We watched Charlie’s angels last night - I wasn’t expecting much, and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. What a crappy movie. I can’t believe they had the audacity to leave it open for a sequel at the end. I’m sure that if they do a sequel they’ll lose a lot of money on it.

This morning I woke up way too early, and we managed to get ready for the tour with a minimum of rush. The ship docked at Cozumel, and the tour was at the Mayan ruins at Tulum. This meant that we had to take a ferry to the mainland. The ferry ride over was super rough, and they had to pass out a bunch of barf bags, and a lot of people used them I think. Erin was a little queasy, but she managed to keep breakfast down. I didn’t have any troubles, but I didn’t enjoy the ride either. After a 45 minute ferry, we took the bus for an hour (plus 15 minutes for a bathroom/shopping break) When we got to the ruins, we had a little over an hour of guided tour, where Enrique (our guide) told us about the history of the Mayans in general, and Tulum specifically. Pretty interesting stuff, and the ruins were quite amazing as well. We had about an hour to wander around the ruins and take pictures. It was super hot there, even though it was mild at Cozumel. I spotted a couple of iguanas hanging out together, and got to see the great beaches there. We missed the ceremonial jumping off of a pole and spinning around it 13 times, which I guess would have been quite incredible to see.

We took ten minutes to shop at a couple of stalls, and I did get to do a little bargaining, and got a good deal on a souvenir. It’s fun to barter sometimes. Erin bought a little something too. We rushed back to the bus, because Enrique impressed upon us that the bus had to leave on time to get back to the ferry on time. Well, two tours, two women on each never returned to the bus… We waited 20 minutes after we were supposed to have left (30 minutes after we were supposed to be back at the bus) then left without two women. I can’t understand what would possess a person to try and push it like that - as it is they had to get a taxi back to Playa Del Carmen (which as previously mentioned was an hour long bus ride) and then likely had to pay their own way onto a ferry to get back to the ship…Granted, it would have been nice to have another 30 minutes or so at the site, but having already seen the bus leave people behind, I believed Enrique when he said the bus would leave without us if we weren’t back in time. He said that in the 15 years that he’s been doing tours at Tulum, that was only the second time he’s had to leave anyone behind. Personally, in the 10 days I’ve been taking tours (a grand total of two tours) that’s the second time we’ve had to leave people behind… Bizarre.

Anyway, the ferry ride back was much more smooth than the way out. When we got back to Cozumel, we were in an interesting position. We were in the front two seats on the side of the boat with the gangway, but we were stuck behind a set of stairs. End result was that we had a perfect vantage point for the most entertaining thing I’ve seen since, well, maybe ever. I should preface this story with a bit of the Mayan knowledge that our guide passed on. Mayan descendants tend to be quite short, this is partly why the Mayans were conquered by the Tolteks and the Spanish. The end result of this is that the doorways on the boat weren’t particularly big. Subtract from that about a foot or a foot and a half due to the gangplank being put through the doorway, and all but the very very short had to duck to avoid hitting their heads - on a packed ferry of over 200 people, only 2 or 3 didn’t have to duck. Having had experience with this, the crew had this bright red foam pad that they attached to the top of the doorway, so if people hit their heads, it doesn’t kill them. In addition, there was a crewman standing there, repeating “watch your head” over and over again. Inevitably, people did not pay any attention, didn’t duck, and walked straight into the door-frame. There were basically three types of people who walked out the door. 1) People who were used to ducking under things, who walked up the the door normally and ducked under it, 2) people who weren’t used to ducking under things, and very nervously crept up to the doorway bent over at the waist for ten feet or so, and 3) people who were oblivious to the low doorway until their forehead met with it accompanied by a bonking sound. Sitting there and watching everyone get off the boat, I got pretty good at predicting whether a person would bonk their head or not. Still funnier was when the crewman would say “Watch your head” three times while a person was on the gangway, then “bonk.” It was cruel, but Erin and I sat there laughing quite heartily. I suppose it didn’t help that they had shown “Mexico’s funniest home videos” on a big TV at the front of the ferry the whole way. It was truly comical to see people hitting their heads. I’m giggling just remembering it…The best was when two or three people in a row would hit their heads.

For those of you keeping score, the bonk people were 95-98% women. Just in case you were wondering. There were several women who walked under the door-frame only through the good fortune of having the boat move up as they walked under the frame (when the boat rose, it became more level with the dock, which caused the angle of the gangway to become less, which gave just enough clearance that they didn’t brain themselves)

It was pretty entertaining anyway, and well worth the price of admission (well, not if you consider the whole tour price, but I’m sure the ferry ride wasn’t that expensive.)

When we got back to the ship, we had enough time to go and do a little shopping for souvenirs, which we were to rushed at the ruins to shop for. I managed to get a really nice chess set for $19 US, and we picked up a couple of the by now ubiquitous tshirts.

Sea day tomorrow, then we fly back home. I’m looking forward to it.