Spring Break: I'm the lamest mom ever

In our excitement to go on our cruise, we noticed only too late that we would be coming home right as the children were beginning spring break. Cori had to get back to work. And in my prenatal state, I was not up to planning much. The weather was grey, rainy and chilly to boot. The kids got to have a few play dates. I only took a couple of half hearted pictures of Grace with her friends Taylor and Becca. And then we celebrated their patience and understanding with a rainy trip to Bahama Bucks at the end of the week. I can say that it was, at least, a relaxing few days at home. (Sorry kiddos!)

The Cruise: Cozumel

The final port of call was Cozumel, Mexico. Our excursion to the Mayan ruins of Tulum almost didn’t happen. We learned the frustrating way that it is better just to avoid third party bookings and just book excursions through the cruise line. There had been a mix up about the time zones and we were met by our guide who had waited around just to tell us that there wasn’t enough time to do the tour. Fortunately, her manager worked things out and we were able to proceed as planned. Cozumel is an island off the Yucatan peninsula. So we took a very bumpy water taxi ride across to the mainland and then traveled by bus taxi out to the site.

We spent some time before and after the tour shopping the local market stalls.

Taken from the welcome sign:

The city was also known as Zama (dawn) because of being in one of the places where dawn first breaks in our country. The community was a commercial port with a privileged location; it was an active redistribution center for local and foreign products, some of which came from places as far away as Central America, the Pacific and Gulf coasts, and Central Mexico, by sea, rriver, and land routes.

Everyday life was intertwined with politics, magical religious rituals, the arts, and astronomical observations, especially pertaining to the planet Venus — the morning and evening star — , the representative of Kukulkán — Quetzalcóatl — .

Its rampart allowed it to control internal activities and, what’s more, to protect its residents; it marked the difference between the elite class and the common people, who lived outside the great wall.

Tulum was contemporary to Chichén Itzá and Mayapán, and when the latter two states fell, it consolidated its position, paving the way for its greatest period of expansion.

Its decline began ate time Hispanic navigators arrived on its shores and islands; from then on, a certain cultural cohesion was attained that has prevailed until the present time.

Our guide, Raquel, has Mayan ancestry, is well educated, and gave an excellent tour. There is some effort being made to preserve and restore the site. It was remarkable to imagine the ancient American city in its prime.

Though not an example of classical Mayan arts at their height, Tulum has a lot of architecture and murals to experience.

This is the back of the main temple. Not part of the tour. But we went and saw it anyway. Note the tiny window.

We had some time to spare after the tour of the grounds and went down the planked stairway to the beach. Most of us got our feet wet. Our resident mermaid Brittany went for the gusto!

On the way to our water taxi, we heard some lovely music and had to look WAY up to find the band! The tour company booked us on the Margaritaville cruise back to Cozumel. It was a much smoother ride and included live music. We seized the last few minutes of our time ashore to do a bit more shopping and then it was time to set sail for home.

The Cruise: Grand Cayman

Our next port of call was Grand Cayman Island. We were disembarked by ferry to the island and waited in the main shopping area for our next excursion to depart. There is a fantastic candy store there filled with the largest pieces of candy we have ever seen.

We boarded another boat with about 30 people and were taken to Stingray City, a large sandbar in the North sound of the island. The stingrays attraction to the sandbar is speculated to have started decades ago with the fisherman who would clean their fish at the sandbar before making port. The stingrays now associate the sound of the boats to food and freely swim around the boats and tourists.

After swimming with the stingrays, we were taken a short distance to Coral Garden for snorkeling. The guide was apologetic about the clarity of the water. Some weather had gone through that had churned things up a bit. We still saw lots of fish and coral. It was a relaxing hour bobbing around with the tide.

We were catching the end of  iguana mating season and we spotted this handsome dude decked out in orange for the occasion.

All the sun and the sea left us pretty tuckered out. The O's and the L's did a little shopping before heading back to the ship while the T's went down the road to explore a ship wreck.

The Cruise: Jamaica

Jamaica was our first port of call. The morning was extraordinarily windy and it took a couple of extra hours to get into port. The captain ended up docking the ship in an irregular slip that is usually used as a cargo berth. Disembarkation madness ensued as a city’s worth of people all wanted off the boat at the same time.

We were greeted by happy local musicians and guided into a warehouse where the crowd was divided into our different excursions for the day. Our group split up, but we headed the same direction out of the port and saw much of the same scenery: burned out sugar cane fields, school children in uniform, cement block houses, two guys on stilts (totally normal for a weekday morning!), beautiful beaches, and the purple high school attended by Usain Bolt.

Cori, Ray, Sandy and I toured the Good Hope Plantation. Though Good Hope was originally built by Colonel Thomas Williams in 1774, a majority of the plantation’s more significant history occurs under John Tharpe’s ownership. He is famous for his more compassionate treatment of the 3,000 slaves who lived at Good Hope. He built schools and a hospital for them. The great house still stands. Many of the other structures are partly in ruins if not completely leveled, but a few have been repurposed. The old hospital has been converted to an aviary, and the trading house has been restored and is now used for rum sampling.

 A little family cemetery.

 The old aquifer system.

We were driven around the plantation and shown many of the out buildings as well as some of the old aquifers along the river. Then, we were taken up the hill to the great house. The property offers amazing views of the surrounding Cockpit Mountains. 

The great house contains a lot of original woodwork as well as the final resting place of Elizabeth Williams. She was the young bride of Colonel John who tragically succumbed to malaria at the age of 25 after just a short while at Good Hope. 

The interior of the house stands true to its colonial roots, even down to the sunlight peeking through the roof shingles. Our guide, Robin, was animated and informative. We had a laugh when he described the priceless, antique, one-of-a-kind nature of an arm chair and then insisted that someone sit in it. You know, to see how comfortable it is. 

We also saw the solid lead bathtub Tharpe was prescribed by his doctor to aid with his arthritic pain. Robin speculates that his daily bathes gave him lead poisoning and contributed to his death. The great house is set up with a fancy spot for afternoon tea as well as a honey moon house. It is the stuff of Carribean dreams.

Before heading back to the ship, we stopped in at the potter's shop and lunched on jerk chicken and mango smoothies.

Meanwhile, Cory and Brittany were taken further up the Martha Brea River. They were paired up with a navigator who floated them down the river on a bamboo raft which he had crafted by hand. Cory and Brit took turns guiding the raft. And Brittany jumped right into the river. Once off the side of the raft and then again off a rope swing.

Though we were on different busses, we were taken to the same shopping plaza. And though we were there at different times we managed to get some pictures in the same places!

Getting back to the ship took a little extra time that night as they had to bus us around to the cargo bay. But what a sunset!