Home sweet home. It’s the day I’ve been looking forward to for the entire trip. We made it to Cozumel. If this is the first post you’ve read of everything on this blog, I love Mexico. If you’ve been here before, you already know that my love of the country, its people, and its cuisine runs deep. In our super long-term agenda, we’re living in Mexico. I need to better my Spanish though.
Anywho, we chose not to do any excursions in Cozumel as we really just wanted to walk around and just enjoy it. We thought we might walk all the way to the other pier/downtown, however, my legs said something along the lines of, “Bitch, get in a taxi” after about the first mile. (I neglected to mention in yesterday’s recap that I somehow halfway blew out my quad while climbing the stairs at Altun Ha. When I woke up in Cozumel, my leg was pretty angry.) Nevertheless, I wasn’t going to allow a little discomfort to keep me from soaking up a touch of my heart. While we were walking, we saw the craziest sight. There was a man, he was driving a scooter. Behind him sat a woman that I suppose was his wife. And…standing in between them on the scooter seat was a child. Couldn’t have been more than about 5. Can you imagine the uproar that would happen in the US? At least in this day and age. When I was growing up, assholes weren’t so tight you could barely fart out of them.
On taxi ride number one, of course, Lovey engaged the driver in conversation. I could only follow some of it since I really need to practice. We got dropped off down in the center of the tourist shopping trap. The plan was to walk around and try to find a bakery. We got half of that done. Even when we asked where the closest bakery was, folks were just not sure. We walked some side streets, away from the “come into my shop” folks. Don’t get me wrong, I know that they have a job to do and they’re just doing it, but I think they’d get more business without the hard sell. Gimme a ‘welcome to Cozumel’ with a smile and a wave and I’m much less put off and maybe I’ll venture in to look around. With the hard sell, I’m not coming in. Period.
It was pretty warm (hot) yesterday so after that walking, I certainly needed something to quench my thirst. Enter Senor Frogs. Of course I know that it’s the most touristy of the tourist stuff, but it just makes me smile because of Ixtapa. We got there before the majority of the cruise ship folks, so we had an opportunity to really chat with our waiter. We talked about living there and he said that a lot of Americans had moved there. Good places and bad places, just like anywhere. It’s grounding, to me, to be there, if only for a few hours. Taxi ride two included talk about the current weather and a few hurricanes that had hit the area. One hit and our driver said that they had no light and no windows. It was quite some time ago as he said that he and his wife and their first child were trying to work it out at that time, and he was a little on the older side.
We did a little shopping where a picked up some earrings, and of course, some Steelers gear because, according to the gentleman we were chatting with, Mexicans love the Steelers, the Cowboys, and for some reason, the Chiefs. I really can’t wait to get everything into place. It’s about a ten year plan, I do believe.
Best. Day. Of the cruise.
