
When I was done, I stood at the end of the path, where eventually my family showed up, asking where I'd been.
"We lost you, Auntie Heather!" Nic cried. But happily, we all ended up back together, including Valentine, for which I was grateful. (It was a loooooong drive back to the town otherwise!) I was even more grateful when Valentine turned up the A/C full-blast, reminding me again how completely unsuited I am to live in a tropical climate.
Valentine drove us back toward the city, then turned off the main drag, dropping us off for an afternoon in Muhahual, a sleepy little beach town.
Muhahual had shops on one side and a beach full of outdoor cafes on the other. We walked in between, looking at souvenirs and dodging the persistent vendors.
The family ducked into the first pharmacy they saw, trying to remedy our sunscreen shortage. I saw something better than a pharmacy--a rickety old wooden dock that ended in a sea of turquoise water. It called to me, and to my camera, and I answered.
I called to Mark, and motioned that I was heading down to the water. He acknowledged me with a nod, but apparently didn't think to share this info with anyone else.
The dock was cool, but the view of the beach was even cooler. It looked like a beach right out of a calendar--white sandy beaches filled with palm trees and blue water as far as you could see. Every kind of water toy you could imagine bobbed along the water's edge--kayaks, jet skis, fishing boats, even a giant banana boat roared by us with a load of kids clinging tight and screaming happily.
I finished taking photos and returned to the pharmacy, where my family no longer was. I looked around, but true to form, they'd ditched me again. Oh well, at least I could see our ship in the distance, and if they were gonna leave me behind, this place wasn't half bad.
Eventually, the boys found me, calling out the joke they'd repeated the entire cruise. "Heather!" they called. "Heather, is that you?" They feigned surprise, as though we were acquaintances running into each other unexpectedly at the local grocery store.
They'd found their sunscreen, and were now on the prowl for something more substantial--lunch. The cafes all looked the same, inviting, and each had at least a couple guys waving menus and calling out to us, which made it hard to pick just one place. They offered us everything--free beer, appetizers, margaritas (even for the kids!). We listened to one guy's spiel at the Krazy Lobster, and as he was selling us, a tourist couple stopped and told us they'd just eaten the best lunch ever. That did the trick, and in we went.
It was the most perfect little beach cafe. We walked through the warm sand, past hammocks swinging from palm trees, which Mark immediately called dibs on. The host led us to a table under a palapa and more palm trees, about 10 feet from the water.
Tim ordered appetizers and a bucket of beer right away. It was a good move, because like Jamaica, Mexico runs on island time, and our lunch didn't show up for another hour.
But boy, was it good when it came! Mark, Tim, Kim and I ordered the lobster covered in butter and garlic (emphasis on the garlic!) and it was seriously good. We loaded up our fresh tortillas with rice and lobster, and didn't talk for half an hour, other than to say how amazing that lunch was.
As soon as they finished, the kids jumped back from the table, and ran out to the water. They repeatedly jumped off the dock, splashing around in the ocean. I wanted to join them, but the warm sun, full belly, and beer all did me in. I opted instead for the chaise lounges on the beach, where I could lazily dip my toes into the water and not drown.
In addition to the food and prime beach location, the restaurant also offered free kayaks. I opened my eyes just in time to see Hannah and the boys slipping away in them.
Hannah was a natural. She glided through the ocean like she'd done this all her life, cutting silently through the waves. The boys, on the other hand, were not nearly as graceful. Nic was headed out to sea in the opposite direction, and Mark was 20 or 30 yards behind him. Two minutes later, Mark proved without a doubt that he's my child by flipping his kayak, then splashing helplessly as it sank (while water flooded his kayak, memories flooded my mind, recalling my similar, yet far more panicky, kayak trip in Catalina).
I watched him struggle as the kayak sank. Because the water was shallow, barely three feet deep, it was more funny than scary. Tim dragged it back to shore for him, and I can say from experience that a water-logged kayak weighs about 700 pounds and is nearly impossible to empty.
Mark didn't even try--he just grabbed a new kayak and set out to sea again. Hannah glided past him, handing him his paddle, which she'd grabbed when his ship went down, and then she was gone again.
I returned to my lounger, where Kim joined me. We admired the view, finished our beers, and realized this was how life should always be. We also realized how hard it would be to return to work next week. We were good at lying around all day at the beach, drinking beer and relaxing, and we never wanted it to end.
But eventually, like all other good things, it did end. We packed up our stuff, grabbed a couple cabs, and headed back toward the ship. Apparently, our drivers were race car drivers in another life, because they flew through the empty town, screeching around corners and racing through driveways to avoid the speed bumps in the road.
"These would be awesome cabs during the Amazing Race!" Kim said, and I wholeheartedly agreed.
Our last stop was a brief one in the little government mall. There were two touristy bars sharing a pool, and the boys, still wet from the beach, hopped right on in. Hannah stole Tim's camera and disappeared onto the beach, where there were pools of dolphins you could pay to swim with.
Tim, Kim and I grabbed a table poolside, and ordered drinks. The waitress reappeared with our drinks--a couple beers and sodas in tacky, giant plastic palm tree glasses.
"I got this round, Tim," I said, pulling a twenty out of my wallet. "How much is it?"
"Thirty-six," the waitress said.
I did the math in my head--the entrance fee at the ruins was 48 pesos, or four bucks. If these drinks were 36, that was only three bucks--what a bargain!
"U.S.," the waitress added, which didn't quite register.
"U.S. what?" I asked.
"Dollars," she said, shrugging. "The drinks are 36 U.S. dollars."
"For two beers and three sodas?" I yelped, and she shrugged again, but this time it was a "what are you gonna do?" type shrug. I stared at her, still not comprehending, until the boys swam off with their drinks. When I realized I was burnt and there was no way out of this, I grudgingly handed over two twenties, and tried (unsuccessfully) to get over it.
But honestly, who am I to complain? That was the worst thing that happened to me the entire trip, being gouged for drinks. Mexico earned a little more of my money than I'd expected, but in return, I got to climb ancient ruins, chow down on grilled lobster and fresh tortilas, and lounge in the sand as the water lapped at my toes.
I definitely came out ahead. :-)
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