Chapter 21 will focus on Downtown Cozumel.
By 8:45am I realized something horrible, my camera battery was already at 88% :-/ it was very likely that the battery was not going to last all day. At that point I decided that my next equipment purchase had to be a spare battery for my camera. In order to get the maximum life out of the battery that day, I decided to lower the screen brightness to the absolute minimum, that meant that I would not be able to compose most my pictures, it was a fair trade to be able to get the entire day. I had another option, with me I also had my old underwater camera and the iphone, but I really dislike both cameras.
Side Note; I am watching Madagascar 3 right now, very funny movie 
Then we went to the taxi boarding area, and there was a line of maybe 50 of them waiting for passengers. I took a picture of the prices so you get an idea of how much to pay.
Then we had a decision to make, our initial plan was to go to chankanaab first and then to the shopping district (Downtown Cozumel), but the problem was that Chankanaab did not open for another 2 hours. We decided to take a little walk outside of the dock area, so we went to the gate and exited making a left heading north. I was a little shaky from our attempt in Falmouth, and we ventured out with a little of a nervous mind, we both felt the same way but neither of made a comment. We started walking, and the very first thing we noticed was how friendly everyone was, we were walking along the side where all the taxi drivers were waiting. They all said something like; hello, welcome to Cozumel, how are you. But all in a very friendly manner. We kept on walking, and a few of them offered to drive us to Downtown Cozumel, that gave me an idea, we could do Downtown Cozumel first and the Chankanaab.
In any case we kept walking, this is what we saw.
Let me stop here and ask a question to all of you, does anyone know if this is day resort or it belongs to a hotel? The reason I ask is because I am in love with the place and I would like to go there next time I visit Cozumel. I will post pictures from the other side later on. The place has an Awesome endless pool, a Jacuzzi and the beach all within arms reach and the VIEW!!!.
Please if anyone has information on this, let me know, thank you in advance
So we had a decision to make, either we waited there to go to Chankanaab or we headed to the shopping area. The decision was actually pretty simple, the weather was cooler in the morning, and we should take advantage of that to walk around. Then instead of walking all the way back to the beginning of the line I approached one of the taxi drivers and asked him if he could takes us and how much. I know it was not the right thing to do, but I really did not feel like walking all the way back. We had a lot of walking ahead of us that day.
He told us it would be $10, so we boarded the taxi and left. That was the firs time that we socialized with the local community. He was a very nice man and told us a little about Cozumel, one topic that puzzled us was within a country with such socio-economical problems, how did Cozumel stay so clean, friendly and safe for tourists. Please don’t take this offensively if you’re from Mexico, I am from Colombia myself and we struggle with much of the same issues.
Well he had been living there for over 20 years and had a house and family there, he was a very proud citizen. He told us that they have a very strict government there and that anyone with 3 strikes is forced off the island, the 3 strikes are easy to get. Simple things like disturbing the peace get you a strike, he mentioned there are many people from the main land who try to go there and steal from tourists. But they are quickly single out by the locals and they are lucky if they last over a few days, they are very protective of the tourist mecca they have created.
We talked about many other things, my mom was loving it, she enjoys talking very much. I sat there, looked around and made a few comments here and there. I could not get any pictures during the trip there because the window was broken and all the pics I got came out horrible.
Our driver dropped us all the way to the north side of the strip and told us to walk south, that way we could see everything. We thank him, and payed him, he had asked for $10, I think I gave him $13, from what we got I don’t think they get tipped of often, but I felt good, and he was a happy trooper.
This was my first view, of Downtown Cozumel.
I was in heaven, at that moment in time I felt like I was 8 years old in San Andres, I am not sure how I can describe what I felt. Do you know know how we all search for those childhood memories but often fail to find them? Well for the second time in my life I had found one of them (the first one was in Disney about a decade before). I had a HUGE grin on my face that just spelled SUCKER, lol, mom was admiring everything around her. I am not really sure how she felt, this is the first time I share this with the world, at this point in time she has no idea that I was having a memory flashback.
After a minute or so I woke up and decided to begin our tour. The art style was very nice and different from the other prior ports. But Jamaica still had much better woodwork. I did however like the use of color in Cozumel a lot. I am not sure if you noticed by now, but I am fascinated by colors.
Downtown Cozumel Shopping
We kept on walking down the main street.
This was a little street crossing the main street
At some point we crossed the street because I wanted some pictures of the statues near the water.
Who doesn’t love birds?
These ones are back on the store side of the street in Downtown Cozumel.
The main street floor had a really cool design, but very hard to photograph.
This store had some really neat art work. It was really expensive! Notice the human hands on some of the animals, very creative.
I could be wrong here, but I think this is the main terminal to go and come to the main land. One of the taxi drivers told us that less and less people are coming from the main land, it has become very expensive for the short trip. If I remember correctly it costs $17 one way, that can easily add up very fast.
A local food stand, I was going to try it, but I was so full. Nothing like trying the local food from these kind of stands.
Here is the main plaza, I forgot it’s name.
Side Note, I absolutely love animals
We never entered any of the jewelry stores, it is not like we were going to buy anything anyway. Wayyyyyy too broke to even look at them ;-), but we still took a look at them, from the street of course. lol
I will get a little side tracked here, my bf on the other hand goes into all the jewelry stores, I am really not sure why , but he enjoys it I guess. He rarely took any pictures in this trip, however he had two pictures that I REALLY wanted. One of the jewelry stores he went to had a T-REX head on display!!!
HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!?!?!
You can see all the profit they are making on those diamonds going into paying for the real dino head, jajajajajaja 😉
Well back to my story, our quest for the perfect plate for our wall was proving to be very disappointing. All the stores had the same designs, and we were not liking any of them. We kept on walking and we noticed a small booth in front of a restaurant, and they had some very impressive plates on display. I was very happy, the guy painted them in front of you and his buddy sold them. It was the perfect team, even more so I love supporting local small artists, I get a joy out of it that is hard to describe. Most artists are known to struggle and knowing that you can help them leaves a sense of accomplishment that I LOVE.
Well we preceded to ask him how much were they? I was very scared about his answer, because the artwork was great and our budget was very limited. He asked 25 for the small one that mom wanted and 35 for the one I wanted. But we did not have 35 to spend, we still had to pay for two more taxis, food, Chankanaab and and other souvenirs. I told him I really liked his work but I really could not afford it, long story short with very little haggling we got this baby for $20.
He is not perfect, also not my ship, but he was great to us. We loved it, he just perfect for our wall. That entire purchase left a very good feeling for both of us, and I hope also for the artist and his friend. I think it was their first sale of the day, I hope we brought them good Karma, my mom is well known for it.
Here is our wall for those of you who have not seen it yet, I think I posted it earlier, but I am not entirely sure.
More on Downtown Cozumel in the next chapter 🙂
