Cozumel Week One

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We can't believe it's been a week since we arrived, it has been packed with adventures so far. I haven't blogged for a few days since we rented a car so we were making the most of our time to sight see. Our car which was $18 per day was nothing special, dinged and dented, carpet worn through, a convertible where the top does not go up, broken emergency brake - you get the picture, but it was totally fun.

The beaches are along the southern west shore about 10 km from here. There is a row of private beach clubs (meaning they are private and have restaurants and bars.) Some charge entrance fees which go to maintaining the area, some are free. Some are nicer than others. Our favorite so far is called Paradise Beach ($2 entrance,) beautifully manicured yard, pool, tons of loungers, super clean, lots of infatable toys in the ocean to play on. Not too many people. Everything at the beach clubs is quite expensive compared to town and they don't want you to bring your own food or drinks. Beer is $4, pop $2.50 but that's their business so understandable. Ian did a bit of snorkeling. Like my Mom, I don't really like to get my head wet, so I mostly swim. The ocean is crystal clear and warm. No point for us to sit at a pool at the beach clubs as we have a pool at our condo. There is also para sailing, sea doo rentals, boat rentals, massages and anything you can think of to sell to tourists.

Day 5 we drove to the southern most point of the Island called Punta Sur, a national park. There we visited a museum, alligator refuge, lighthouse and the most beautiful natural beach we have ever seen (even nicer than Cayo Blanco in Cuba.) Hard to believe something so beautiful exists in the world.

After Punta Sur we continued on to drive around the Island. The East shores are not very inhabitted, just an occassional restuarant dotted along the coast. Beaches over there have higher waves. Starving, we stopped for lunch, it was the worst meal we have had so far and one of the most expensive. I was reluctant to even eat anything as the place didn't seem very clean but we shared a shrimp fajita and so far we are both still feeling fine. We won't do that again.

The drive around the whole Island is about one hour. The North Eastern part of the Island is not accessible by rental car as the road is not paved. The speed limit is 30 km except for the highway is 90 km.

We went back to the beach clubs yesterday morning and looked at a couple of others before ending back at Paradise. This time there were many more people, we could tell they were from the cruise ships as they all have blue towels. After the beach we drove to the North Western part of the Island to check out the golf course. We brought some clubs with us, but golf is very expensive here, even twilight is $89 each, so we will probably only go once or twice. The course looks pretty nice, we will know more after we play it.

We got our car back on time at 1pm, then went shopping for a couple of items and walked back to our condo to sit by the pool and have a bbq. So far our place is still pretty empty, not too many people here. Our condo was having an unpleasant smell in the bathrooms so we complained to our owner who didn't seem very happy about it, but she moved us into another unit. We like this one better as it has a better view.

There are about 4 ports for cruise ships, we think a maximum of 10 boats can be here at once. Some days there are just a couple of ships and some days there are 6 or 7, when that happens, the town is absolutely packed crazy with tourists. The boats come in the morning then leave around sunset.

The downtown area is now getting set up with Christmas decorations, hard to believe Christmas is only a few weeks away!

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Comments

[Gary and Carol]

Sounds like fun C ! Winter stormy weather here today ! Yuck ! Rob came over today and said that he would check out your blog only if you put nude woman on the beach pics on it ! David is working now and making a good dollar in blood services ! Thank God ! Chat soon