Day 9: X-treme Adventure!
Bolstered by our success at leaving Cancun yesterday, Gentleman Caller and I took an extreme adventure: a van ride to Puerto Morales, then through the jungle to a Mayan village. We traded in the van for bikes and biked through the jungle with six other people and our guide, Fernando. Fernando explained to us the process of extracting resin from certain trees and the low-tech manufacturing process to turn it into chewing gum. That was the only source of income for this particular rural village, so when gum production turned to synthetic materials in the 1970s, the village had no other source of income. We stopped by a one-room schoolhouse and watched the students play soccer, then pressed on through the jungle. The next part of the extreme adventure was a zipline. Wheeee! Gentleman Caller and I did the course twice, then changed into our bathing suits for snorkeling in the cenote, an underground cave. It was cold and dark and scary, but also really fun and, of course, extreme. After drying off and riding our bikes back to the van, we headed back into Puerto Morales for lunch, a buffet with chicken and beef tacos and breaded grouper with rice and black beans and beer. We returned to the resort and hung around until my brother and his girlfriend arrived, then showed them around the place.