Day 1: Getting there.
We headed to the airport around 4:00pm for the first of three flights that would trans-posit us (I just made that up) from the grey wet cold December weather in Boise to the near perfect tropical climate of Cozumel Mexico. The trip south was a long 16-hours of mostly sitting in airports. The first plane was nearly empty though and we helped ourselves to Economy-Plus seats for a very pleasant ride ri San Francisco where we kicked off our Mexican food tour with some over-stuffed tacos and beer.
The trip to Huston was much more… hmmm. Memorable. The flight was overbooked and for some strange and annoying reason, we didn’t get seats together. Lynette was about half-way back and I was in the tail. Nobody around us was willing to switch seats so we could sit together, so I put on my ear-buds and tried to get some sleep squished in between a couple of big ole Mexican ladies. About half way through the flight we hit some weather and things started getting a little too rough to sleep. By the time we were making our final approach we were getting tossed around pretty violently (at least for a 737). Suddenly the flight attendant, who had already been buckled into their own seats, made an rather urgent announcement that people needed to return to their seats. I looked up and sure enough, some crazy passenger was out of their seat waving their hands and hitting the buttons on the overhead panel. Again from the flight attendant, as we’re getting kicked in all directions by the turbulence “We are literally seconds from landing! You MUST be seated!” Other passengers began yelling for the person to sit down too. The flight attendants obviously began to get concerned because they announced “If there is an emergency someone else hit your call button and we’ll get there as soon as we’re on the ground”. I could see ahead of me that several arms went up and buttons got pushed. I knew by the distance between us, that Lynette was likely at the center of this excitement.
As soon as the wheels hit the ground and the bouncing stopped, the flight attendant from the front of the plane sprinted to row of the commotion. By the time we rolled up to the gate, things had settled down and I could see people fanning someone. All the passengers stood up and I lost sight of the area so didn’t see Lynette again until I made my way up the concourse into the airport. She was pretty shook up and feeling sick from the ride but seemed okay to me. The paramedics arrived a few minutes later and took us into an unused gate for privacy and proceeded to hook her up to an EKG to check her heart condition, which was fine.
After seeking out some crackers and relaxing for a couple of hours, we were finally on our last leg of our journey. This time the flight was near empty again. And again, we were booked on seats in different parts of the plane. As I boarded the plane, I was automatically upgraded to Business class for some reason. I took my seat, but then decided to try to get Lynette moved to the adjacent seat and went back up to the ticket agent to make a change. They couldn’t get her to business class, but split the difference and put us both in economy plus again. It was a nice compromise.
Along the way we met several other passengers that had come from the east side of the country who had even worse weather related troubles. Seems the weather at the Atlanta hub had caused several flights to divert and they had missed their connections causing a domino effect that ultimately made them miss the boat, literally. They were now on our flight to Cozumel so they could catch up to their cruise ship, minus two of their seven day cruise.
When we finally landed in San Miguel and once through customs we were immediately diverted to the “information” desk where we were roped into signing up for another time-share sales pitch in exchange for the promise of free gifts. This took way too long and all but one of the shuttle vans had left to deliver their human cargo to their respective hotels. We kept at it though, haggling our way into more free gifts and working the price of the “invitation” down to $30. Finally, someone came in and warned that the last shuttle was about to leave so we finished up and wheeled our luggage to the curb. To our surprise, the shuttle van was full of people, all waiting for us to finish our negotiations so they could get on with their vacation. I don’t think any were too happy with us.
Fifteen minutes later we arrived at our hotel. <a href=”http://www.presidentecozumel.com/”>The Presidente Intercontinental Resort</a>. The room was spacious and clean. The thing that stood out most was that the room included both an indoor and an outdoor shower. At first I thought the outdoor shower was just to rinse your scuba gear or rinse after swimming in the ocean, but after a couple of days of getting used to the idea that it provided enough privacy, it functioned well as regular-but-outside shower too.
</p><p>The first thing we wanted to do was explore and the hotel offered free bicycles for that purpose. We peddled off in the direction from whence we came and found a very nice “bike” path that lead all the way to the edge of town where we found a 7-11.
</p><p>Then we peddled the other direction to The Money Bar, which seems to get its name from all the foreign money varnished onto the table tops. This ended up being our preferred spot for meals and after-hours brewskies while watching the sun set. Very nice place, very nice people.
