Cozumel was a very close 2nd place in my ranking system! Talk about another cool/never done anything like this before adventure! This was a two-part excursion. Part #1: Swimming/snorkeling in a "cenote" (an underground cave/sinkhole like Carlsbad Caverns but with pure water inside). Part #2: Snorkeling with Turtles and Manta Rays!
We headed first to the cenote. I don't even know how people find these things! The road we had to take to get there was incredibly bumpy! It was a crazy drive down a jungle road. We learned on this drive that the Mayan people are NOT extinct! There are very much alive and well and still lead very simple/primitive lifestyles--we passed by their open-air huts on the way to the caves. Once there, we suited up to climb down into the cave. The water was "exhilarating" for sure (really cold at first but then actually really nice:) I don't know that I'll ever enjoy Carlsbad Caverns as much after this place! It was incredible! I did my best taking pictures with my phone in a water-proof pouch:)
Then we headed over to Turtle Cove Beach. Now this water was nice and warm like a bath:) We were guided over to areas in the ocean and there were turtles and manta rays EVERYWHERE!!! And the turtle were NOT afraid of people. We were asked to "not touch" the turtles but it was usually the humans struggling to get out of the way of the turtles!
After all that swimming, we were quite famished but we were once again fed an amazing local lunch at a nearby beach resort. We enjoyed the food, showered off, and relaxed for a bit in the hammocks before heading back to the ship.
Like I said before. Nothing like we have ever done before. Loved every single minute of it!
We spent our last full day of our vacation "at sea." It was really nice to have a full day of relaxing before the long drive home. We slept in, ate, swam, ate, read, ate, Tatum made a Build-a-Bear, and ate some more. We were off the boat bright and early Sunday morning. We jumped into the van and just DROVE all day. Our goal was to make it across Texas to El Paso for the night. But we got there and then decided to bite the bullet and to just keep going--Chris, Carlie, and I all took turns driving to break it up--Tatum really wanted to make it back to her first day of school the next day so we mostly did the long drive for her. It's a 22 hour drive from New Orleans to Chandler. We left at 7:30 am New Orleans time (5:30 am AZ time) and arrived home at 3:30 am AZ time Monday morning.
I don't know that we could ever top this vacation. It sure has been a hard transition back into "real life" making our own meals and everything again:) But my life is a good one and I'm glad to be back home with all these crazies. LOVE my peeps and I LOVED this trip.
We spent our last full day of our vacation "at sea." It was really nice to have a full day of relaxing before the long drive home. We slept in, ate, swam, ate, read, ate, Tatum made a Build-a-Bear, and ate some more. We were off the boat bright and early Sunday morning. We jumped into the van and just DROVE all day. Our goal was to make it across Texas to El Paso for the night. But we got there and then decided to bite the bullet and to just keep going--Chris, Carlie, and I all took turns driving to break it up--Tatum really wanted to make it back to her first day of school the next day so we mostly did the long drive for her. It's a 22 hour drive from New Orleans to Chandler. We left at 7:30 am New Orleans time (5:30 am AZ time) and arrived home at 3:30 am AZ time Monday morning.
I don't know that we could ever top this vacation. It sure has been a hard transition back into "real life" making our own meals and everything again:) But my life is a good one and I'm glad to be back home with all these crazies. LOVE my peeps and I LOVED this trip.
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