A Year later Rememberance: Cozumel Mexico

January 1st, 2011 finds me looking out at a very wet and dreary Purewater Hollow. We have been having some hard rains this morning, but it is very warm, for a Kentucky January. Believe it or not, we still have some snow and ice hanging around our driveway and gravel road, which just adds to the messiness at this point! We've been in the 60s the past couple of days and it is already 54 this morning. At midnight last night it was warm enough (mid 40s) to ring in the New Year outside! After our family prayer, we shot off the remainder of our fireworks as a representation of God's glory and majesty and of the power He wants to have in our lives in 2011!

A year ago, the scene was a bit different when we welcomed in the New Year aboard the bright and colorful Freedom of the Seas along with Nancy and all my family from Georgia. We had our family prayer at 12:09 am in our stateroom, after we shouted in the New Year with paper noise makers and horns watching the chaos erupt in the Royal Promenade with lights and balloons!

The weather was a bit different where we were a year ago, also, on the first day of 2010. The sun rising out of the ocean was magnificent and I was thankful that our balcony faced this incredible scene so perfectly. It was like God was giving us a special private showing of His glory! The temperature was already in the 80s at this early hour of sunrise!

We had breakfast delivered to our room and soon found ourselves leaving the ship for adventures in Cozumel, Mexico. This would be our third foreign country in three days! We had already enjoyed our excursions into Jamaica and Grand Cayman and now we were looking forward to finding out a bit about Cozumel, Mexico!

Cozumel is an island in the Caribbean Sea 11 miles off the eastern coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, and is only 29 miles long and 8.5 miles wide according to our tour guide. The word Cozumel means "island of the swallows" in the ancient Mayan language.

This was the first time on our vacation that the weather actually felt hot! We had been experiencing mid 80s for the entire cruise, but it had been a cooler, comfortable heat. Our tour guide stated that the island has a year round temperature between 87 and 97 degrees!

We had an incredible tour, both educational and fun! But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me show you a few pictures of our first moments on Cozumel:

Here we are waiting for our tour. It was hot enough already that we soon found some shade to wait in:

We loved the tour! It consisted of an open-air transport ride across the island, highlighting the the eastern and southern parts of the island that are protected wildlife areas. Our guide said that the western side of the island consisted of the hotels, restaurants, and city. Here is the open-air transport that we rode on for the tour:



All aboard:


Our tour guide, Niko, was of Mayan ancestry, as is the majority of the inhabitants of the island. He was a shorter fellow and he commented that the Mayan people were of short stature. He was a lot of fun! Here he is, using the cooler as a pedestal so he could see everybody:



The cooler was an unexpected, but welcomed, surprise! We did not know that free drinks were included as part of the excursion, but He kept passing out bottled water and various soft drinks. The heat really helped us work up a thirst, and we appreciated the drinks!

Since our transport was completely opened we had plenty of air circulating when it was moving, but my arm did get sunburned where it was facing the sun!

We drove along the the ocean and the wind was indeed plentiful! I like these pictures of Christina and Matthew:

Notice my beard in the wind:



Simon enjoyed the ride:




Windblown Timothy was with Matthew:




Erica was taking the pictures, so it looks like we don't have any of her getting windblown. We each had our own seat, which was pretty neat. Erica was sitting behind Simon and in front of Lisa and me.

Some of the scenes from the bus were American things like Domino's Pizza and a Seven and Eleven store:

Soon we were out into the country though:

None of the trees were very big. Our guide told us that whenever the trees start to get very tall a hurricane comes through and levels everything!


The water on the other side of the ocean was a mixture of freshwater and salt water which he called "brackish" water:

He said this was Rosemary, which was very abundant:



This tour was so neat because it was not just a sight-seeing bus ride with drinks provided. We also got to walk around at three different stops on the way to the beach.

The place we were exploring was called Punta Sur and it was an "eco-park":


We did not ride any horses, but they were neat to see:



It was also pretty cool seeing the native iguanas. The bus stopped so we could take pictures:






Being in a totally different world, with different plants, animals, and temperatures felt like we were in the Twilight Zone! We were not in the Twilight Zone, but we did, however, come into the Crocodile Zone!

