BlaesFam Blog: Cozumel Day 1

Lats night around midnight, our journey finally came to an end. We spent 4 nights in San Miguel, on Cozumel Island in Mexico. We escaped temperatures in the low 40's and rain to a sunnier place with temps in the mid 80's with lows in the 70's. Our timing couldn't have been better.

Once the long layovers and travelling were complete, we were treated with the following view from our private oceanfront balcony. Not too shabby.

Here is a stretch of shops that housed the first ATM we could find, as well as the car rental place we finally elected to use. Finding a rental car is not difficult on Cozumel, renting from someone who you trust at all is another story.

Here is the sweet interior of our awesome rental car, the "Mexican Ferrari". Those are rusted out holes by my feet looking right at the pavement. (yeah, I dove in bare feet on a rusty floorboard in Mexico... what of it?)

We had 2 objectives on our car rental day on the island. Number 1, find a place to swim. Number 2, explore the island, and do the full loop (it's actually a half-island loop). Here is Paradise beach. Here we succeeded in completing objective number 1. We went swimming in the Caribbean Sea. It was a very windy day, so the water on this side of the island was a bit murky, but it was warm and super fun anyways. We didn't stay long, there was more (less touristy) places to see.

Here we are as the road meets the wild East coast of the island. The waves are much larger, the rip currents are much more dangerous, and the views are mush more scenic. I can't tell... are we sunburned yet? It happens somewhere on this drive. That's what we get for renting a convertible and using Hawaiian Tropic 40SPF sunscreen. Our advice to you... stick with Banana Boat 40SPF. It works wonders.

The East side of the island is quite remote. We found a beach with NO other people. The sand was super soft, the water was warm and beautiful... I could not resist.

He runs... jumps... and...

...sweet relief. I didn't go any deeper than you see here, this is the East side of the island, and I didn't want to do anything stupid. Farther up the road they had a swimming beach closed due to rip currents and high wind.

After the little break, we headed up the east coast of the island until we came to Coconuts. This is a restaurant and bar that the rental car guy (and our trusty guidebook) highly recommended. It is situated on a cliff overlooking the sea, surrounded by palm trees and sand.

Apparently, we were close to Cuba.

My first Mexican beverage of the trip. Also the best one. Maybe it had something to do with location, location, location...

2 random bar dogs at coconuts. Jill noticed that all of the dogs in Cozumel were exactly like these. Squat mutts. Very independent. Very cute.

The "Attack Parrot" at Coconuts... not as cute.

Here is the view of Coconuts looking south. You can see the tops of the umbrellas and the thatched roof of the bar.

Our road trip ended with a visit to San Gervasio, 1000 year old ruins in the center of the island. Here we see Jill and the sweet rental in the parking lot. Notice that we had placed the top UP by mow. enough sun is enough in one day!

Here Jill walks from one ruin to another along one of the crumbling roads.

One of the sites at San Gervasio.

I could see most of the island from here!

Iguanas like San Gervasio.

Turkey Vultures like Mexico. Here are three we saw flying around and hanging out at the ruins.

My beautiful wife in a beautiful setting.

The giant Mexican flag. It was only flying for the first couple of days of the trip, but it was a cool looking landmark while it lasted. It is on the sea wall in front of the town square, where this photo was taken.