Booze Cruise. Remember that episode from The Office where the whole staff goes on a cruise, and it’s full of uncomfortable moments that only the sober people recognized? Yeah, that’s kind of how today ended up.
But to start at the beginning: We went to Coba today with Jeff’s parents. It was so nice to not worry about chasing three kids around. (They stayed with Kari and Rich.) From the main entrance to Coba, we rented a “taxi” – really a young man on a bicycle that was outfitted with a bench seat in front – and went to the pyramid. Coba has the tallest pyramid in the Yucatan Peninsula. It is 42 meters high. We climbed to the top, took some photos, and climbed down. It wasn’t a very difficult climb – 120 steps is all. The hard part was coming down because the steps are fairly narrow and also kind of steep.
View of the pyramid from a distance:
People climbing (and descending). Richard and Anna are climbing in this picture - shall we play "Where's Waldo" with them? You can also see in this photo how a lot of the people climbed down - step by step on their rear-ends. Hey, whatever gets you down safely.
We made it to the top! Jeff says I have a certain smile I only do in self-portraits. Whatever.
Half of the ball court:
One of the steles here - this is the best example of any that we saw:
After Coba, we came back to the hotel and played with the kids for a while. Then we left the girls with Richard and Anna, and took Michael with us to “Captain Hook.” Yes, we had a 6-year-old with us on this booze cruise. Actually two 6-year-olds, since Kari and Rich also came and brought Amanda (and Sean) with them.
View of the pyramid from a distance:
The concept was pretty cool – two pirate ships go out and have a battle on the open sea. Of course, dinner is also served. But in reality, it was just a bar and dance club on a boat. Between the beer-drinking contest and the dancing, it was not nearly as kid-friendly as it was purported to be. Thankfully Michael is still too young to quite understand what we took him to. And at the end, the two ships (The Black Pearl under the command of Captain Jack, and ours – The Red Boat – under the command of Captain Hook) came together and the crews “fought.” That part would have been fun in itself, but all the drunk middle-aged people yelling “Captain Jack! Captain Jack! Captain Jack!” just made it seem lame. And besides, by the time they got to that part, Michael had fallen asleep and totally missed it anyway. I found myself praying that the night would just get over quickly.
In front of "The Black Pearl"
Before we got on, Michael and Amanda got their photo taken with "Captain Jack," a mermaid, and another pirate.
Our boat. Even though I think we totally wasted our money on this one, the boats were pretty cool.
Highlights of the day: Listening to Mario (the travel agent at the hotel) repeat the phrase he was writing about four times as he wrote it. “Iberostar Quetzal. Quetzal. Quetzal. Quetzal”; Javier and his awkward pauses in the middle of phrases and sentences, and ALWAYS after he started the sentence with “Amigos”; Michael with his pirate headscarf, eye patch, and sword.
In front of "The Black Pearl"
No comments:
Post a Comment