DAY SIX - COZUMEL, MEXICO

THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, 2006

This seems to be a pretty standard shot of what you'd see in the Caribbean.

The ferry that took us from the ship was so rocky, it wasn't even funny. I thought I was going to get really seasick, so I took some pills before I left and tried to sleep through the 45 minute ordeal.

When we arrived and were directed towards our tour guides, this is what we saw.

They actually took a photograph of us while we were waiting, with this backdrop, but my eyes were closed and it totally ruined the shot.

Walked past this restaurant while heading towards our tour bus that would take us to the Tulum ruins. Thought it was bright and colourful and that's why I took a picture of it.

As you can probably tell from most of these pictures, it was mostly overcast that day and it actually started raining at one point --- mostly spitting, but nonetheless, it wasn't overly comfortable, even in the heat.

The guide started to lead us towards this "cave", but the problem was that, with over thirty of us, we didn't all fit inside. Some of us --- me, in particular --- still wound up standing outside.

Our guide was chock full of information --- but for some reason, he chose to stand in front of the most boring buildings...and far away from them, too...and he'd stand there for a really long time, blah blah blahing about all sorts of factoids without really giving us a chance to explore some of the other buildings.

It wasn't like we had a whole lot of time.

I really love this shot because you can see where the rain water collects on top of this plant. What the hell is it, anyway? Some sort of cactus?

From this picture, you can't really tell, but it was actually pretty high up. When I was walking along this path, some guy asked me if I wanted him to take a picture of me and my sisters.

My sisters weren't in the mood for pictures, but there aren't very many pictures of the three of us from the few that we managed to salvage after our memory card went crazy on us.

Afterwards, the guy joked, "That'll be $5."

For some reason, when I got home, I couldn't find a picture of the three of us anywhere from the ruins.

For such an overcast day, it was hotter than hell. I mean, even though the ruins were gorgeous and the ocean lapped up against the beach in rushing waves, spraying mist all over the place, we were just too high up and really suffering through the heat to really enjoy any of it.

I'd carefully picked my way down the rocky hill to get this shot.

This was one of the last shots I got before I realized that I was in serious danger of being stranded at the site.

The driver had been really clear about being back on the bus by 2:40 P.M. --- he told us the ferry back to the ship would wait for no one and that he'd had to leave behind 10 people the last time and the taxi ride would cost us upwards of $80.

Not only that, but the ship had provided us with a lunch that we were supposed to eat on our 75 minute ride back to Cozumel.

Ultimately, I was sprinting back towards that more than anything else.

The Amazing Race style sprint left me even sweatier and gross than I already was --- to this day, my sisters accuse me of abandonning them.

I still maintain that I was sprinting to the parking lot to stop the bus from leaving without us.