Cozumel

We awoke to a beautiful day in Cozumel! The boat was docked at pier so it was very nice just to be able to walk off.







We wandered the Puerta Maya port for a few minutes (everything Carnival approved) and headed out to the city to see what we could find. Literally right outside the port area, a man asked us if we wanted to rent a Jeep for 50 dollars for the whole day and we agreed. 50 of course turned into 85 as you have to purchase the insurance as well, even though I think since we used our AmEx we could have skipped it, but who wants to get stuck in Cozumel over 35 dollars? We set out on our adventure using the map that the rental place gave us. It had 2 roads on it, one being the route around the perimeter of the island and the main road that cuts across.



I've been to Mexico a few times, mainly the Cancun area, so I was expecting something similar, but this was much poorer than that area.



After some difficulty finding some place that we felt comfortable leaving the car (and having to use my "spanglish" to do it!), we wandered around the shops in the downtown area of San Miguel for about 30 minutes searching for a pewter cross for our house (found one at a store called Viva Mexico but it was 50 dollars, so we passed) and bought some Vanilla, which my parents had brought us back before and is way better than the US version, and cheaper! There were lots of places selling Tequila and tons of places selling silver jewelry. We got some offers to buy some Cuban cigars and some weed but we passed. LOL! Here is a Mariachi band we saw in front of some shops.



We hit the road and quickly got lost. Luckily, some nice Mexican school children helped us figure out where we were. The bonus to getting lost was I got to take this stellar photo of a family on their scooter. Imagine that in the US you can get a ticket for no seat belt and here they can drive around like this.



Finally heading out of town, we decided to stop at the Mayan ruins of San Gervasio. They are very small compared to Chitzen Itza or Tulum, but it was interesting to wander around through the area.





Next door (of course) is the Hacienda Antigua tequila tour. We started the tour with a blue agave margarita (according to our guide, Beto, it is "Lady Viagra"), and got to walk among the agave plants as they explained how to make true tequila (Patron, which is very popular in the US is not even considered tequila in Mexico!).







Beto was very funny and he entertained us through the 10 minutes tour of the distillery process. We ended the tour with (JUST) me tasting shots of tequila as everyone else in our group opted out. They all enjoyed my reaction of the warm shots with no chaser, though. We bought some tequila and some of the blue agave margarita mix and headed out to drive the coastline.



There are a lot of beautiful beaches along this stretch of Cozumel but not much else. Only one road snakes around the island to the south and it took us awhile to get all the way around the bottom of the island to the port. We stopped at a beach bar called Coconuts, which seemed very tourist trap-ish but everything you would want our of a beach bar, tiki hut bar, tables in the sand overlooking the water, fun signs with quirky sayings all over, scrapbooks of naked ladies, cold beer, fried food, loud Jimmy Buffet music, etc.!







It was too crowded so we headed back to the port area to eat lunch, at Panchos on the Pier. After an argument with the rental car company over how much gas we used (full in Mexico has to be exactly on full, not just pointing at the "F" like in the US...always fill up completely before taking the car back or they will fine you! And conveniently for them, they have some scam going with the gas station across the street. There was also an Alamo rental there and I would probably suggest using them instead). Once he finally got to Panchos, Brad had huge margarita, a sampler of fajita and burrito, and I had a shrimp quesadilla. It was all very good and we headed back to the ship full and happy.

Too much tequila and Mexican food equals a sleepy hubby so we ended up in the room for the night. Brad took this sunset picture right before he passed out.



I went down to the desk to cash some traveler's checks and buy tickets for the "behind the fun" tour and then grabbed some food from the buffet to take back to the room for dinner. Brad continued sleeping and I watched one of the movies that was available that day. If you are curious, Carnival offers several channels (CNN, FOX, CBS, NBC (out of Denver, CO), TBS, etc. and three different movies every day. They also have onDemand movies at a cost too. When we were in our room, we were normally asleep but it was nice to know we could keep touch with the outside world if we wanted too!