Cozumel

Look who welcomed us to Cozumel, Mexico!  Scott was SUPER excited, as you can tell.

Cozumel was the place I was most excited about visiting.  Unfortunately, I was very disappointed.

We arrived in Cozumel to cool temperatures and rain.  Not a good day for going to the beach or snorkeling, the two things I really wanted to do.  Instead, we took a taxi into the downtown and wandered around.

 After getting drenched and realizing the rain was not stopping, we purchased rain ponchos.  That made the day much more bearable!

 That cruise food really went to our hips (and other places)!  : )

 Hannah was pretty excited that in Mexico she was tall enough to drink...

 We celebrated with these giant VIRGIN pina colatas.

 Scott celebrated with the largest mug of beer I've ever seen!

 Okay, Hannah got a little crazy with the drinks!

 I think someone forgot to tell her they were non-alcoholic...

 I bet you didn't know they made adult size Wonder Woman Underoos!

 We certainly are Three Amigos!

 I think Hannah has watched Alice in Wonderland one two many times.  No, Hannah, your drink did not shrink you, the chair just grew.

 Scott enjoyed hanging out with the locals.

Cozumel was beautiful and I would love to go back.  The water was so clear I just wanted to jump in.  Despite the rain, you can see we had a fun day in Mexico!

Butts Up in Belize

Belize was all about cave tubing with Cave-Tubing.Com. Again, I booked this excursion with a private company not affiliated with the cruise ship. They met us right outside the dock and whisked us away for a wonderful Belizian adventure!  On the one hour drive to the National Park where the caves were, our guides gave us a tour of Belize City and answered several of our questions about Belize and its culture.

We arrived at the National Park and walked for about 45 minutes through the rain forest to reach the start of the caves.  Again our guide told us all about the wildlife, plants, and Mayan beliefs related to the caves.  The cave systems we tubed through were considered to be the underworld by the Mayans.  They would make sacrifices to their Deities in the caves.

 We had to wear headlights on our heads because it was pitch dark in the caves.

 We were all linked together to go down the river with a guide at the front and back.  The guides pulled us down the river and even pulled us along when the water got very shallow.  The key phrase of the day was "Butts Up!"  When this was hollered, you better get your butt out of that water or experience

rock-u-puncture as they called it.

 Someone was worn out on her way back to the ship!

When we returned to the port, we had about an hour before we had to catch the last tender back to the ship, so we wandered around a local market.  We paid $2 to get our picture taken with this local.

For those of you who know me well, you will appreciate my shopping story.  I was looking at little Belizian dolls for Hannah and Lydia.  A little local girl came up next to me and starting talking to me.  I asked her if she had any dolls like this to play with.  She answered, "No."  So I bought her a set of dolls as well.  When I handed them to her she looked at me like I was nuts and proceeded to lead me to "Her little shop."  Where I was guilted into buying a bracelet for Hannah.  She then tried to talk me into making a donation to her mother for her seven siblings.  At this point I knew I must look like a totally naive tourist and told the little girl I had no more money with me.  I am sure she ended up selling the little dolls at her shop, but at least I helped support her family.

 After dinner that evening, we enjoyed some time on the deck.  It was fun to just watch the waves roll by.

If you ever visit Belize, you absolutely must do cave tubing with http://www.cave-tubing.com/ !  They were incredible and our excursion with them was one of our most memorable of the trip!

See you in Cozumel in my next post.

Isla Roatan

Day 4 was spent in Roatan, Honduras.  We docked in a gorgeous cove,

hidden from the poverty of the island.

Our first views were of this ship wreck.  I guess if I had to be ship wrecked, this would be a pretty good place to be.

 We didn't dock until 11:00, so we were all anxious to get off the ship and head for our shore excursion.

I planned all of our shore excursions and chose not to use Carnival since the prices were so high.

In Roatan I had found a private beach resort and booked us all to be picked up and brought there for the afternoon.  Because it was not a cruise sponsored excursion, our bus couldn't pick us up at the port, we had to walk quite a distance through the countryside to get to our transportation.  It was extremely hot and there were locals crowding the sides of the street trying to get us to go with them.

Almost immediately we were exposed to the poverty.  All over the island people were living in unfinished basements with no windows, electricity, or running water.  I am not sure if the homes were never completed or if they were destroyed in a hurricane at some point.  The homes that were finished were obviously owned by the wealthy and were surrounded by barbed wire fences.

Our 45 minute drive to the Turquoise Bay resort was a real eye opener to the poverty of 3rd world countries.  It broke my heart to think of how little these people had.

We finally arrived at our resort and all of our uncertainty dissolved.  It was beautiful and very private!  Most of our time on the beach was spent alone with just our family.  It was a nice break from the mobs of people on the ship.

 Is this paradise, or what?

 There were live starfish in the water.  I have never seen one that was living.  It was incredible!

 We rented two canoes and paddled out into the bay.  This resort is the National Geographic dive center for Roatan.  Several people from our cruise ship group took boats out to the reef to scuba dive.  The beach was interesting where we were.  The sand was trucked in.  The island has few sandy beaches.  As we walked out into the water, the sand ended and the bottom became muddy.  We couldn't snorkel here, we would have had to take the boat out to the reef.

 There was a lovely pool area that we all enjoyed in the afternoon.  We had the pool all to ourselves.

 Jeff and Scott enjoyed the local beer.

 The kids all fell asleep on the ride back to the ship.  Look at my sweet Hannah loving on Simon!

We had a wonderful day in Roatan!  If you ever visit there, I would recommend checking out the resort where we went.  Their website is http://www.turquoisebayresort.com/ .

My next post will take you to Belize for a cave tubing adventure!