First Stop: Costa Maya, Mexico

A busy week of work has kept me from continuing the story of our epic adventure. But I've grabbed a few quiet moments to catch up some.

The all important Pool

 When we left off, we had boarded the Norwegian Spirit and headed off to the Gulf of Mexico, down the mighty Mississippi River. We spent the rest of that day and all of the next day at sea.

Deck 7 was always a nice quiet spot to disappear to and relax

 This left us free to roam around the ship and get acquainted  where everything was and meet a few of our shipmates.

The ship's main lobby area

Our first towel animal of the voyage

The pool deck (12) at 3am after the 1st party

 On the 3rd day, we awoke to this view from deck 7. Costa Maya, Mexico. We had booked a private beach party with the group and we were all looking forward to setting our feet on land for a bit.

 Here we are still at the port and loving every second of it. Yes, that's a swim up bar.

We boarded a beat-up old bus and headed out into the wild. I understand that they had a hurricane blow through here just a few days before. But the devastation that we witnessed had taken years to get to that point. The town itself was almost non-existent. Just a bunch of abandoned old cement block buildings. Empty streets with the exception of the occasional stray dog. In time, I'm sure that the almighty American dollar will rebuild this town. But for now, I wouldn't recommend coming here without a plan ahead of time.

The road leading to our beach was rough. Often, it was washed out from the hurricane and the bus actually was driving on the beach itself. When there was a road, it was one lane and lined with shacks with laundry hanging out to dry. We arrived at the beach "resort" and were pleasantly surprised. It was small but very well maintained. Massages were available to those that wanted them and lunch and drinks were included. It was rustic and many Americans would not have liked it. But I was fascinated by it all. I love to see other parts of the world. And not just the touristy spots. I like to see how people live. I'll write more about my thoughts on that in future post. 

Here we also met more of our fellow travelers that I will introduce at a later time as well.
For now, I'll leave you with thoughts of warm temperatures, palm trees, coconuts, fresh Mexican salsa and a cold pina colada.

This truly was the brighter side of the grave.