Now you may all be wondering why in my apparent streak of increased posting why I haven't posted the entirety of last week, other than the fact that I am incredibly lazy when it comes to updating this blog except in brief stints when and where I have nothing better to do. I was in Cozumel for the second year running; now you get a travelogue *put's on evil mustache* Muwah! ha! ha! ha! *takes off mustache*.
So the sixth began at 3 o'clock in the f''ing morning(as always seems to happen with trips in which my family flies) when my grandfather pulls up in his mini-van to take us to the Airport, the ride to the airport was nice, the seats reclined just enough to sleep if you could through the maxed volume big band music and his maniacal driving through the dimly lit streets of Cleveland. So upon arriving at the airport we were not alone, we were surrounded by other traveler's either victims of weather, staff incompetence, or were just so plain crazy as to let their grandfather drive them to the air port at three o'clock in the morning! Other than that the ride to Cozumel was fairly uneventful.
Upon arriving in Cozumel we were greeted by all the Immigration forms and what-not which kept us tied up for about half an hour, then before you walk out of the terminal you press a button to have the button god's judgement passed upon you, If it lights up green you are free to go if red, you get strip searched, admittedly it is less biased than a couple of good ol' boys sitting around picking out anyone who look suspicious but WTF how does it prevent or solve any problems, It doesn't, the button god is just probably something proposed by the pretentious button worshiping cult that controls Mexico's semi-socialist government.
Your One True God
One thing to know about Cozumel is that the taxi drivers are right out of Liberty City's driving school, driving a minimum of 20 KPH over the speed limit, turning around in the middle of the road, darting around the cornucopia of mopeds and other small vehicles piloted by locals and intrepid tourists, In their micro-bus sized vans. Oh and did you know you can fit a family of four on a moped (and twelve in the cab of a crew cab truck), strange, only in Mexico I guess.
So after fearing for my life for the second time that day we arrived at our hotel/resort thing called El Cozumeleno and were greeted by the door man and the first of many all inclusive drinks to come. but apparently they had screwed up our reservation but this was easily fixed by switching rooms with family we I was traveling with. now to the point were I tell you about the hotel, It was all inclusive (free food, drink, shows, and pool) though if you do not eat at one of the two free restaurants on the resort the food will remind you of your wort memories of elementary school cafeteria food. both of the others are adequate though, but Lex Luthor waited on our table
Comparewhat you don't know is that this shot took two hours to get, he doesn't want to be found
Well he didn't actually wait any tables he was just the undisputed evil overlord of the palapa. But now an interesting story, last year when I was at the same resort; the entire restaurant was full of birds, so this year they put up fishing line on all of the openings other than the entrances and exits to keep these birds out, well anyway all they did was create an unnatural selection which allowed only the sly crow-like grackles to get inside the palapa, the interesting thing is though that they mostly take the pink artificial sweetener packets; I mean just wow, look you created a population of hyper smart crow-esque things that are addicted to artificial sweetener. I know it, it's Lex's new five step plan for world domination; 1. move to Mexico 2. breed an army of birds that you can control somehow 3.take control of your army 4. train them in the arts of combat, subterfuge, and fear (think Hitchcock) 5. use the army to take over the world.
But there is more to Cozumel than just El Cozumeleno, there are decent restaurants on the Island, also innumerable nearly identical tacky souvenir shops with annoyingly pushy owners.
But let's start with the restaurants, first of all a tip; do not eat at Carlos' n' Charlie's, not only is it full of drunken college students, the food is a heaping pile of meh and they will put a penis shaped balloon hat on your head. But at the other end of the spectrum of eating: there are a couple of restaurants in the town square that all provide excellent food in a quieter atmosphere, best of all; no penis hats. The first and foremost of these is a converted porch known as Casa Denis, it is probably the oldest eating establishment on Cozumel, officially being classified as a restaurant since 1945. Casa Denis Serves Yucatan style food, it's generally good all around and the wait staff are such asshole it makes me feel as though I am at home. Last year The group I was traveling with (I.E. my parents, siblings, aunt, uncle, cousin, and foreign exchange student)went to Casa Denis our foreign exchange student a Scott named Jordan got piss drunk as scotts are wont to do
note this is early on in the night, he already had two more of the ones in the fore ground
after the one he is picture with he turns to my aunt's video camera and says "I'm sorry mum!" then after we pay the bill he staggered off towards the street with a couple of liters of mango margarita in him as well as a couple of pounds of food sloshing around in his stomach. one of the a fore mentioned annoying pushy shop keepers Called upon him to stop in the shop,
"no gracias!!!"
"why no Gracias!?"
" 'cause; I'm pure steamin'!!"
after arriving in his room Jordan (who "never throws up") began to spew, but just as any scott he just kept on drinking.
Jordan's (or any scott's) liver
We just couldn't let him live this down so we gave him the "lexicon of Vomitology" for Christmas.
