Finally! We arrived in port at Costa Maya, Mexico. It seemed like all three thousand passengers needed to leave at once. Many of us had excursions planned; the rest were probably just funned out from their fun day at sea yesterday and ready to stand on land. The process was surprisingly fast, and we found ourselves in the midst of a big marketplace right off the dock. The vendors were pretty pushy, and we just had to mumble “No, gracias” as we pushed our way through to the street beyond. We walked a few blocks to the gathering spot for our excursion, an ancient Mayan site at Chacchoben.
We hadn’t booked through the cruise line, because we found a private tour that was half the price. When we arrived at the spot, we laughed a little at the setup. It was a couple of Mexican guys with a couple of run-down white vans. But hey, what’s a trip to Mexico without a little adventure? Hoping we weren’t about to be kidnapped, we climbed into the van and rode for about an hour into the jungle of Quintana Roo. We eventually arrived at Chacchoben, where our guide, Octavio, led us through the various ruins. There were a bunch of big groups with obviously more “professional” guides, but frankly Octavio was a lot of fun and interesting to talk to. He’d been an aerospace engineer for many years before deciding he wanted less stress in his life, when he opted to run this little tourist agency.
The ruins were pretty cool. They’re about 1,300 years old, and when you consider the dense jungle surrounding them, it’s not surprising we’re still discovering Mayan sites throughout Central America– they’re overgrown and buried so deeply in the trees that even satellites have a hard time picking out these ancient cities.
Even after a millennium, the stonework and masonry endures. Apparently these larger temples were originally covered in smooth clay, but over the years it wore away and left only the original stone framework.
We learned a bit about Mayan culture, and Octavio even explained some Mayans mathematics. They invented the concept of zero, which was unknown in Europe at the time. Although it’s hard to understand how you wouldn’t have zero, it’s more about using a placeholder to represent it in equations. Their temples incorporated math, often using numbers the Mayans considered sacred, like seven and thirteen.
In places, the jungle is slowly devouring the ruins. Or, perhaps, the ruins haven’t been fully excavated. Either way, it was really interesting.
I don’t think Pepper enjoyed it nearly as much. It was hot, and there wasn’t a lot of shade. We’d seen ruins at Tulum (in the same area of Mexico) on our Cancun trip back in 2015, and those hadn’t excited her much either.
After our excursion and the ride back to Costa Maya, we had some time before we needed to be back onboard. The port was more interesting than the ship, so we hit a few of the local shops. As usual, I found that the hats for sale were too small for my head. Alas.
We made our way back to the ship, stopping for a quick shot on the dock.
Once again we enjoyed some time on the deserted deck. And had some deviled eggs.
