Chasing the Sun # 5: The Western Caribbean Circuit

Okay, so he's at it again.  After I got back from that Eastern Caribbean cruise in December, I realized that I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to try the Western circuit on the same ship -- Princess Cruises' Regal Princess.  Once again, the last minute price was simply too good to ignore.

I've also learned that I could have struck an even better bargain by taking the two cruises back-to-back for a single 14-day trip.  I've even seen some pretty modest beach-front hotels that cost more for one week than this ship for two weeks.  Definitely worth checking out that possibility.

It was a great trip -- and as I sit inside a hotel room in frigid Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, with the snow coming down outside, and the temperature dropping almost as fast as the snow, I think I may be getting punished for being so impulsive!

So here's the map.  The brown line indicates the route of the Eastern Caribbean cruise which I took last month, and the purple line shows the Western Caribbean cruise this month.  In both cases, Princess Cays is the first stop out of Fort Lauderdale -- but that's the only overlap between the two itineraries.

Just for the record, Regal Princess alternates between these two routes all winter long -- but Princess does have other ships sailing trips of various lengths to many other Caribbean destinations.

If you refer back to # 2 of this series of posts, you'll read that I was unable to take the glass bottom boat cruise at Princess Cays on the first trip because turbulence in the water stirred up the sand and silt, leaving the visibility at near nil.  This time, I was able to patch that hole in my experience.  The glass bottom is an interesting idea, but usually best for inspecting shipwrecks.  In this case, as we glided over reefs that were 8-10 metres below the surface in the clear waters, the fish were best observed over the sides of the boat rather than through the bottom.

The next day, we stopped at Falmouth, Jamaica.  I refused to go ashore here because of Jamaica's appalling human rights record regarding LGBTQ people, but it was obvious that Falmouth itself was like every other major Caribbean cruise port.  That is, there's a huge shopping mall full of clothing, jewellery, perfume, and liquor stores (all supposedly "duty-free," of course) which you have to pass through before you get to see anything else of the island at all.

So I enjoyed a nice quiet day aboard a half-empty ship -- and it did get sunny later in the morning, so lounging by the adults-only Retreat Pool was delightful.

The next day we arrived at Grand Cayman.  This island struck me at first glance as being "Florida meets the Caribbean."  Due to the lively international banking scene, Grand Cayman is wealthy and everything from shops to homes to resorts reflects that fact.  It's also the only Caribbean port at which I have seen a heavy representation of American food and retail chains.

Grand Cayman doesn't have any docking facilities for cruises.  The five ships in port on the same day were lined up in a row, like cars angle-parked along the side of a shopping street.  Maybe that similarity was somewhat appropriate.

One of the biggest attractions here is the Stingray Sandbar, just inside the protecting coral reefs north of the island.  We sailed out there on board the catamaran Allura, one of the many tour boats which take groups of guests out to the sandbar.

Our guides on this sailing adventure explained that the rays are definitely not tame or denaturalized; they interact with humans very much on their own terms and at their own choosing.  

This picture gives you a good idea of the crowding of tour boats around the sandbar.  Each one stays for about 30-40 minutes, and as it leaves another arrives.  It seems as if the scheduling must be both careful and clearly coordinated.  

We had to anchor a bit farther off than some of the vessels, and drop off the ladder into 2 metres of turbulent water, then swim several metres to reach the shallower zone.  No big issue, except for non-swimmers -- and this expedition is definitely not a place for non-swimmers.  Even inside the protecting coral reef, some of the waves got pretty sizable.

Two guides from our boat were quickly visited by two stingrays who obviously knew them very well.  Each of us in turn had a chance to pet a stingray, kiss a stingray, or get hugged by a stingray.  When the guide slid the ray up my chest towards my face she started wrapping her "wings" around me, and he laughed and said, "She really likes you!"  I'm sorry I don't have a picture of that; my own camera was on the boat (not waterproof) and the third crew member with the boat's own camera was busy elsewhere at that moment.  I took these pictures after I got back on board and dried off.

