Caribbean Day 5 (Cozumel, Mexico): Mayan Ruins, Tequila and Downtime

We woke up before our alarms go off. I hate it when that happens! We had our routine breakfast at the buffet but this time we ate outside. How adventurous! It’s still super humid out here.

Today we were going to the Mayan ruins in Cozumel. This island is 32 miles long and 9 miles wide at its widest point making it the largest island in Mexico. On our bus ride out we passed through San Miguel the largest city in Cozumel. Most of Cozumel’s revenue comes from tourism. In 1974 the first cruise ship came through and returned once a month. Currently, the biggest ship in the world comes through once every other week, the Harmony of The Seas.

When we arrived at the Mayan ruins it wasn’t what I expected. The site was small and the structures were unrecognizable for the most part. I had a lot of fun exploring and taking pictures. We went to different structures and were told what each structure was used for. Everyone that lived here was a person of nobility—religious leaders, musicians, doctors etc. Common folk were allowed in the city but they had to bring an offering. Because there wasn’t any currency at the time goods were used. Farmers would bring produce, hunters would bring meat etc. It was their form of taxes. Our guide told us about Ixchel. She is the goddess of fertility and medicine. She is always depicted as an older woman with a snake. The Mayans respected the elderly and the snake is a symbol of knowledge medicine and wisdom. The Mayans had 2 types of calendars. A sun calendar and a moon calendar. Each had a different number of months and a different number of days in each month. They lined up every 54 years.

On our way back, we stopped at a tequila factory where we learned how an agave plant was grown and turned into tequila. It take 8 to 10 years to grow a single plant! I wouldn't have the patience to wait that long. We were also told about different types of tequila and which ones were more refined. Tequila is the only single ingredient alcohol and certain tequilas can only come from certain regions. I’m not a big tequila person but the samples I tried were very good. I didn’t care much for the flavored tequila and our tequila expert didn’t seem to be too enthusiastic about them either. The samples were much different than the tequila I’ve had in the states.

When we headed back to the ship we had a late lunch at the buffet, had afternoon tea and lounged around for a couple of hours before dinner. I fell asleep by the pool.

We were going to go to dinner at the sit-down restaurant tonight but some of us came in shorts and flipflops so our group split up between the sit-down restaurant and the buffet. I ended up at the buffet.

Dinner went by quick. Since we skipped the show we had a lot of downtime before we had to go to bed so we did a little more lounging around. We had a lot of downtime tonight. Time to get some sleep!