Excellent Adventure - part three

Excellent Adventure – part three

Tuesday we arrived in port at Costa Maya, Mexico. The sky was still overcast, but at least there was no rain. Doug and I had a leisurely breakfast in the main dining room. My French toast was excellent. We then debarked from the ship and walked down a long pier to the plaza built by NCL. It was very nice, with shops and a large swimming pool. There were beach chairs on the beach nearby.

We joined a group that was doing the jeep ride. We were paired with another couple, Ed and Jahenne (old English for Jane) from New Orleans. Ed drove the jeep and had a ball. He is the jock-like, adventuresome type guy and aimed at the many, many mud puddles, or perhaps I should say, sand puddles, along the very long road to the private beach where we had an authentic Mexican lunch awaiting us. But first, our guides, Adrienne and Roberto, took us to a small fishing village where we personally witnessed the extreme poverty we have always heard about. Most of the houses are concrete or wood and open to the elements. They appear to have nothing. There is no industry except fishing and selling trinkets to the tourists.

Adrienne and Roberto were friendly and funny, and Roberto was also very cute! They make better money than most people there by working for the cruise ships. However, the entire area was taken out by a cat 5 hurricane (Dean) two years ago. It even destroyed the concrete pier, so for a year, there was no work for them while NCL rebuilt it.

This desolate land makes even southern Mississippi look good. There are miles and miles of Mangrove trees, but they are all dead because the hurricane flooded them with salt water, which killed the roots. The only greenery is provided by small shrubs that have come up since. When we started along the road to the beach, we saw nothing but these small shrubs and trees for many miles. The paved road soon gave way to a dirt road filled with deep, water-filled pot holes. Ed made a point of aiming at every one, going through them as fast as possible as his goal was to return with the dirtiest jeep. He definitely accomplished that! We really had fun with them. They told us a lot about their experience with Katrina; they’re house was flooded.

The beach was absolutely gorgeous – clear water, white sand, and coconut palms. We ate at tables set right on the beach, and the guacamole we had was the best food I had eaten so far on the trip. There were beach chairs and hammocks to relax in. Doug and I waded in the water which was much colder than I expected. We saw living sea urchins and starfish the size of large dinner plates. There were large, fully intact conch shells along the beach. The beach, however, is protected, so we couldn’t bring any back with us.

After we made the long trip back to the pier, we looked in the shops. That was the first time we experienced the hard-sell techniques of the natives. I wanted to be nice to them, so when they asked me if I liked something or thought it was pretty, I assured them I did. Big mistake! In their minds, I’m sure we are all rich Americans who can buy whatever we like. Every time we told them no and started to walk away, the price went down. They were very, very aggressive! We didn’t look long and returned to the ship to shower and dress for dinner.

Dinner that night was a vast improvement over our previous meals. This was what I had been expecting all along. We had lobster and grouper. I also had the most delicious chilled carrot and orange soup. The crème Brule dessert was out of this world good, with a layer of chocolate in the bottom.

After dinner, we went to the show which was a comedy team that was quite funny, especially when they satirized cruising! After the show, we went again to the Galaxy Lounge for the country-western hoe down. We even did a little line-dancing, which is much harder on a moving ship.

It seemed that each day had been better than the one before. Even the weather had improved with occasional glimpses of sun that day. We went to bed very tired that night.