It Was unBelizeable!

Belize was the next port city on the list. Belize is a tender port, and Cort was pretty nervous to have to transfer ship to ship after Mom's accident, but our ship to ship transfers were smoother and safer on this trip than I've ever seen them. They took a bit of maneuvering, but they got the boats right together so we weren't ever stepping over open water.

For our shore excursion we transferred right to the boat that took us to our snorkel point, so we also came straight back to the ship instead of to shore. Cort and I decided to clean up a little bit and then take the next tender to Belize City to see what there was to see. Side note with bonus half-rant: We had been told over and over by the ship's staff not to go out of the touristic area right off the dock because it was unsafe.

I don't know if it's because I travel by myself alot or what, but most of the time I'm really suspicious when people say stuff like that without anything to back it up. Don't get me wrong I'm a very careful traveler, but a lot of times people have told me that somewhere wasn't "safe" to visit, or "safe" for women, or "safe" to explore, but they just have a low tolerance for venturing outside their carefully curated comfort-zone. /end rant.

That said, with a giant hole in my foot, I wasn't exactly in any condition to go adventuring anyway. So I'll never know if it was safe or not.

Cort had heard somewhere that you can get your passport stamped (maybe on the tender) and that was something she really wanted to do. So, when we docked we looked at a the map of stores and stuff - decided that we maybe wanted to do to the chocolate factory, and find the immigration place for passport stamps. We eventually asked directions to the immigration place (it was close to the chocolate place!), got our passports stamped, and had the guy tell us that Roatan (our next port) also had a dockside immigration office, and headed to Moho Chocolate.

The original plan was to go do the factory tour and make our own candy bars, but we ended up just buying lots of chocolate and getting milkshakes. I got a pretty good sampling - the only types I didn't get were the plain dark chocolate, and the one with chocolate nibs.  Pretty tasty stuff.



Our tender ship on the way back was crewed by some locals that looked in their 20s or so.  They were crazy-comfortable on our fast-moving boat.  One skirted around the tiny ledge outside to close the windows (while we were moving), and sometimes I'd just see one leap up on the roof, and we could hear them walking around up there the whole time.  Sometimes one of the guys would just leap and disappear and then you'd see them reappear at the other end of the boat.  Crazy balance those guys.  I'm pretty envious of that ability, tbh.

Tulum

This year's annual crossing off the list consisted of a 7 day cruise to Cozumel, Belize, and Honduras.  Cozumel doesn't have anything on The List nearby (at least not nearby enough to see in just a port day), so Cort and I talked about revisiting the Jose Cuervo tasting room.  In the end, my love of history (and the feeling that we lost out on seeing a lot of the ruins because we decided to walk to the cenote - which - Big Mistake, Big, Huge!) won out and we both decided to go to Tulum.

This ended up being a brilliant decision and I'm so glad we decided to visit here.  Our guide was excellent, the ruins here are so much prettier than those at Chichen Itza, and I felt like we got a whole lotta history bang for our buck.

In the little shopping square outside the ruins they have this pole.  Everyone once in a while these guys climb to the top, start spinning and then hang upside down and spin around.  We didn't get to see the whole show - just the first part.





Coatimundi are members of the raccoon family.  They eat lizards, snakes, birds, fruit and grubs and nearly every Mayan family in Tulum kept one as a pet.  They are super friendly and made good pets - and are pretty adorable.


Tulum's purpose in the Mayan empire was as a seaport, trading mainly in turquoise and jade. It's the only Mayan city built on a coast and one of the few protected by a wall.



The wall surrounds the city on three sides and the barrier reef provides protection from the sea.  A channel affords safe passage to the beaches below the city, and lighthouse were constructed to guide Mayan ships safely through the channel.  In order to keep hostile ships from navigating the channel the lighthouse didn't actually line up for generally accepted navigation.  Anyone not knowing the key would run aground.



This is standing at the third lighthouse and looking back down the cliff at the other one (with the castle in the middle).


Look really closely and you can see all three structures.


Our guide also said that archaeologists and historians also believe that the city was camouflaged by day.  The sea-facing structures were all painted glorious shades of blue that made it indistinguishable from the sea when viewed beyond the reef.

On top of all the history, it really is just a beautiful place to visit.










Our guide was wearing a talisman made of onyx and silver.  A traditional piece of Mayan jewelry, made by local artisans.  On it, the wearer inscribes a word or phrase of great meaning - his was his wife's name - as a touchstone, good luck, a reminder of who and what you are.  I love the idea of that, a physical reminder of something important to me and my life - so, I had one made for myself.



It was such a great day.  An amazing place to visit.  I loved our guide; he had an incredible knowledge of the history of the people and places, and was clearly proud of his ancestry.  He expressed genuine appreciation for us taking a "cultural" excursion instead of a boozy-beachy one, and spending time learning a little bit about the history of the land we were visiting.  In every port, our guides all made a point of telling us how proud they were of their country, and how they genuinely invited us to return and spend time with the local people and culture.