Progreso - Mexico

2nd February 2016

Today we arrived at a very, very hot town of Progresso in Mexico.  We were immediately followed on to the berth HMS Mersey, on a visit to the port.  Our trip today was to the Mayan ruins at Uxmal, considered to be one of the most important and well preserved sites of Mayan culture.  On route our guide gave us a background of Mayan history.  On arrival our guide Mario walked us around the ruined temple, occasionally spotting Iguanas hiding in the stones.

One area we were shown was where the ancient Mayans played a game not too dissimilar to basketball, the game involved two teams trying to get a ball through the hoop without the use of their hands, using only their shoulders.  The game sometimes took three days to complete and the prize for the winning captain was to have his head cut off!!!!!!

After an interesting hour walking around, Doreen returned to find some shade in the reception area, whilst Geoffrey ventured to explore the site, including climbing over a hundred steps to the top of a temple to get panoramic views over the site.

We then returned to our coach for a short drive to a Hacienda for a very welcome drink of either iced cold rice milk or a Hibiscus drink, with a light Mayan snack.

After refreshments we walked round the Hacienda and found a beautiful amphitheatre.

We then returned to the port which was situated five miles offshore due to the shallow waters around the coast.

We got back on board and watched a ceremony going on on the back of the HMS Mersey, when our captain came over the intercom saying we were about to cast off from Progresso with temperatures of 32 degrees and heading towards our next stop of New Orleans, where the temperature will be 12 degrees centigrade.  Sure enough at 2.00pm the next afternoon the cold front hit us with Force 8 winds, rain and temperatures of 16 degrees.  So everyone abandoned sunbathing.