Cozumel, Nico, Ian and beyond

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

We docked just after 8am alongisde another cruise ship. In fact, we docked with two other cruise ships at port. But the one we parked alongside was from Italy and considerably larger than our own ship. It didn’t dawn on me until later that, like I said, this ship is from Italy. Italy, on the other side of the Atlantic. our ship left from New Orleans and still took 3+ days to get to Cozumel, crossing the Gulf. How long were these people at sea to get to Cozumel? Crikey that’s some leisure living.

Anyhow at the end of the pier Nico and Ian were waiting for us. This was actually the point of the trip. To see these two, and deliver Martina to them for transport en route to Australia.

Wow. The last time I saw Ian was early October when he departed from Queens, NY en route to California on a motorcycle tour. From there he made his way to Holbox and met up with Nico whose been waiting tables out there. The idea was to get Martina to them and flying was simply not an option – too expensive, too much hassle, and clearly nowhere near as much fun as we’ve had here. Holbox is located around the other side of the peninsula, closer to where we were in Progreso yesterday, but nonetheless they met us here. We rented a jeep, and quickly got out of town and went scoping for some waves.

We found some good strong waves, salty water, and fresh beach. We were pretty much all alone on the east side of the island. Granted the water was so strong that we couldn’t go too far out but we spent some time here, had some beers at a local stand, a picnic on the beach with some food that we brought from the ship, and then headed back into town to find some snorkeling equipment and a proper meal.

While heading back we stopped to inspect these two geysers that were spraying water a good 20 feet into the air. Near them were these pools of water that vibrated and filled with air-pressurized water every time the waves hit the rocks, a little bit of water finding its way through the rocks and to the surface. Amazing.

When in Cozumel, eat here! It away from the market area a little, and it’s a total dive restaurant, but it’s so good. The lady-owner cooks everything behind the counter and it’s all really fresh, I mean she doesn’t cut a tomato until you order it. Fresh! And cheap. We all ate bountifully for around $20! I recommend the coconut water!

Before Angie and I headed back to our home for the next 36 hours and we split ways with Martina, there’s another part to this story that lacks a visual counterpart. We went snorkeling! We had around 2 hours before we had to retrieve Martina’s bags from the ship, so we grabbed some gear and hit some beach just south of the ships. We found some access to the water where only 4 other people were scuba-diving. The water is amazing, the fish are amazing, the reef is incredible. Groupers, yellowtails, I think I saw a barracuda even. And this pool of really tiny yellow fish that were totally friendly and playful. Some people back on the boat reported seeing seahorse, 3′ wide starfish, and such. I’m not a skillful swimmer at sea so I wasn’t able to head too far out; any opportunity I get to go back I’d love to take a s.c.u.b.a. class, they sounded affordable and you don’t have to head too far out (just 150 feet from shore) to see some incredible sights.

Home for the next 36 hours. By the time we were headed back to the ship, another ship had docked at one of the other piers, for a total of four ships at Cozumel! Cozumel’s wikipedia entry currently says that there was a third pier before a hurricane in 2005 took it out; should they rebuild it, there could potentially be six cruise ships docked at any point, accounting for anywhere upwards of 20,000 people!

As for the cruise experience, it was something else. There was Maja in the dining hall; Ananais in the piano bar; Rob the Pianoman; and countless countless others that really made the experience worthwhile. Martina, Angie and I clearly had the advantage too, as we were always one step ahead of the pack, and went about things the unorthodox path in order to maximize our experience. Twice even we were asked by others on the boat, “Are you artists?” because it was clear we went about things a different way. We were the first ones off and the last ones back on.

We found out the ship had a crew of roughly 900 people, many of whom go unseen for days on end, and workers are committed to six month contracts. They work long hours and really commit their lives to making sure ours is taken care of. It’s an odd position to be placed in, but it’s people – you talk to them, hear their stories, and they really make it worthwhile. They come from all over – Bosnia, India, Phillipines, Russia, USA – and they’re all crammed into their own deck and at sea for months. It’s an incredibly weird construct that humans have come up with, the cruise ship. With advances in technology you can stay connected to the world via the Internet (for a pretty penny) and there’s now satellite television round the clock; some people ride these things continually, live on them for months out of the year. It’s a world unto itself.

The final day at sea flew by, as we zipped back across the Gulf doing nearly 24-26 knots (en route to Mexico we spent most of our time around 16 knots by comparison). Angie and I were a little silent without Martina and mostly spent the day on the pool deck reading and recovering before we arrived back in New Orleans the next morning, bright and early debarkation began at 7am! Whoop whoop.

Re-entering the Missisissippi delta at night. Some land can be seen intersecting the moonlight, with lights on the horizon from small towns or oil refineries or the like. Welcome home.

(Next: back in New Orleans, some Prospect 1 art, back to it)

Progreso, Dzibilchaltun, Mayan f*%^ing ruins!

