Greetings from Cozumel
Hola!
We´ve now been in Cozumel for two and a half days, and we have finished our certification dives and are now officially scuba divers! We booked two more days of diving through the same dive shop for Monday and Tuesday. We saw a few moray eels, a puffer fish and a scorpion fish, as well as a huge lobster, but the reef where we did the class was somewhat sparse -- small outcroppings of coral instead of a large shelf. Still, the large schools of fish were incredible. We´ll go to different dive sites next time, so hopefully we´ll see some new sights.
We booked an all-day tour to Chichen Itza, the Mayan capital, tomorrow. It´s on the mainland, and from what I have heard, is a must-see.
Our hotel is nice -- big room with a huge shower. The beds are hard, but thats apparently the case with all Mexican hotels. If we had come in May, it´s only $45 a night to stay here.
We´ve definately fallen into the siesta habit -- diving is very tiring, and we come back wanting a huge lunch to replace all the calories we burned. Since you can´t drink the water, and beer is cheaper than soda, we eat a huge lunch, drink a beer each and then want to return to the room to crash immediately afterwards.
Hotel breakfast is awesome - fresh squeezed orange juice, fresh pineapple, papaya and melon, and lots of little small Mexican pastries that are way better than donuts.
We plan to rent a scooter on Monday or Tuesday after we dive and run around the island. We´re on a sort of warf-front, none of the beaches on the island are real, they´re all man-made, and we want to scope out a good one to visit on Wednesday before we leave. We may try to squeeze in a horseback ride through the jungle one afternoon as well.
Cozumel got hit hard by Hurricane Wilma, and though most of the business have been repaired, there are still many places under construction. Often, in the residential part of the city, there will be an occasional block that has a small lot that´s still filled with rubble when all the buildings around it are repaired -- places where the owner hasn´t had the money to rebuild yet.
More news later!
We´ve now been in Cozumel for two and a half days, and we have finished our certification dives and are now officially scuba divers! We booked two more days of diving through the same dive shop for Monday and Tuesday. We saw a few moray eels, a puffer fish and a scorpion fish, as well as a huge lobster, but the reef where we did the class was somewhat sparse -- small outcroppings of coral instead of a large shelf. Still, the large schools of fish were incredible. We´ll go to different dive sites next time, so hopefully we´ll see some new sights.
We booked an all-day tour to Chichen Itza, the Mayan capital, tomorrow. It´s on the mainland, and from what I have heard, is a must-see.
Our hotel is nice -- big room with a huge shower. The beds are hard, but thats apparently the case with all Mexican hotels. If we had come in May, it´s only $45 a night to stay here.
We´ve definately fallen into the siesta habit -- diving is very tiring, and we come back wanting a huge lunch to replace all the calories we burned. Since you can´t drink the water, and beer is cheaper than soda, we eat a huge lunch, drink a beer each and then want to return to the room to crash immediately afterwards.
Hotel breakfast is awesome - fresh squeezed orange juice, fresh pineapple, papaya and melon, and lots of little small Mexican pastries that are way better than donuts.
We plan to rent a scooter on Monday or Tuesday after we dive and run around the island. We´re on a sort of warf-front, none of the beaches on the island are real, they´re all man-made, and we want to scope out a good one to visit on Wednesday before we leave. We may try to squeeze in a horseback ride through the jungle one afternoon as well.
Cozumel got hit hard by Hurricane Wilma, and though most of the business have been repaired, there are still many places under construction. Often, in the residential part of the city, there will be an occasional block that has a small lot that´s still filled with rubble when all the buildings around it are repaired -- places where the owner hasn´t had the money to rebuild yet.
More news later!