Freeze & Float

In March of 2020 Thelma and Louise, like the rest of the world, had to cancel our Spring Break trip. We had planned to head to Florida to visit the Everglades National Park, snorkel at Dry Tortugas National Park, and to swim with manatees near Crystal River.  We caught the Everglades after a cruise a couple years ago, but I have still kept thinking about the manatees. Without something specific planned for this year, we thought we'd go do it!

We don't know how to come to Florida unless we fly overnight from Seattle. I'm sure it's possible, but what's travel without a little thrash? ;) It actually wasn't that bad. We had plenty of time at the airport and had a nice dinner at PF Changs (N terminal), and took the two gate changes in stride. And guess who was one of the flight attendants? Marci Nicholson! (That detail is for my SVSD friends). 

Anyway, today was the day! We swam with a company called Fun 2 Dive, which was recommended to us by one of Louise's friends. Great tour company if you're interested! Everyone was incredibly nice and knowledgeable.

The hardest part of the day was most definitely getting in and out of our wetsuits.  Except for the week I lived in one for that rafting AMP trip with Bush (who let me sign up for that?), I've spent zero time in wetsuits. The dressing rooms were tiny, and the wetsuits tinier... 😆 Luckily there is no video or audio of this portion of the trip. ;)

Ta-da! 😜

This is the end of the "winter" season in Florida, so there are still some manatees close to shore, but others have ventured further into the bay since the water is warmer and food more plentiful. Our captain and swim guide found us a spot away from other boats where there were a couple manatees hanging out, and moving slowly (as they are prone to do). 

Since it is incredibly shallow, you have to be very careful with the way you swim so you don't stir up sediment and decrease visibility. To that point, this was counter to E V E R Y T H I N G we have ever learned about snorkeling. Low visibility? Sure, let's jump right in! I'm sure there's nothing (like the huge alligator gar y'all keep talking about) right over there waiting to eat my toes! We used pool noodles to help us float, and were instructed to use very tiny movements to move around. I rammed my hands into the bottom several times. I have never felt less in control over my body! 

Here I am pointing in the exact opposite direction!

Manatees don't see very well, and use their whiskers (like a cat!) to understand their surroundings. Like turtles in Hawaii, you aren't to touch, follow, or harass them, but they are a trusting bunch and despite your best efforts just swim right up to you, or under you. In that regard they reminded me a little of sea otters; super social and a little curious. 

We swam with a mom and baby for a long while. They kept swimming under and around us, and popping up for air right in front of us. We were "swimming" in less than 3 feet of water, so when a manatee decides to swim under you, it's a tight fit! Our guide called this "freeze and float." No swimming, flapping of arms or feet, just stay real still and don't panic when it completely rubs up against you. ;)

The baby was curious and adventurous and swam out to explore, always coming back to where mom was hanging out. Mom was using her flippers to "walk" along the bottom getting food and unlike every other animal I've met with a baby nearby, was super chill.

She 100% blew a snot bubble at our guide! 😂

💚

We LOVE snorkeling, LOVE being in the water,  and LOVE seeing animals in the wild, and so this was such a special adventure. Manatees are definitely strange animals, but there is something so magical about being included in their world for just a little bit. Our hearts are super full!

Tomorrow we head south to Fort Lauderdale to take a baby cruise for the rest of the week. Last year we cruised to several ports where we saw incredible Mayan ruins that we can't stop thinking about. This year? Our cruise has no such stops, and we are looking forward to just relaxing! I wore a bathing suit cover-up all day today (including in a restaurant!!!!), so I'm warmed up for more relaxing!

Ketchup on my Bathing Suit

Is there a better sign of a good vacation than having to stain treat your bathing suit? I mean what else reeks of an amazing vacay than a condiment stain on your pool-wear? To be completely fair, I don't remember eating anything but chicken and rice in said bathing suit, but "Chicken on Bathing Suit" sounds not at all swanky. 

Of course, we have been home for a week, but vacation vibes are still lingering. This was one of the greatest vacations we have ever been on. Seeing the ruins, especially Lamanai, deep in the jungle, was so amazing. But I think the "pinch me" feeling really set in for us on the last excursion day. 

Our port stop was Cozumel, but our excursion was in Playa del Carmen. Actually, that's not true. I have no idea where excursion was! We took a ferry to Playa del Carmen, and then drove around in a van for awhile after that. We were somewhere loose in Mexico outside of Cozumel. :) 

Actually, before we got into the van, we schlepped around Playa del Carmen in our bathing suits. It was roughly 312 degrees Celsius, so it was such a lovely stroll. HA! 312, I have noticed, is my go-to round up  number for exaggeration. But it was H-O-T, hot. And you know what's true about people who live in hot climates? They are better acclimated to it. So while Carlos turned on the AC, he turned it on low. If you're not hitting the panic button, don't worry, I did! What that sounded like was me saying, "Nope" from the back of the van and pushing my delightful travel partner up the "aisle" to sit with the poor unassuming French exchange student. At the first stop the contents of the van voted for me to sit up front with the driver. The great thing about being the group problem early is that other weird things are going to happen (and they did), and so people forget about your own weirdness! In case I forget to mention it, the other weirdness that outranked my heat-panic-attack involved a mix up with dollars and pesos, and a basic self combusting bloody nose. See? I'm so normal. 

