Cozumel Day 2: Electric Boogaloo

As we said, Day 2 was a mellow day. As you can see from the first picture, taken the evening of Day 1, we were sun baked and ready for some rest. The day was warm like the rest of us, and there was a fair amount of cloud cover. Thankfully, this allowed us to get out in the town to explore.

Tired but happy, we get ready to check out San Miguel after dark.

The view from the hotel lobby looking across the main road to the sea.

Some of the local kids playing in the water in front of the sea wall.

Every time we left our hotel, we walked past this shop with the kick-ass wheelchair ramp. We saw some people on our trip in wheelchairs (all overweight tourists) but unfortunately, we saw none try the sweet ramp seen here.

The town square, with bell tower. It was a rare cloudy moment that didn't last.

The bell tower. About 1:45 it appears. This is a good a time as any to talk about the time in Cozumel. They do not observe daylight savings time, so this time of year they are only 1 hour ahead of Vancouver, WA. This makes it interesting because the island is as far west as Chicago, IL. It would be pitch black dark by 6PM, and light outside by 5:30AM. It was actually nice, because the evenings were so warm that we would spend quite a bit of time walking around or hanging out in the square with the locals.

Our hotel from the sea wall. Our room was in row 2 column 2. (of the 4 in the middle, we were the upper left one).

While Jill collected beach glass, I was on the sea wall watching these two boys playing in the water. Here one flies backwards Matrix-style and lands in the water. They looked like they were having a great time.

We were walking along past a cool looking church right before a service started. As you can see, there were a lot of people inside.

Day 2, after dark, town square. As you can see, shorts and a t-shirt were more than enough to battle the comfortable temps, even with the wind blowing and ominous clouds surrounding us. They all blew away by morning, and we didn't even get the rain storm that seemed imminent at sunset.

Jill checking out the scary looking clouds. Behind her you can see the gazebo that housed a 12 piece band the night before. A lot of people in town hang out here at night. While the band was playing, we had a great time watching people dance and simply enjoy the evening. Behind us there were 3 fire dancers with 2 drummer accompanists to entertain the ADD tourist types. AS initially interesting as it was, it got boring fast.

Here is a panoramic video of the town square a little after sunset. What I notice about this video (and why I am bothering to share it) is the sounds of the birds. They were a constant reminder that we were not in Washington anymore. They were these black birds with slightly long tails, they were loud (in a good way) and they were everywhere.

After hanging out in the town square, we walked South past our hotel and checked out Mega. We had no idea what a Mega was, but a lot of locals were going in there, so we walked on in like we knew what we were doing. As it turns out, Mega is simply a Fred Meyers. Clothes electronics, toys, sporting goods, automotive and groceries. I thought stores like this were an American phenomenon!

On the way back to the hotel with some Haagen Daas ice cream we saw some kids seem to be really excited about something on the sidewalk. They had their cell phones out and were taking pictures. It turns out that they were checking out the Mexican Redrump Tarantula below. This is the only good picture I got of it before it went too far out in the street. (The traffic in San Miguel is INSANE) so I didn't follow it out there to get more pix. As we walked away, the tarantula got run over by a motor scooter. You should click the picture to get a good look at its total creepiness up close.