Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Tonight's picture was taken in December of 2006. This was the photo featured on the cover of our Christmas card and in the photo Mattie also wanted his Christmas train. Mattie loved this train! The train played Christmas music, puffed out smoke, and Santa seemed to be the engineer!


Quote of the day: Those who make compassion an essential part of their lives find the joy of life. Kindness deepens the spirit and produces rewards that cannot be completely explained in words. It is an experience more powerful than words. To become acquainted with kindness one must be prepared to learn new things and feel new feelings. Kindness is more than a philosophy of the mind. It is a philosophy of the spirit. ~ Robert J. Furey 

Today’s adventure started early!  We decided to take a tour of Tulum the ancient Mayan Ruins south of Cancun heading towards Belize.  We did not realize that nine hours later, after two ferry boat rides, two one hour long bus rides and a day as hot as you know what, we would be able to say that we saw Tulum!

The ship docked at Cozumel which is an island about six miles off the coast of mainland Yucatan Peninsula. Once docked and off the cruise ship, we then proceeded to board a ferry for a 40 minute rolling ride to the mainland.  Once on the mainland, we then boarded a bus with a tour guide and spent the next hour traveling south to Tulum and learning about the Mayans during the ride.

Tulum was quite pretty and although busy with a lot of people today, we did observe that a very strong civilization and culture must have been present to build Tulum.  The ruins are dated back to 4,000 BC making them very old and in generally poor shape.  There was little tree cover around the ruins and although the air temperature was only 82 today, in the baking sun it felt like it was over 100 degrees. 

We walked around the ruins and took many photos some of which you will see below, and you can tell that the people who built the temples, buildings and surrounding grounds were clearly very callable and intelligent.  Although little hard data and facts are actually known about the true history of Tulum and its people, we can only conclude what they were like based on our observations of what remains of their culture and artifacts.  For anyone planning a trip to see the ruins we strongly encourage you to get a knowledgeable and well informed guide to help explain the grounds as you traverse the site.

We finished the days getting back to the ship late, which meant the ship had to delay its departure from Cozumel by almost an hour.  We were treated with a beautiful sunset setting into the Caribbean Sea at the end of the day, which was a wonderful way to close out the last hours of sunlight in 2014.

This is the first view you see when you step through the walls that surround the ruins.

This is the entry house that greets you on the left once inside the walls of the ruins. It is suspected that this was a temple to pay for ceremonials to be performed, but researchers really do not know for sure what the building was designed to be.

This is a shot of some of the buildings on the site.

This is one of the buildings that had a number of columns in front of it.

If you looks closely you will see several iguanas sitting peacefully, soaking in the sun and the sights. Like all good Caribbean locations, the iguanas were everywhere.

This is what researchers believe to be a type of lighthouse or place to signal/watch other ships. We did not quite believe the interpretation, but it does overlook the beautiful ocean.

This is another building on the site. Its purpose is still unknown.

On one of the buildings you could still see some glyphs remaining on one of the corners. 

This is another ceremonial building of some type that is on the site. 

This is the largest building on the site and it holds a place high on a hill overlooking the sea.  You cannot get close to it but even from afar you can see it is magnificent.

This is referred to as the birthing temple since it is believe that the figure over the doorway represents the birthing event.

One of the temples from the view of the beach.

This is the Mayan perpetual calendar, not to be confused with the Aztec calendar that predicted the end of the world in 2012. The calendar is quite elegant and well designed, but it takes some serious learning to understand how to read it.

This is part of the beautiful beach that sits between the site and the sea. It is really quite gorgeous!

And finally, our last sunset in 2014 that greeted us after a  travel filled, nine hour long day visiting Tulum. Watching the sun drop into the sea is always a treat and something everyone should experience at least once in their lifetime!