Cave-Tubing or Ruins

[reno3]

We have booked cave-tubing.

We had wanted to see the ruins in Costa Maya but that is out.

My DS age 13 wants to see ruins (and do cave-tubing).

We planned on going to Paradise Beach and San Gervasio in Cozumel.

Will this be good enough or will he be disappointed:(

[driftwood]

If your cruiseline offers tours of Tulum or Muyil or Coba out of Cozumel, you might want to consider ditching the day in Cozumel--seriously--and taking any one of these other three shore excursions--your son should be delighted with and enlightened by any of them; and the last time we were there, Tulum was gorgeous and had a beach--although nothing so elaborate as Paradise Beach.

 

If you have Google Earth, you can see some pictures I took of the main structures at each location. All are impressive sites. Coba is the most impressive, with the highest pyramid in the Yucatan, Nohoch Mul; Tulum is the most photogenic, as it is right on the Caribbean Sea, and may topple into it after a few more hurricanes; Muyil is perhaps the most "secret," with some of the steepest Mayan structures I have seen. There is a high tower there from which you can look out over miles of the Sian Ka'an biosphere preserve.

 

As it seems you are booked with Major Tom on the .net, you will be able to learn a great deal about the Mayan Underworld and their use of caverns--a very important aspect of Mayan civilization in the Belize--from him on your cave tubing expedition, so I would not make a change to your plans in Belize. Very few are so well-informed as he. Very few opportunities like that come along in life. Have a wonderful trip!

[reno3]

Thanks for the information. I will have to sit my DS and DH down and decide. I know DH is not big on the long trip, and if it is a really hot day it will be "hell".

[driftwood]

It is true that the trips to Muyil and Tulum, and especially to Coba, are real excursions--all would require round trips on the passenger ferry from Cozumel to Playa del Carmen, and air-conditioned bus rides to and from the individual sites. It might be as well to view each as a separate adventure--even the lunch can be quite a wonderful thing! But if none of you have seen Mayan ruins before, none of you will find your day disappointing. And if I had been able to visit the Mayan civilization at thirteen instead of about sixty, I think my life would have been very much more focused than it has been--certainly my studies would have been. It is an opportunity which should not be missed. The sites are now "ready to be seen," and not just a pile of rubble or a jungle or a mound group as it would have been when I was young. Chichen Itza is now the new "Sixth Wonder of the World"; it is remarkable and notorious; but in their own ways all of these sites are wonders of the world, and if you choose to visit one of them you will be impressed.

 

The temperatures at this time of year are quite pleasant--if you were to visit for example in May or later you might well be concerned about how hot it might get. But we visited Coba for the first time in January 2002, and it was a wonderful day with clear skies--it couldn't have been better.