World Cruise day 3/152 - Cozumel - rain, ruins, and more COVID

Cruise day: 3/152
Sea days: 1
Port days: 2
Ports: 2
Countries: 2

Today, we arrived in Cozumel, Mexico, and took an excursion to the ruins at San Gervasio.

The bus trip from the ship took 20-30 minutes.  The ruins themselves are quite small, especially when compared to the ruins at Chichen Itza.  Still, it's pretty impressive that these buildings are still partially standing 3,000 years after they were built.

The weather was cruddy, at least at first.  Arlona came prepared and was not fazed in the least.

Our tour guide, Moy (Moses), was quite knowledgeable and did a terrific job explaining the Mayan calendar as well as its numeric system.

The Mayan number system only contained three digits and was a base-20 number system.  The three digits were a dot, a bar, and a symbol that looked like a tortoise shell.

Moy explained how these three digits could be combined in a base-20 number system to represent any number.  The way the numbers were written was a combination of the symbols and how they were written vertically. It was all quite interesting.

The explanation of the calendar with two circular calendars representing 19 months and 13 months, respectively. As time progressed, eventually both calendars would end simultaneously, leap time would be added and both calendars would restart.  This ultimately resulted in an exceedingly accurate calendar.  Pretty impressive for a culture around 1,000 years before Christ. He explained how the numbers 7 and 13 factored into the Mayan way of life and were viewed as "perfect" numbers.  Many of the structures had 7 or 13 incorporated into their construction - seven columns, six stones on each side of an arch with a capstone for 13 stones, and so on. He even pointed out that there are 13 major joints in the human body - two ankles, two knees, two hips, two wrists, two elbows, two shoulders, and one neck.

After the tour, we walked around the port shopping area.

It was all pretty standard as we've been to Cozumel before.  It was time for some chow.  We walked back to the ship for lunch.  After lunch, we ventured into town for some more shop browsing. When we arrived back at the ship, we have netted about 11,000 steps so that was a good thing.

SInce we were in Mexico, it seems almost required to have some pre-dinner margaritas, so we took one for the team and indulged at the Viking Bar.

As we were enjoying our beverages, the Captain announced that five more people had been diagnosed with COVID and one was disembarked.  The other four were quarantined.  We took that as a good sign as the other four were not kicked off and presumable will be able to continue cruising once free of the virus.

At dinner, we had the opportunity to talk with the 3.5-stripe officer. He said that the one disembarked passenger also had dementia and was not a good candidate for quarantine, therefore they were taken off the ship.  Perhaps cooler heads are beginning to prevail in terms of infections and quarantining versus getting booted off the ship.

After a post-diner nightcap in the Explorer's Lounge, we returned to 4029.  There were three other ships on the horizon as we headed toward Columbia.

According to www.cruisemapper.com, they are, from left to right, Royal Caribbean Brilliance of the Seas, Carnival Vista, and Royal Caribbean Serenade of the Seas.Peeking through our binoculars confirmed they were Royal, Carnival, and Royal, respectively, 

Tomorrow is another sea day and another spit-test.  Fingers crossed we continue to be negative and can continue on without issue.