Day 1: Scooter tour.
The hotel concierge had arranged for a couple of scooters to be delivered for us that arrived right on time at 8:00am. We hopped on and headed south. After several kilometers, I noticed that my fuel tank was nearly empty, so we headed back north to fill up, then south again. We passed several very nice resorts and a lot of snorkeling bars before reaching the southern end of the island. There we found the entrance to the “South Point Lighthouse”.
The road to the lighthouse was a coral gravel/sand road but the gate attendants assured us that it was good enough that we could make the four kilometer trip on our scooters, so off we went. The road was in pretty good shape too, we even ended up passing a 4×4 jeep along the way. It made me laugh a little to think that those folks would be telling the story of how they “4-wheeled” their way out to a lighthouse, but would probably leave out the fact that they got passed by a couple of scooters along the way.
We parked in front of, but skipped, the little souvenir hut at the side of the parking area and headed over to the little (free) museum for a look around. Then we climbed the 123 step, spiral staircase up to the top of the lighthouse. There was only room for a dozen or so bodies on the observation deck so we were glad that we got there before folks on the cruise ship excursion tour bus showed up.
After taking pictures and bumping elbows with or fellow lighthouse explorers, we head back down an after sampling some tequila at the tequila store, we scooted off towards the highway. But to our surprise, in the short time that we had been touring the park, they had plowed the road! Have you ever tried riding a little scooter on freshly plowed coral gravel/sand? Lucky for us there had been a few 4×4 jeeps that had driven the newly plowed road before us and we were able to ride in their tracks and got through… but the laugh had definitely turned to us on the way out.
Once back on the paved road, we headed north along the east, “Wild” side of the island. We decided to stay on the “bicycle path” even though the signs were pretty clear that it was actually for bicycles and not “motorcycles”. But nobody was on bicycles and there were several people on mopeds taking advantage of the better view that the bike path provided, so that was good enough for us. We even passed a motorcycle cop along the way who returned a hand wave so we relaxed about breaking the rules just a little bit.
The surf was much larger on this side of the island and the wind carried the sea mist all the way to us, positing salt on our glasses which would only smear when we tried to clean our lenses. We stopped along the way in several places to view the blow holes and stopped for a soda to dodge a rain cloud.
By the time we turned east along the central road that crosses the interior of the island it was getting to be mid afternoon. We had planned on visiting the Mayan ruins on our way back to town, but when we got to the gate at 4:00pm and saw that they closed at 3:45 we knew we’d be renting the scooters again.
We were running low on gas so were glad when we reached the edge of town and found a gas station. We pulled up to the pump, but the attendant said they were closed for another five minutes. I’m still not sure if they were filling a tank somewhere, or just on a siesta. But either way, we had time for a quick rest stop and grabbed a coke and shared a 2-peso bathroom break. By the time we got back to the scooters they were opening the pumps and the line for gas was out the parking lot and backing up the road a ways. Again, very good timing on our part.
We cruised along shore line, past all the cruise ship ports and tourists and the mad-house environment that they support, back to the Money Bar for a scrumptious dinner and another gorgeous sunset.
Day 2: Mayan Ruins & Snorkeling
We missed the largest Mayan ruins on the island the first time around, but came back on day two for a guided tour. This is one of the main entrances into the ancient city.
Saying goodbye tour our Mayan guide. (or at least a descendant of the Mayans) He was quite a funny guy and made the tour a lot of fun
Then we explored some of the old “roads” on our own and found some pretty cool ruins before we were stopped by some rather swampy jungle.
Day 3: Scuba
And it would be a crime to come to Cozumel without getting in some scuba diving. I’ll probably add more shots of this later.
Day 4: Chicken Pizza
We couldn’t be in Mayan land without a trip to the greatest Mayan city of all. Chicken Pizza… er, I mean Chichen Itza.
Day 5: Pottery
Day 6: Hanging Out
Back in civilization, our hotel loaned us some two-wheel transportation that was just right for getting around our little tropical Back in civilization, our hotel loaned us some two-wheel transportation that was just right for getting around our little tropical paradise.
Of course we had a few friends to keep us company.
Not a bad way to chill on a late December day.</p>