Our final stop was in the Mexican island of Cozumel.  I was there last year on another cruise, and took the full-day Chichen Itza Express tour.  You can read here about why that was the mistake of all mistakes:  Epic Bus Ride to the Distant Past

This time, I opted for a "Mayan experience" tour, which took us to a jungle park south of downtown Cozumel, called Kun Che.  We had a full 4-hour programme, which included a number of fascinating experiences.  Cozumel has a higher surviving population of full-blooded Mayans than many areas of mainland Mexico, and the village of El Cedral (where the park is located) is mainly populated by full-blooded Mayans.  Kun Che thus has much firmer roots in cultural memory and tradition than many historic "attractions" in other parts of the world.

We sensed that right from the outset, when our first stop was a traditional Mayan purification ritual to keep us safe and welcome in the jungle, a ritual performed by a traditional shaman or elder.  This ritual was conducted entirely in the Mayan language -- but we were able to catch a great deal of the elder's meaning by the combination of gestures, facial expressions, vocal intonations, and actions.  By the way, we were assured that photographs during the ritual were not merely allowed but were welcomed.

We then walked on through the jungle to the ball court, where we watched a re-enactment of the ancient Mayan ball game, pok ta pok.  This game was a symbolic re-enactment of the battles between the warriors of the sun god and the warriors of the god of the dead.  The players were allowed to hit the ball only with their backs, their thighs, and their hips -- no feet, hands, or lower limbs were permitted.  Hence the strange, twisted body positions.  The ball was a solid sphere of natural tree-sap rubber; it weighed several kilos but bounced exactly as you would expect a rubber ball to bounce -- although not as high in the air.

Throughout the game, the drummers hammered furiously and obsessively on the drum while the man representing the god of the dead walked back and forth along the side of the arena, blowing the smoke from his gourd towards the players representing the sun god.

After the game ended, there followed a demonstration of ritual Mayan dancing, including warriors' dances and this eye-popping fire dance.  The two dancers behind the fire dancers are blowing on conch shell horns.

Yes, that is a live burning coal which the dancer is about to thrust into his mouth.

Of course, I couldn't resist the offer to be photographed along with these super-high-energy re-enactment artists.

We then had a series of food tastings: Mayan tortillas, tamales, and several different kinds of Mayan chocolate.  This definitely wasn't your sweet chocolate store treat.  One was combined with habanero peppers, another with honey and black pepper, and the third with anise.  We also had a chance to sample a chocolate drink laced with a local liquor.

On the way to the included lunch, there was an optional tequila tasting, and I bit -- even though I am not normally a huge fan of tequila.  These, though, were flavoured tequilas, much lower in alcohol strength than the normal bar beverage, but very intriguing when mixed with such ingredients as pistachio paste, anise, or cappuccino (the last one tasted very much like Bailey's).

Lunch was a buffet of traditional Cozumel foods, very tasty, and was followed by a Mexican folkloric dance show.  Not easy to photography in the tricky light, but I did get a few decent pictures of the swirling skirts and fast-stamping feet.  In this picture, the dancers are balancing glasses of water, with a floating candle burning in each glass, on their heads.

And make no mistake, they were moving at a good rate of speed with their circular turns while balancing those glasses.

I didn't keep track, but there must have been a dozen different dance numbers, all presented in different but equally dazzling costumes -- perhaps these represented different regions of Mexico.

And when the show was over, there was another opportunity to have our pictures taken with these very talented artists -- and I couldn't resist the chance.  No, I did not buy the sombrero -- it belonged to the dancer who was taking the picture on my camera.

All of that made for a very full 4 hours, and I was left with the genuine feeling that I had more than gotten my money's worth out of this attraction.  Kun Che is well worth your time and effort if you ever find yourself in Cozumel.

And with that, it was time to head home again.  Everything else about this cruise mirrored what I had to say previously about the last trip.  If I ever come this way again, I will almost certainly do the full 14-day double circuit in one go.