The other restaurant is know for being a pizza joint of all things, now I don't have a hilarious story about this one so bear with me. First of all the food was excellent, the wait staff was efficient, and it had all I wanted that last night: some peace and quiet. Now to a more rowdy affair; the famous "Coconuts", Coconuts is a restaurant on a cliff overlooking the beach, It is quite nearly out doors, and It would be If it were not for the palapa constructed on the bluff. Before anything you need to know that coconuts is basically a dive crossed with a college fraternity, meaning that it is full of drunks partying on till all hours and that it's wall are covered with strange collections; put bluntly, the clothing of people who have eaten there before O_O. Now my first reaction was to the signed T-shirts plastered upon the underside of the palapa's roof, I that's kind of cool if a little creepy, then as I looked around I saw that there was also underwear hung upon the support beams of the palapa; at that point I realized the true depth of debauchery that Coconuts housed. It is unknown to me whether or not the clothing items were taken with or without the permission of their original wearers, but considering that a half-pissed middle aged "lady" tried to expose herself before her "friends" took pictures, laughed, and held her down, after this I am inclined to think that the items were removed of the wearer's free will but were taken by some random employee.
But better than any restaurant prior or after; La Casa del Pescador (The House of the Fisherman), put in short the food (steak, lobster, and shrimp) was well and beyond any to be expirenced in Mexico or most places in the U.S., the prices were more than fair ( they were equivalent to anywhere else we had eaten in Mexico), and there was an f***ing Crocodile; yes that is what I said a wild crocodile in a little pond just outside the building; in fact you had to cross a little bridge over the pond to get to the restroom. After we left the restaurant we were asked to stop and come around to the side to watch him feed the various meat scraps the wild four foot reptile that resided in their decorative pond, apparently the croc known as Claudia had moved in recently and they had been feeding her the leftovers, so of course Claudia decided to stay.
during our stay in Cozumel we had intended to dive as we did last year (which is the reason we had decided to come to Cozumel in the first place), but we had forgotten our dive cards, and when we finally got things sorted out so that we could the weather took a turn for the worst and we were left without any opportunities to dive. Though our original purpose was lost we still found entertainment. first and for most we had a day cruise on a trimaran called the Toucan,
Sydne (my sister) and Poy (my forign exchange student-sister) hanging off the mast of the good ship Toucan
this was by far the most bang you can get for your buck. First and foremost on my memory is the excellent food on board; by far the best Mexican food while in Mexico (od considering it was all prepared on a small charcoal grill hanging off the end of a thirty foot boat), second was the spinnaker ride; this entailed waiting for a strong wind, putting you on a small seat tied to the end of a loose sail, and letting the wind thrash you around until either the wind died down or the crew of the good ship toucan managed to wrestle the sail down.
Clay rising up on the spinnakerThe other family that came with us on this voyage happened to be from our area of Ohio (huh small world), THe mother of said group got completely smashed (notice a pattern); and on the spinnaker ride quite nearly lost her top, but her dignity it was gone.
Over the course of our trip we had left for the mainland town of Playa del Carmen, this was overall pretty enjoyable, but not nearly so to write an entire passage on so some highlights. A man that looked strikingly like inspector Cluso from the pink panther movie snuck-up behind me and put an iguana on my head,
notice the homicidal gleam in my eye primarily because of mr. Cluso's ambush secondarily because I hate having my picture takenWe ate at an interesting if not terribly good restaurant known as Hemingway's Palapa, yes the Writer Ernest Hemingway (I know it does'nt make any sense).
at Hemingway'sWe trekked all over town to find a dive shop so that my uncle could buy a t-shirt (It happened to be in a section of town that resembles San Francisco in spirit), saw a shop that sold realllllly weird crap
simply put I have no words to describe it other than WTFOh and we almost missed the last ferry back to Cozumel that day.
Then the day came to leave, we took yet another crazy taxi back to the airport (or should I say concrete strip in a jungle), signed in, got on the plane and were greeted by the pilot saying that there was some maintenance that was "mostly paperwork" so 15 minutes later he announced that there was "something dripping out of the engine" and "it will be just a few minutes" thirty minuted later we taxied out on to the runway only to turn around again, It turns out there was another problem; apparently one of the maintenance staff had pulled some of the cockpit circuit breakers and neglected to tell the pilot, um okay; now I feel safe. So after an hour we were on our way, they opted to give everyone on the plane a complementary set of headphones as an "I'm sorry I shook your faith in our airline" gift. Upon arriving in Houston we went through customs quickly and smoothly, missed our flight, got reassigned (that day thankfully), and ran from one end of the terminal to the other in the never ending game of musical chairs that is the airport terminal fortunately we got on our flight home. Once on board we taxied out onto the runway only to find that someone forgot to shut the cargo hatch (well actually secure it but whatever), again, wtf; no never mind I just have lost faith in continental. Upon landing in Cleveland the plane just about landed diagonally; the cross wind was so bad that the plane wobbled severely all the way down. We arrived: alive and relatively unharmed, after continental, and Cozumel's taxi service my a fore mentioned crazy grandfather was a nice change of pace. I arrived home at nearly one o'clock in the morning, passed out im my bed and woke up for school at 5.30 in the morning.
Did you know, that the dead love iMerchandise as much as they hate the living...
Shown: Ingenuity of the highest order
