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walbournWe spent all day Friday at sea and arrived at Cozumel on Saturday morning. Normally Cozumel offers full cruise docking services allowing people to just walk off the boat, but Hurricane Wilma hovered over the island for a while and tore it up pretty well. Therefore we had to take tender boats, which frankly I think was a more interesting experience. It let us see the dent in the starboard side of the cruise ship--something out of sight when they were in port--, which later I found out was due to a dock crash in Costa Rica which holed the ship enough to require evacuating the entire boat, flying everyone home, and giving them credit for a future cruise. It was above the waterline, but was getting plenty of splash and apparently the compartment was a crew member's quarters. Anyhow, the tender ride was quick and gave us a great view of the amazing waters and shoreline.
After saying no to about a dozen offers to rent "Heeps" and scooters, we spent some time wandering the very touristy shopping district but moved quickly down several blocks to try to distance ourselves from the power-drinkers at Charlie's. You have to worry about a bar that is within a dozen feet of the tender pier, probably to allow the drunk-ass tourists a chance to stumble home before they are stranded. The Mexican food we had was fresh and tasty, although obviously still very much targeted at the tourists with claims of using only 'healthy oil' substitutes and specially purified water. The theme of American pop tunes being played on inappropriate instruments was continued on shore just as it had been on the boat.
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jeliza took tons of photos of course, focusing on the reconstruction and remaining hurricane damage. They've cleaned it up pretty well already, but the place took a pounding. We didn't really have enough time to get one of the tour packages, but the 3 hours spent wandering the district was plenty for me. Apparently if you are into SCUBA and/or snorkeling in deep water, Cozumel has some of the most amazing diving in the world. Wilma reportedly helped out the corals, probably by sweeping away a lot of excess sediment. Otherwise, it's a great place to get loose stones duty-free, lots of Mayan-inspired* tchotchkes, cheap silvery jewelry, and Tequila.
My overall impression was that I felt like one of those Hawaiian shirt wearing tourists wandering around in Tropico while the rest of the citizens went about their lives. My favorite purchase was a fine Mexican-bottled Coke with real sugar. My only real touristy purchase was an antique-style map of the area with all the Mayan location name, but it includes the locations of modern gas stations.
* = Cozumel was a Mayan sacred site to the Moon Goddess Ix-chel. European explorers visited them but didn't try to conquer the place. They did linger long enough to give them all smallpox and wipe out the population. It was resettled in 1800s by Mexicans of Mayan decent.
After saying no to about a dozen offers to rent "Heeps" and scooters, we spent some time wandering the very touristy shopping district but moved quickly down several blocks to try to distance ourselves from the power-drinkers at Charlie's. You have to worry about a bar that is within a dozen feet of the tender pier, probably to allow the drunk-ass tourists a chance to stumble home before they are stranded. The Mexican food we had was fresh and tasty, although obviously still very much targeted at the tourists with claims of using only 'healthy oil' substitutes and specially purified water. The theme of American pop tunes being played on inappropriate instruments was continued on shore just as it had been on the boat.
jeliza took tons of photos of course, focusing on the reconstruction and remaining hurricane damage. They've cleaned it up pretty well already, but the place took a pounding. We didn't really have enough time to get one of the tour packages, but the 3 hours spent wandering the district was plenty for me. Apparently if you are into SCUBA and/or snorkeling in deep water, Cozumel has some of the most amazing diving in the world. Wilma reportedly helped out the corals, probably by sweeping away a lot of excess sediment. Otherwise, it's a great place to get loose stones duty-free, lots of Mayan-inspired* tchotchkes, cheap silvery jewelry, and Tequila.My overall impression was that I felt like one of those Hawaiian shirt wearing tourists wandering around in Tropico while the rest of the citizens went about their lives. My favorite purchase was a fine Mexican-bottled Coke with real sugar. My only real touristy purchase was an antique-style map of the area with all the Mayan location name, but it includes the locations of modern gas stations.
* = Cozumel was a Mayan sacred site to the Moon Goddess Ix-chel. European explorers visited them but didn't try to conquer the place. They did linger long enough to give them all smallpox and wipe out the population. It was resettled in 1800s by Mexicans of Mayan decent.
