Cozumel
Well, it's been an entire week my friends. What's new with me? Well, for starters, I've been eating like a freaking pig. I think my cycle is coming. lol. Umm, well let me catch you all up. Umm, what was the last thing we spoke about? Ah yes. Mexico. Mexico was absolutely GORGEOUS. I definitely wanna go back. It was great. The weather was nice, my tour guide was nice. I almost died snorkeling, but I'll explain that in a minute. I had a good time. Let me explain my day in Mexico. So we docked in Cozumel, Mexico on Saturday, August 25. The way cruises work (in the event that you haven't read the previous post) is basically like this: Once you're aboard the ship, you have the option to purchase a shore excursion package that allows you to explore wherever you're going in detail. In this case, it's Cozumel.
Cozumel, as relayed by Wikipedia, is an island in the Caribbean Sea off the eastern coast of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, opposite Playa del Carmen. It's about 36 miles south of Cancún. Anyway, even as we docked in Cozumel, we (my brother, my sister-in-law - no, they're not married, and myself) hadn't purchased any shore excursions yet. We pulled in sometime early that morning and we knew that we had limited time to purchase a shore excursion that was wothwhile because most of them began at 9:00am or 10:00am. I believe we woke up at 8:00ish. Well, that basically meant that we we rushing to see what we could buy. I was the last in the shower and as I got out, Louis came back to the room like "We got one, but it's starting now, so we have to go." Well, I was still putting my suntan lotion on. Then disaster strikes. lol. I was putting the last of the suntan lotion on my face and somehow my right eye decided that it didn't like suntan lotion, and it began to tear and burn. As I made my way to pay for the shore excursion, my eye was searing and tearing the entire way with pain. Even as I made my way to the gangway to leave the ship it was still burning.
We decided that we were going to "Explore Cozumel by Jeep and Snorkeling". So we went downstairs to leave the ship, but they were holding us captive because there was another ship that was releasing their passengers. While we were waiting, I figured I'd buy a disposable waterproff camera that could take pictures outside the water as well, since I'd left my camera in Boston and had forgotten to get my dad's before I left. I spent about $16 on this camera. We made our way to the area that we needed to go and I feel my eye swelling up. The more I wiped the tears away, the more my eye teared. We were having a serious battle. We get to the post where the tour guide is waiting for us and we find out that this Jeep exploration will be chaffeured by us. We were under the impression that we would be chaffeured by some local or the tour guide himself. Well thank God Louis has his driver's license, otherwise, we would have been up the creek without a paddle. We find out that Tiffany can't go because she's pregnant and its too dangerous. So I was a lil bummed about that, but whatever.
Well, I'm gonna speed the story up a bit. We got to the reef to go snorkeling and our tour guide, Eduardo, gave us a lesson on how to use the snorkeling equipment. The snorkeling mask has rubber around the perimeter so that the water can't seep in to your eyes and nose. Well that obviously means that you can't breathe through your nose. The snorkel itself is attached to the mouthpiece, but sometimes water can get into the mouthpiece. You can still breathe though (obviously, lol). Well for those of you that aren't aware, I can't swim. lol. Pretty silly, huh? They give you a life vest thingy as part of the snorkeling "outfit", so that wasn't a problem. The issue actually had nothing at all to do with swimming. It had to do with breathing, which, we would all agree, is pretty NATURAL TO LIFE ON EARTH. Well, it's not very natural through a snorkeling mask. Eduardo had instructed us to just put ours faces in the water so we could get used to breathing with the mask on. The problem was that you still get water in you nose, so you try to exhale through your nose, but you can't cause there's rubber in the way, and then your breathing gets shallow, so you freak out cause your not getting enough air, and then (yes I know this is a runon sentence) you wanna take the mask off and breathe, but your head is still underwater so you can't. And that's how I almost died. Really more by virtue of panick than anything else. I should also mention that as tall as my brother is (6'4") he can't swim either. So it was pretty hilarious. I was completely freaking out because I felt like I couldn't breathe. So Louis told Eduardo that I didn't wanna go. Eduardo asked me if I wanted to go out with him (snorkeling, not on a date) because he had a buoy and a boogie board. I told him yes, so that way I could at least hold on to the surf board and not have to worry so much about swimming. After a while I calmed down and it was awesome. I got used to breathing through the mask and I felt really good about everything. I forgot to mention that I did all this blind because on top of my right eye giving me hell and pratically swelling shut, I had to take my glasses off because they wouldn't fit underneath the mask. So it was a pretty adventurous experience.
My stupid camera that I bought decided it didn't wanna work anymore, so I couldn't even take any pictures underwater. But when I got back, Tiffany had figured out a way to get it from the plastic thing (for lack of a better term) that it was in, so I was able to take pictures. We went to the Pee Pee Station, which I actually thought Eduardo was kidding about (like I thought he was making a reference to the bathroom, but its actually a tienda that sells clothing and souvenirs and they have a bathroom too, lol), and people got to pee and buy stuff. Then we went to the beach. At this point, my eye is still burning and its red and swollen. At the beach, we were fed some real Mexican food. Who sees a problem here for Ms. Vegan? Well there's no way on God's green planet that you can go to Mexico and expect to not eat meat and/or cheese. They had nacho chips, cheese dip, black beans, salsa, guacamole, and empanadas for us to eat. For those of you that don't know, empanadas are basically like beef patties, or hot pockets. A pastries crust thing, stuffed with something yummy. Usually meat and cheese. They also had watermelon and pineapple for dessert. The first go round, I just got some chips, some black beans, some salsa, the fruit, and at Eduardo's request some guacamole. I hate guacamole. But he told me to try it anyway because they make it differently than they do in the States and they use a different type of avacado. I tried it, and it was the BEST guacamole EVER. If that's what guacamole is supposed to taste like, then I want the U.S. to get on board. Everything was great. Especially the pineapple. Soooooooooo yummy. Well Eduardo saw my plate and he was like "Aw, mamacita, your plate isn't full enough. You need to get some more food." So I asked him if they had empanadas without chicken. He was like "Just cheese?" I hesistated, but then I said, "Yeah." So I got one. Now I KNOW I don't eat cheese. But something had to give. I was starving and I could only eat so many tortilla chips. So I ate one. The best empanada on Mother Earth. So I got two more and figured for as long as I was in Mexico, cheese was ok if I couldn't avoid it.
Well the beach was great, except for the rocks that tried to take me out. There were these huge rocks on the edge of the water and because the current was strong, I almost broke my ankles twice. But it was fun. Then we went back to the cars and went to visit this Mayan statue. Gorgeous. At that point the tour was over and we said goodbye to Eduardo. Afterwards we went shopping at the little mall that was in the area. I didn't have any money so Lou and Tiff bought everything. But we had a good time. There's this club/restaurant/bar on the strip called Senor Frogs. That place was POPPING. I wanna go back. We just went through and got drinks, but it was fun nonetheless.
Well, I think I've gabbed enough. Just wanted to let you guys know about the cruise. Mexico was awesome. We need to go. I'm tired of typing now, so I think I'm done blogging for today. Nothing to report food wise until September (which I just realized is tomorrow....dang....). Well, I'll keep you posted. Adieu.
1 comments:
aww...sounds like you had fun, she she. i wanna go to mexico. i'm still waitin' to see if my liar of an ex md really got me the volendam contract. if so i'll be goin' to costa rica and the caribbean and panama canal. not mexico, but they speak spanish. lol
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