Puerto Chiapas, Mexico

Oct 6, 2010  88 and humid+++++

This little spot is very different. Everything is very new. Pier, and surrounding look like they have been built by the cruise lines. There are 2 large grass roofed buildings, which we investigated after breakfast. One has little craft kiosks,entertainment and where you walk through to get the tour busses. The other is a restaurant, bar and outdoor pool. We have booked a bus tour of the Izapa ruins (pic 2) and the town of Tapachula. This area is Mayan, but very close to the Guatamala border which is Aztec. The ruins are small, as all that is left is the rock base, and the top which was built of wood has not survived. Our tour guide is very good, but you have to listen carefully past her thick accent. She explained the school system, the medical system and pointed out the important agricultural crops – mango, avocado, banana, coffee and cocao. The bus was air conditioned but the city, where we saw a government building with beautiful stained glass windows (pic 3) depicting the land and people, a church and the museum. We had only 20 minutes for shopping but it was too hot and we didn’t want to get too far from the bus. After we returned to the pier we looked around the kiosks, but we should have made some purchases before we left because the coffee was gone, and some other things we were interested in were picked over. We managed to spend our money anyway. We took our purchases back to the ship and Joan went to the local outdoor pool. I went to try to download my emails from my phone but they didn’t have wireless, so I went to the pool and we each had a cerveza. The male singers from the crew show were in the pool and one of them was carrying on with a water coconut – very funny (pic 4).The restaurant served mexican food and it all looked very good and a huge plate and huge selection for $8. US. The ship was having a BBQ on the pool deck so that’s what we had. It was very good but so hot up there. I went out on the deck to take sunset pictures when dancing broke out on the other side of the ship – such colorful costumes (pic 1). Needless to say I missed the sunset. The show tonight was a “swing” singer by the name of Ned Rifken. We enjoyed him very much. It is the Indonesian crew show tonight, but not until 11pm and we are beat so off to bed early.