Honeymoon Day 5 Cozumel

After our first day at sea, we had managed to get our sea legs, but were soon to be rid of them as we were arriving in Cozumel at 7am. As we wandered off the boat, our camera lens fogged up, so I don't have a good picture of the strange giant parrot that greeted us on the dock. No, I don't mean some kind of exotic bird, I mean some poor crew member in a carpet suit. There was also a vaguely multi-ethnic woman dressed as a Mexican. They seemed to be holding the boat there with a big rope.

We had an excursion booked that would be a Jeep trip to a beach for some snorkeling, and lunch. On the way we were to see some ruins and other fun stuff. So we got there early, and when we get off of the boat, we had no choice but to walk into a big shopping complex. Here there were about 8 million jewelry stores. There was also this great big perch that looked like later would have a real parrot. Most everything was closed, so we wandered a while and then sat to wait. Jason saw this kid on a tiny bike selling newspapers.

Our tour group got together and went up some stairs to another level of jewelry shops. It seemed apparent that we were going to wait some more and some of the shops were open. We went into the closest and were looking at all of the stuff when a ring caught my eye. I liked it but the guy wanted $375 for it. Nothing doing. I gave it back and we tried to walk out. No big. But the guy stops us and begs to make a deal . We tell him that we would pay $100 and he acts insulted. We go to walk out and he offers $275, we say no and negotiate it until he says $175 and it's a deal. We never meant to haggle this and it worked out anyway. I'll post some pictures of the beautiful ring, when I get some. So with a new piece of Mexican jewelry, we make our way back to the group.

We know we are going to be split up into groups of 4 and on the walk to the jeeps we meet up with another couple. Turns out that they are from Indiana too! Ha! So we agree to pair up, and have our one and only celebrity sighting of the trip. Turns out that Morgan Freeman owns one of those little jewelry shops. Who knew?

We get our instructions. Someone is going to lead the group. If he goes fast, we go fast. If he goes slow, we go slow. If he runs over a Mexican, we don't run over the same Mexican. After this complicated lesson we are off! Jason drove us there in a Jeep that was possibly missing some gears and really obviously missing some maintenance. It was a pretty drive, other than the Mexican policeman that I saw holding a machine gun. eek. I'm not breaking the law, I swear.

We drove to a national park type place and first, we saw some alligators. They were big. We also saw some crabs in there and some neat rotted trees. There was a big tower to climb and we could see the alligator tracks in there.

Then we saw the ruins. They had told us not to expect much, but the story behind the tiny thing (a lot more was under the sand) was interesting. If hurricane force winds started to blow, the thing would whistle to warn the people! That was so cool! We then drove to our snorkel site. We parked the Jeeps and walked to a big beach with gorgeous water and soft sand. We all got our equipment on, and after not enough instruction, we went out into the very rough water.

It was hard to swim in all of that, but we struggled out to a coral reef. There were way too many people way to close together. For people who had never snorkeled before, it was extra difficult. We managed to see some cool things. I saw a tiny fish that was black with electric blue spots. The coral was also neat. There were huge purple fans that swayed with the aforementioned rough water. It really was grueling. It was hard to swim and confusing with so many people. I held a stranger's hand. I think it was a girl. We both did it, and then realized at the same time that it wasn't who we were reaching for. We did eventually make it back in, a lot of people had to be rescued by jet skis and stuff. I can't overstate how had it was to swim.

When we got in, we had a lunch that was pretty good. We drove back, this time the wife of the other couple driving. Turns out they like top gear too. Ha! We had a little time to look around some more, and we should have gone in to one shop that we didn't. They were selling luchador masks. Hee Hee!

We were walking back to the boat, and I wanted to see what was going to be on that big perch stick thing. There were 4 parrots. The guy let me hold one, like normal at first, but then he turned her on her back, and I held her like a baby! It was cool. We got Danica a tiny shirt from the Cozumel humane society and got back on the boat.

We were both toast. Suburned doesn't even begin to cover it. We had some dinner at the Japanese Steakhouse on the boat, called Teppenyaki (I really have no clue if that's spelled correctly). We had to eat there! Our first date was at a Japanese steakhouse, plus that's just really good food to eat. It wasn't as good as our favorite Kabuto, but it was good. They served warm edamame and we didn't realize for a while that they wanted you to shell the beans before eating them. Extra roughage for us, yay. Then we went to see a strange show called "Sea Legs" it was a showgirls/acrobat show and it was so hokey it was hilarious. We went up to spinnaker again for 70's night and then crashed. The next day was Grand Cayman!