A low-key day for us today in Costa Maya. The ship docks at a cruise port village with restaurants, a pool, shops and entertainers. It's the launch point for the various ship's shore excursions and it's close to a nice beach. We've done all that before, so we just went into the cruise village and wandered around. We found some free wifi, so got connected for a bit (didn't even have to buy a beer), and that was about it. A nice enough day, and there is lots to see and do in the cruise port.
There were 3 ships in port this day. Next to us was AIDA cruise line's AIDAluna ship. AIDA is a German cruise line - with all their signage and announcements (that we could hear) in German. From the top deck of our ship we looked down on their "clothing optional" sundeck. Bit of a giggle for the mostly American passengers on our ship.
In the distance we could see an adventure park, with ziplines, waterslides and more.
The cruise port village as we approached. No real beach here though, but there is a sandy area with a few loungers.
Many shops giving you lots of opportunity to spend on local goods.
We were in time to catch the Danza de los Voladores - "an ancient Mesoamerican ceremony/ritual still performed today. The ritual consists of dance and the climbing of a 30-meter pole from which four of the five participants then launch themselves tied with ropes to descend to the ground." They first got the platform spinning, they let go, and slowly descended, circling the pole, as the ropes unfurled.
There was a small "pat" of flamingos - mostly sleeping off the heat (or the nuisance of all the tourists taking pictures of them). Google tells me that a group of flamingos is called a "pat". Who the hell came up with that name?
This colourful guy could have flown away, but I guess he knows a good deal with a daily buffet when he finds one.
A couple of (very) colourful creatures keeping watch over the exit from the village.
We wandered out as far as this traffic circle, with it's replica of a Mayan pyramid. We had already done an excursion to the Chacchoben ruins on one of our earlier visits. This time we were hoping for a nice walk to the beach town of Mahahual, but we didn't find a pedestrian friendly path.
Back into the cruise port village we came across more street performers.
One of the shops featured some random (but colourful) action figures of all kinds.
This pelican was paddling around next to the walkway back to our ship. Didn't see him/her catch anything though.
Heading back to the ship. AIDAluna is on the left, in front of our ship, and on the right was Royal Caribbean's Rhapsody of the Seas (the ship we took on our transatlantic cruise May 2018).
NEXT: (Day 6) Cozumel, Mexico
Prev: (Day 4) Harvest Caye, Belize
Caribbean (NCL) - Jan 2019