Anyway...our first stop was a cenote. A cenote is basically a sinkhole, or pit, formed in the limestone in the Yucatan peninsula. It's a source of local freshwater, and may have had importance to the Mayan people. But we got to swim in two! 

There are cenotes all over this area. We drove by quite a few with signs advertising them. The one we went to is on private land that is leased to the adventure company. You could jump or zipline in, or simply just snorkel. We chose the snorkel option. I mean the zip lining looked fun, but the chance of having a bathing suit mishap in this very public place was pretty high. Who needs that? ;) The water was so cold in relation to the outside temperature - it felt really good. 

There was a deep part where people jumped, and then a little shallower part (6-8 feet or so) that you could snorkel in. There were tiny fishes, and A LOT of moss on the rocks. Even though the water was clear, it gave a sort of swampy feel to it. One of us snorkeled and explored. The other one got spooked and fought the inflatable hose on her life preserver, and the phone case lanyard at every turn. You can't be too careful! This person also accidentally took a five minute video of her feet and bathing suit that will not be aired. 

We spent the remaining time at this stop nearly drowning while taking selfies. Most of them turned out like this.  🤣

This is our favorite, maybe of the whole trip. Please zoom in to see neither of us with our eyes open. 

Our next stop on this day was just down the road. It was another cenote, but this time in a cavern. We've been in many caves over the years, even on a boat in a cave in....who knows where that was!! But swimming in one was next level. 

The pictures aren't great. I mean, it was dark, neither of us could see up close without our glasses, and you know, we were still swimming!

The really special part was it was just our little group in here.  While there was a tiny current, otherwise, the water was still. A few catfishes skirted here and there, but otherwise there was nothing at all to see but the massive rocks beneath us.  I've ever seen anything like that before! A week later, I still can't believe we got to do that. That we got to do any of this. Every day was magical. 

And what's more magical than finding a Haagen Daz before the ferry?  We have a long history with Haagen Daz in Bellevue Square and, for me, in Waikiki. Plus, what's better than cold ice cream on a warm day?

Happy sigh. I even ate weird chicken (again) and *gasp* changed clothes at a strange little dressing room in the middle of nowhere. A surprising day all around! ;)

We're home, but I think there's probably one more blog brewing. Bingo and Whiskey? Golden Girls? Ten Hours in Tampa? It's something in there. Ha! 🩷

UnBELIZEable!

Thursday's adventure was preceded by an insane amount of anxiety about said adventure. We have cruised with Celebrity in a 4x4 that broke down in Aruba (the clutch literally came off in the driver's hand), and a van with fold out seats in Grand Cayman, an old school bus in Bonaire, and a janky circus trolley in Curacao, just to name a few. None of these transports came with a warning.  But our tickets to Lamanai did. It basically said that the quality of the transportation was not up to US standards. I mean, what could that mean? Riding atop a bus with chickens? No air conditioning on the surface of the Sun? Vehicles meant only for munchkins with pint size legs? Those are sanest scenarios that I came up with. 😂

As it turns out, maybe there is a Nervous Nelly in the excursions office, because for roughly four hours of transport, it was pretty good! We rode a tender from our ship to the port in Belize City, a full sized tour bus (with air conditioning!) to...the next place, and then a perfectly acceptable boat up the river to the Lamanai site! We did go over a couple bridges that I expressed some disbelief in, but we didn't fall in or over, so that's positive!

Lamanai is another site with Mayan ruins. In Yucatec Maya, the term means "Submerged Crocodile". Happily, we only saw one. :)  How they stumbled upon these ruins in the first place is a wonder! The previous site we were at (Chacchoben) was discovered by a farmer, on his own land. This site is located in the jungle, and it took a roughly 30 minute (fast!) boat ride to get there. The site is enormous - 950 acres, and they estimate that they have uncovered only 5% of it! Among the unearthed structures are three temples. 

The first one we saw was the Temple of the Jaguar Masks.

In case you don't see the jaguar at first, I've drawn a very sophisticated one for you. Our guide said the ears were meant to have "trinklets" on them, sort of like earrings. The jaguar was revered in Mayan culture, and offerings might have been placed in the openings to honor the jaguar. 

We also saw howler monkeys! There were three in a tree on the path from the Temple of the Jaguar Masks. Based on the noises it was making, I'm pretty sure Ms Winnie Foster is related to howler monkeys!

From there we walked through the jungle to the High Temple. It was HOT and humid, and the trees and palm fronds were gigantic.

