HappyPappy Blog

We got into Progresso at about 6:30 in the morning, we’re getting accustomed to waking up at such a time and having continental breakfast delivered to our cabin. Continental breakfast in the cabin beats the crap out of the buffet stampede on deck 9 with the ravenous hordes of Americans (and a few Quebecers) gobbling down enough bacon to choke a horse.

After breakfast we proceeded to the pier where we were hustled off to our tour in a hurry as we would be tight on time. The tour is approximately seven hours and the ship was docked for approximately seven hours, you do the math. Shareen and I decided to got to the famous Mayan ruins of Chichen-Itza, a bit of history and culture does the spirit good. The ship docks at the end of a two mile pier (no shit), we embarked on buses right on the pier and took off at a break neck pace toward our destination which would be a two hour bus ride in each direction. Our guide was a crusty old Mexican gentleman who gave us a bit of history and background on the Yucatan peninsula as well as telling us that Mexico was in fact a federation of states just like the United States of America…..except they were the United States of Mexico which is in fact the official name of the country. After about forty five minutes of gabbing he let us nap for the rest of the journey.

Chichen-Itza is not a simple dig site or excavation, it is in fact an entire complex which from what I could tell must be a huge source of revenue for Mexico and the surrounding community, this place was packed with tourists, I was reminded of Disney World.

The temperature was very hot and very humid, Shareen and I must have sweated liters just standing around.

I have to say that our guide was excellent, assuming that he wasn’t full of shit we got a very detailed lecture about the vegetation, climate, culture, and history of the area.

We eventually made it to the main complex which takes your breath when you first see it, remind me to show you the rest of my pictures when I get back.

We spent another hour with our guide who gave a detailed account of the state of the ruins and some of the theories as to what happened to the original inhabitants, we got to see the basketball court, the sacrificial well before he cut us loose to explore on our own.

To show off our Fear-Factor Shareen and I decided to climb up the famous pyramid, climbing it up is definitely easier than climbing it down; I would guess that it’s about a 65-70 degree grade. We went up on our feet and came back down on either our bums or backward like dogs.

Our alloted hour came and went much too quickly, we were told that some tours come to Chichen-Itza for three days and they still don’t get to see everything. Truth be told we hung around the pyramid admiring the sites and that’s all we had time to see.

Afterwards we were hustled back to the tour bus which zoomed back to the ship…..I felt time dilating and myself getting younger as the driver ignored all speed limits and school zones.

We got back to the boat with minutes to spare; in vain as it turns out since the weather prevented us from leaving on time anyways. Turns out that the channel in Progresso is very narrow and the windy conditions would put the boat at risk of running aground.

We were so exhausted from the hiking and our Fear-Factor episode that the rest of the day is a blur. Needless to say that this was one of the highlights of our trip, I would recommend this to anyone going to the Yucatan.

Day at sea tomorrow…