Wednesday, January 21st, 2009

While you go on these cruise ships to relax, to really take advantage of the adventure you have to get up!

We docked at Progreso and disembarked at 7am! Angie, Martina and I were on the first shuttle bus to the end of the pier:

there’s a reason why you need a shuttle bus to drive the pier. It’s over 4 miles long! That building on the horizon is the halfway point, and is where the pier terminated until about 30 years ago when they built it further out to accomodate the then-bourgeoning cruise industry. 4 mile pier!

We hit the town of Progreso a little after 8am and were on a mission. There were two “tours” of Progreso available, and we decided on the tour of Dzibilchaltun for it’s Mayan ruins and sinkhole, the Xlacah Cenote (oooooh yeah!). However on the boat they wanted $56 per person and grouped people on an actual tour bus with guideperson and didn’t promise much else other than you would see the sights. We paraded through the market where the pier touched the land and found guides there offering the same tour as the ones sponsored on the boat for $29/person – an alternative tour though that we needed to round up 8 people to fit into a van and didn’t depart for over 2 hours! This didn’t quite meet our desires. We decided to hit the beach and travel further away from the market merchants and see what we could find in terms of transport and offers.

As we were the first ones to hit the beach, we quickly met this guy Jean from Florida who has satisfying become “stuck” in Puerto Progreso, Mexico. We told him what we were looking for, a cheap, authentic guide to the Mayan ruins at Dzibilchaltun. He works a bar down the beach and gets punters to stop by for drinks but knew the locals and looked into the situation for us. He got us in touch with a friend of his, Kiko, and bam we had ourselves a soon-to-be college graduate driving us around the highways of Progreso at 9am!

It doesn’t get any better than this. Kiko offered to turn the a/c on and we were all replied “No no we’re fine!” We were a full hour ahead of those tour busses, and best of all we got the all-inclusive tour, guide, and ticket to the ruins for a bargain $25/head!

Quickly getting into it, the grounds at Dzibilchaltun are f*%^ing awesome!! Do you see that temple in the distance? (zoom in to see it if you can’t) That’s the Temple of the Seven Dolls (even though Martina counted eight!). And during the first equinox, the sun can be seen in the temple corridor, like an architectural calendar. Bloody amazing. A calendar and sense of time all dependent on celestial bodies, 2012 here we come!

But here’s the real reason why we came to Dzibilchaltun!:

Xlacah Cenote! A sinkhole (say cenote, kinda sounds like sinkhole) older than your grandma’s hairdo! Incredible. Crystal clear freshwater, complete with fishies that love to say hi, give a little nibble! The whole of the Yucatan has these underground waterways and sinkholes that stretch for miles, miles, miles. The whole of the Yucatan. The left side of the cenote in the image above is shallow, as in three inches shallow. There are many rocks which provide a natural path to the mid part of the pool which is entirely walkable at around 5′ depth. Then, up in the top-right the deep part of the pool is deeeeep. Around 140 feet deep! And leads to some tunnels that connect to other cenotes all over the Yucatan. This place is amazing man. And the water is a constant perfect temperature.

Now there’s an incredible part to this day and the entire journey that is missing a visual counterpart. Kiko drove us back to Progreso after we were done swimming (like I said, some of the “official” tour groups came along while we were in the water and they didn’t even get in – Loooosers!). We had just under 2 hours before the boat departed so we told him we’d like to grab some food. He told us there was a McDonald’s, “No don’t turn on the air conditioning! NO by food we don’t mean McDonald’s!” We explained that we wanted what he would eat! Yucatan snackery! He took us to this bar right on the beach near where Jean and he work, and introduced us to this Yucatan-branded form of siesta, where you purchase a beer or liquor and get these countless trays – nearly 20 between the four of us – of treats, snacks, appetizers. It was ridiculous, they kept bringing food! Salsa, habanero sauce, tortilla wrapped delights, and in particular these two appetizers, one made from a seed that had the same consistency as a deviled egg yolk stuck inside an avocado, but it was a single seed; and the other made from some tiny seed that Kiko couldn’t translate. The seed is converted into several foods, included a clumpy substance similar to dried out brown sugar; another that is ground up with oil and looks like a darker form of hummus. Whatever those two foods are I have to find out! But seriously we bought 8 beers – I tipped Kiko by buying his beers – and refueled on some authentic cuisines! Yessir!

So getting back onto the boat was the best part. We all sware that we weren’t the only ones on the last bus back down the 4 mile pier, and you can see other people in the background heading to the boat. However we were the last ones on the boat! And as we were meandering back down the pier people all over the boat started waving at us, signaling to hurry back to the boat. “C’mon you guys, we’re ready to go!” As we stepped back onto the boat they quickly slammed the door behind us and asked us what room we were in because they didn’t have time to look us up – they had to trust we were legit passengers – and informed us we had less than 2 minutes until they raised anchor and headed back out to sea!

Tomorrow: Cozumel, Nico, Ian, and beyond!