February 15, 2010

The ruins of Tulum! Cozumel, Mexico! Feb. 5, 2010

My first sighting of Cozumel, Mexico! I caught the beautiful rays of the sunrise!

I was so amazed at how thick these ropes are, they'd have to be to anchor this massive ship to the port!

Even at the end of the week, I couldn't get over how huge the ship was!

Carnival Valor ported in Cozumel, Mexico!


After porting in Cozumel, we took a taxi ride to the ferry and rode over to mainland Mexico, Playa del Carmen! Our guide met us there and took us for a 30 min van ride to the ruins of Tulum!

It was windy when we came in, but I've heard this beach is beautiful!

I didn't buy any medications, but it was hilarious to look at what they were selling! Everything!

Hey! My favorite part of the picture is the random dog behind me with his tongue out! :)

The entrance to the ruins of Tulum! Beautiful!


We could see handprints on the top of this ruin, it was kind of cool to try and think what the mayans would've been doing all those years ago here! I hope enjoying the warm weather and beautiful water!

This ruin is a corner of the building from the picture above. Can you see the face? On the other corner of the building, was the same face with the eyes closed! I wish I was paying attention to what it meant, oh well! Amazing!


Our guide, who is a Stake President of a singles stake in Cancun, Mexico. He was telling us a bit about the mayan culture and how they lived, yet a iguana attended the lecture and stole the attention! He was so fun to watch and take pictures of, naturally!

Yup, pretty cool, huh! They were everywhere!

I wish I had video of this moment, because just after I snapped this photo, the iguana slithered between the girl and Cameron, who jumped so high! Oh man, it was great!

I'm so glad they decided to build their temple and other buildings near this body of water. Wow, so beautiful!



This area of sand looks out into the ocean and a natural break in the waves. It's amazing that the waves break in the spot they do, allowing the mayans to steer their canoes back through the water to land with no trouble!

Beautiful! Yet, I'll admit, I was pretty bummed that the guy wouldn't move out of my picture. I kept waiting, but if I took it any later, there would've been a million people. So I'll take the one, but hopefully I can photoshop him out!

This Hard Rock Cafe restaurant is "The smallest Hard Rock in the world!" Pretty cool!

After I snapped this photo, the rain came down hard and soaked us while we waited to board the ship! It was hilarious to watch everyone running to the ships, what's a little rain gonna hurt!

Cavetubing in Belize! Feb. 4, 2010

The tubes!
Charlie, our guide, told us this is the "sleeping giant" of Belize! Can you see him?

Yes, they found coconuts again! Boy were they happy!

And once again, I tried it, not too bad!

After cavetubing, Charlie took us to "Amigos", a restaurant where we had an amazing Belizian meal of black beans, rice, chicken, and a fried banana! It was really good, we even tried habanero sauce on our rice, truly the hottest sauce around! It was good food!

The restaurant had a ton of hilarious signs around, but this one was my favorite! Is replacing the roll that hard? Really!?!

Charlie showed us the LDS chapel in Belize City!

A cute Belizian boy who kept jumping up and down on this woman (not sure who she was to him), but I enjoyed watching them and captured the moment!

Sara and the Hanna Tattoo sign! We got asked a million times at each port if we wanted our hair braided and the answer was always "no", but we did give in to the tattoos in Belize!

The ports at Belize City. The cruise ship anchored quite a ways out in the ocean because Belize City is below sea level. We took tenders into the city, which took about 20-30 minutes. After we arrived, Charlie found us by holding a sign that read "Jaclyn Mangum" and then after showing us some of Belize City, we headed out to the caves! We told him he could call us "Charlie's Angels", he also said he was a Mayan King and we were his princesses! We had a great time with Charlie! He took us to the 5th cave opening, which allowed us to have more time on the river and in the caves! Sadly we didn't take our nice cameras with us on the run down the river. There was some amazing shots that those water cameras just can't capture!

My first tattoo...yes I'm truly a rebel! The other girls pretty much picked out what I should do, it was a sea turtle! They knew me well, it's what I would've picked anyways!

Our tattoos! Mine is kind of hidden, but it sure was fun to see everyone's reactions to them back on the boat, until they found out they were fake!

Jaclyn driving the tender! Ahoy Captain!

Boarding the cruise ship after leaving Belize City!

Snorkeling in Isla Roatan, Honduras! Feb. 3, 2010

Rob, Sara, Julie, Jaclyn, and me on West Bay Beach in Isla Roatan, Honduras!

Beautiful beach! My favorite photo!

Banana boat...sweet! Secretly I wanted a ride!

Our friend Rob really enjoys taking pictures, and so us girls naturally gave the camera a few smiles!

Carnival beach towels in paradise! Did you know these things cost $22 each? Ridiculous! Man, we got one taken from us while on the deck of the boat. We reported it had been taken while we were going down the slide, yet the lady didn't feel sympathy for us! So naturally Julie did as everyone else does, took someone else's towel. We didn't have to pay $22, nice!

Jaclyn, Sara, and Julie were all dying to get their hands on a coconut! They paid a guy $5 to climb up a palm tree, whip out his machete, hack the top off, and after they drank the juice, he cut it in half for them to eat! I'm not a huge fan of coconuts, but it wasn't too bad! It was a yellow coconut, which our guide claimed is the best!

Hilarious to behold! I had to capture this moment, the ice cream man headed down the beach!

Roatan! Jaclyn, Rob, and I went snorkeling at the cove, went out to the rock, and beyond that to a point. I bet we did about 1.5 miles of snorkeling! Oh I could've stayed in that water all day if I had the chance! We ported in Roatan at 12:00pm and had to head back to the boat at 5:30pm. We hired a taxi driver and a guide to take us from the port to the beach and stay with us to drive us back. It was great! Our driver was 17 years old, I just have the hardest time imagining their lifestyle. It's sad they have to grow up so fast to support themselves and their family! Overall, loved the water and the beach! It was a beautiful beach!

February 9, 2010

Swimming with the stingrays at Stingray City at Grand Cayman, Feb 2, 2010

My first sighting of Grand Cayman! We came up to the deck before meeting our group to ride the tenders over!

I'm here, wahoo!

Jaclyn and I hanging out at the front of the boat, heading out to the sandbar/stingray city! It was a ~30 minute ride from the island.

Look at how clear the water is, just beautiful!

The boats all back in, tourists jump out, and swim with the stingrays! They are fed well, so they are tolerant of us! And the water is only about 5 feet deep so we just walked on the sand and watched the stingrays swim all around us!

Ahhh, back massage!

Kiss a stingray...what? You want me to kiss the stingray...did I hear you right? Yes, I did kiss it! Everyone in my group had their turn!

Wow, what an experience! Holding a stingray, never thought I would!

LDS Singles group say "cheese"! My group was about 45 singles, just the right amount! We had a fun group, great people!