I also enjoyed Cozumel, though it probably wasn’t what most tourists did. R and I went horse back riding in the wild. The family that runs it owns 5000 acres, which has got to be half of Cozumel. It’s on the east side, where they don’t allow building because the hurricanes come and devastate the place too often. (The day we were there, the ship couldn’t dock on the west side because the winds were too strong. We had to take tenders across. I couldn’t believe my sister left in one of those small boats with the water pitching as much as it was. I guess she really wanted to get home.)

The family that owns the land used to run cattle to sell to the hotels. But when Mayan ruins were discovered, the owner began a tourist thing. The government came and took all the art work and transportable things, but some caves (to worship the equivalent of Hades) and some small pyramids were left. The owner also got a license to copy some of the things that were taken away so that he could show them to the tourists. Our guide here contradicted the guide in Progresso, whom I am more inclined to believe because he knew so much. We got to see two Mayan caves, go through a short vault on our horses, see lots of iguana, see a pyramid that the hurricane brought down (It wasn’t very big to start with, but the rocks were on the ground next to it.), and see several very nice replicas of statues. Their wall for the ball game was very short and only had one side, but it was there.

The horses were in pretty bad shape. They were old and some of them had their ribs showing. We didn’t ride those. I wonder if they were coming in, maybe bought from a glue factory, or going out, and they weren’t feeding them anymore.

At the ranch, we bought Fritos and Lays (known as Sabritos). The one thing the ship didn’t have was chips. I guess they take up too much space. We missed salty things!