We enjoyed walking along the boardwalk and taking it all in:

What was everyone looking at?

After the Crocodile Zone, our transport continued along the coast and came to some small Mayan ruins, which were fascinating! It has been over 500 years since the Mayan culture flourished here and no one is really sure today what they used these structures for:

Here is a plaque explaining it. Only the right side was in English:



Our guide said that wind blows through those conch shells and makes a whistle-siren sound which could have been a sort of warning system for hurricanes. But he said if the hurricane was that close he didn't think they would have time to get to safety. I'm sure ancient peoples were more sophisticated than we modern folks give them credit for!

Here are some pictures of some good looking modern folks in front of the ancient Mayan structure:

Here is another one that we didn't spend much time at:



Modern man has made use of lighthouses here as well, and that was the next stop on our tour. You can see the light house we would go to off in the distance:



Here it is close up:



We had a lot of time to walk around here. There was an interesting maritime museum and some garden areas as well as the lighthouse to climb up. Lisa, Timothy and I stayed grounded while the rest of the children took in the view from up on top the lighthouse.

Here are some pictures they took from up there:










Our tour culminated with an hour and a half stay at a beach. By this time Erica, Matthew, and Cristina were snorkeling pros! (They learned the previous day at Grand Cayman so this was their 2nd day in a row snorkeling.) This was their first time doing some strenuous snorkeling, however, swimming out from the beach and fighting with the waves for over an hour! They each did super, though, and had a great time. Here they are getting ready to go:



Meanwhile, Lisa and I stayed with Simon and Timothy to enjoy some beach fun:

(Lisa loves sand! Not really):


Simon and Timothy really did enjoy their time in the sand and ocean:

We enjoyed the shade umbrella table and I enjoyed a "free" Pepsi while we watched Simon and Timothy play:

Simon gathered an impressive coral collection and distributed some of it to each of us:



Here are a couple more cute pictures of Timothy's first time at a beach:




After the beach and another ride across the island we were back to the port. We knew we were getting close when we could see this:



We were back with plenty of time to pick up some inexpensive souveniers before boarding the ship. Here was the scene:







I thought it was unique seeing two ships right next to each other here in port. Our ship was the bigger of the two!



Here is the family in front of the ship before we left the land of Cozumel:

What a day to begin the year of 2010!

It was after 5:00 by the time we got back to our rooms on the ship, and we were all pretty tired! We would have had to rush quite a bit to get ready for supper with our group in the main dining room, and we probably would have been pretty late. Instead we decided to relax a bit and enjoy a later supper at the Windjammer Buffet at our leisure. I had pizza, steak, and pork tenderloin, according to the record left by my camcorder!

We then took in a cute Broadway style musical comedy called "Once Upon a Time" about fairy tales that the children enjoyed. It was a nice show, but I did not think it was as great as some of the others we had seen previous evenings. (I liked the magic show and the ice show the best!)

While walking around a bit after the live show, we came upon the little movie theater that we had not discovered until then. It had a big screen with about a dozen rows of movie style chairs with an aisle down the middle. They were showing a movie that we had not heard about called "Race to Witch Mountain". We were familiar with the old Witch Mountain movies from Disney but did not know anything about this new one. We decided to stay and were pleasantly surprised with how good it was! If we could have stayed a month on board, I doubt we would have discovered all the surprises this ship had to offer!

By the time the movie was over, Timothy was asleep and it was close to midnight. We had packed the day pretty fully and it was time to turn in! We were to have another full day at sea tomorrow!

(I think I may have stopped by Sorento's to get a few slices of pizza before going to bed, as was my habit by then. They had the best pizza and it was so cool to be able to just go in and pick up whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted! We may had gotten a bit spoiled on that cruise!)

(Believe it or not, but I have worked putting this post together for four hours straight to start off my 2011! It is time for me to get busy doing something else productive now!)