Back in the heyday, the High Temple would have been the largest structure in Mesoamerica, standing just over 100 feet. I had zero intention of climbing it. I was so proud of the climb at Chacchoben, but also really feeling it! But then we got there, and we were having this once in a lifetime experience, so....what were we to do! Actually the deciding factor was that they had built a stairway around the structure, complete with a railing, and I knew I could probably do that. 

The view from the top was amazing. 

Being in Lamanai was so special, and being able to stand atop this temple was breathtaking. There is so much in this world to discover!

I put this photo in just to make us laugh. 

The Mask Temple was our last stop. It is named so because of the giant masks on the side. They are thought to have been masks of previous rulers. They are about 13 feet tall, flanking each side of the temple. Since they are quite old (somewhere between 200 BC and 200 AD), they have been covered in fiberglass to preserve them. This is a good time to say that unlike most Mayan cities abandoned in the 9th century, Lamanai was inhabited into the 16th century when the conquering Spanish arrived.

We still cannot believe that we were here, and saw such amazing things! We were H-O-T, and sore from all our scrambling around, and unbelievably happy. Also, as a wrap up to the day: we have both eaten more chicken and rice than is reasonably good for you; jungle humidity is no joke; I think those WERE bats at the loading dock; I don't think there is a tea that prevents covid; I don't understand how a pool of mercury was under the ancient ball court; or how cinnabar and obsidian are here in a non-volcanic area; is allspice a tree or a deodorant; and modern plumbing is a true gift. 

Onward to Cozumel!

PS Fifth graders would groan at this blog title; feel free to do the same! ;)

Chacchoben, Mexico

This morning as I was obsessing about the bathroom situation for the day, I was sure this blog was going to be called: Monkeys in the Toilets, or something about opposable thumbs and porta-potties. To love me is to deal with the varied bathroom peculiarities I have. Basically, I'm a no on most bathrooms. On the way to Seattle on Friday night, the lobby of the McDonald's in Raymond was closed. Um, WHAT???? Mom was like, no biggie, we'll go to the Shell Station. It has an OUTDOOR public bathroom. And I was wearing open toed shoes. Hard pass. She went in first, and said it wasn't great, but basically fine. If you have to put a lock on the toilet paper, is it basically fine? But yes, I survived. Which brings me to a Trip Advisor review that said the bathroom at Chacchoben was "fine".  I'm thinking about tracking down that person, because their standards seem somewhat higher than mine. Kindred spirits. 

We are in Costa Maya today, and one of the excursion choices was seeing Mayan ruins in Chacchoben. Louise has seen ruins out and about in her travels, but this was my first rodeo, and was a definitely on the bucket list!

If you read yesterday's blog, you know we are struggling with time and place. This morning we struggled with the alarm. I think we slept through it for like 20 minutes! Eek! So this adventure started with adrenaline instead of coffee. Danger, danger!! 

Chacchoben was discovered by a local farmer (whose descendant we met today) in the 1940s, and excavation started in the early 1990s. It would have been inhabited between 200 BC and 700 AD. There's a misconception that the Mayans "disappeared". In reality, there were several factors that led to the decline of their empire. It's all the biggies: war, disease, drought & famine...I'll let you Google that. What's interesting is that where we were today, in the the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, Yucatec Maya is the most common language. Spanish is the official language of Mexico, but this Mayan dialect is the first language many people here speak, being dual lingual with Spanish, and of course many others with English. 

Anyway....it was amazing!! This is Temple 24. No, we did not see 24 temples, but I do know that not everything is excavated. This temple would have been one of the last ones built, because archeologists can tell that it was built for a large population because of the four staircases. The two that point north and south were used for ceremonial uses, the best examples of which I cannot summon from memory, while the east and west staircases were used for more astrological ceremonies, the sun lining up perfectly with several markers during different times of the year. 

For all my ReadLive friends, guess what was at the base of this? The kapok tree!!!!!  I've had this read to me for years now, and am quite well versed on the uses of the fiber that it produces. I can answer #5 without any hesitation. Ha! For the rest of you, the fiber from the kapok tree looks like cotton, and has, in history, been used for flotation devices, and to stuff pillows and mattresses. What I didn't know is that it has these spikes on it to deter the mangrove from growing on it. Or the spikes are ancestors in basic purgatory. You choose. ;)

Temples were built on top of each other, so that they are almost like a nesting doll. On the temples that have been fully excavated, you can see the different layers. There is also so much that is not excavated. I assumed this, the Gran Basemento, was the same. Maybe one of the first layers of a temple, or the second or third.

This is one structure that you are allowed to climb. Our guide was so crafty in not spoiling the surprise. I was just excited to get to climb up. I had zero expectations of what we would see at the top. But this is what was at the top!

Temple of the Vessels (probably)

Temple 1

All this is above the steps that we climbed! How amazing is that? Even more special since we climbed for it! :)

Also, it was hot.

We had time back in Costa Maya for some lunch. Beverages were served in a one size fits all container. What to do, what to do. 

Belize bound!