Downtown San Miguel

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Today we go back to Less Pay to rent another car for a couple of days. We meet the owner, John Devries, a real good old boy from Arkansas, big belly and sloppy appearance. We were not impressed as he kept us waiting for over half an hour, actually we were just walking out when he showed up. This time we get a Volkswagen City which looks pretty nice in the photo but in reality it is a piece of junk. Everything has been stripped long ago, the glove box is gone, radio gone, speakers gone and the windshield wipers have a mind of their own so most of the time they are on even though we have turned them off. So it is basically sunny and hot with no threat of rain and we are driving around with windshield wipers going all the time. I guess that's better than the horn going off all the time which we saw another car doing the other day when we were walking. The one benefit of this car is that it has air conditioning which actually works - believe it or not, what do we expect for $18 per day (with insurance and tax the total is $36 which we have not been able to find for less so far.)

The downtown we have been walking to so far has been near the Ocean where there is a major tourist shopping area and a few streets behind. So today we drive through San Miguel's central downtown which is much more authentic Mexico about 24 streets or so from the Ocean. The population of Cozumel Island is 100,000 and most of the people live in San Miguel, so it is a much larger city than we thought. We find a major street, although we don't know it's name, we drive from one end to the other. There are many rotisserie chicken stands along the street, Ian has to get one of these chickens, to our surprize, it comes with some side dishes, a plastic bag of rice, a bag of cooked spaghetti with some orange colored sauce and a bag of light pink clear mystery liquid and a few tortillas. I tried to get Ian to taste the pink stuff, there were some kind of seeds in it and we have no idea what it can be - but he wouldn't do it. We actually threw out everything but the chicken which Ian said was one of the best rotisserie chickens he had ever had. My travel doctor has advised me not to eat from the side of the road because of my Crohn's, so I have to pass on the chicken and eat some leftovers instead.

In the downtown (el centro) stores and shops line the area, everything from restaurants, liquor, clothing, appliances, cell phones, carpenters and laundrymats, food stores both large and small. The street was much cleaner than we expected, we see a couple of familiar brands like Burger King, Dominos Pizza and Blockbuster Video. We drive through some residential side streets where I don't feel very comfortable so Ian heads back to the main street. People here really can exist with almost nothing and their homes are shanties built of concrete blocks, most with bars on the windows, little kids playing in the streets, the odd dog running around and laundry hanging on lines. We learned that a construction worker here makes about $6 per day, the foreman about $10, so we can see how it could be a meager existence. We see some young mothers with babies, we think they are so young and should be in school instead of taking care of little ones. There is still much more to explore in this city.

There is only one major industry in Cozumel which is tourism. The tourists who come in on the cruise ships only spend only one day here, so they mostly stay in the tourist area which is quite modern, or go to the beach or on a tour like diving or snorkeling, so we doubt that they have time to see any of these authentic areas.

The weather is great, a few clouds break up the sun and a nice breeze comes from the ocean so we still have not used the air conditioning in our condo. Now that we have a car again, we will go and check out the beaches at the south end of the Island again.

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Comments

[Jim]

I don't believe a WORD of it!!!
Where are you getting your info....from that old geezer Jim??? hahaha Finally figured it out & read your blog!! My 1st EVER!! Very interesting!!! Thanks!! See you on the wall!! TOG (the old geezer)