Cozumel

January 27, 2012


Cozumel, Quintana Roo (Yucatan) Mexico



The island of Cozumel appears prosperous in January, largely because of the 5 or more cruise ships that dock here six days a week. One day we counted seven. We figure that could be about 20,000 visitors in one day--on an island of 75,000. The taxis line up near the port for blocks, hopeful that they'll have a fare. Tourism workers drive cars and SUVs, talk on cell phones, take their chunky children to Burger King, dress smartly. But the minimum wage in Mexico is 54 pesos a day--which makes it, at 13 to the dollar, a hair over $4. In the tourist restaurants, a beer costs 20 pesos, a taco plate 100 or more. Old men drive three wheeled bicycle carts for hire to carry luggage, cement blocks, soft drinks for sale, or grandma. And anywhere you go in town, taxis circle like sharks after an elusive fare.

We came to Cozumel because of the clear, warm waters for snorkeling and diving, the balmy weather, and the chance to be in Mexico again. And because we found, on line, an apartment for rent owned by an American woman who was most communicative and helpful, for a monthly rate of $1300. Although that's not cheap, it is much less than most of the hotel rooms in the entire "Riviera Maya"--the coast south from Cancun to Belize that is thronging with visitors from Europe and the US. And it includes a kitchen/living room and separate bedroom and bath, a garden setting and a small pool, with maid service if we need it, plus wifi. We've been doing more apartment renting in the last couple of years of travel, finding that we really enjoy settling in, cooking, getting into a routine, and feeling a bit like residents. Calvin Trillin, in Travels with Alice, calls it hanging out. He thinks there ought to be a series of travel books on Hanging Out in Fance, Italy, and more. Cozumel isn't as glamorous as Tuscany, for sure, but hanging out here is really good.

So back to prosperous. There are houses behind high walls. You can't see them, but you can see the jungle of trees and flowering vines that surround them, and you sometimes get a glimpse, as a solid gate opens and a car emerges, of spacious hacienda living inside. Such houses occur randomly around the city. We live on Avenida 55, between Calles 3 and 5. There are no haciendas on our street, but we do have a wall and a locked gate. Our apartment is one of six in three buildings. We are many blocks from the port, and miles from the nearest beach. On our street are colorful little concrete block houses. Some are tidy, and a bougainvilla or palm peeks over a wall. Some have a covered porch in front that serves as a parking spot, a minivan bulging out over the sidewalk. Smaller ones, if you catch a glimpse inside, look less upscale. Often there is a hammock, a TV and some chairs, and not much else. On each block, a few houses have commercial activities on the porch or just inside. There's a man selling fruit--grapefruit and oranges stacked up neatly on a little table, while he sits much of the day in a plastic chair. There's a loncheria across the street, just down from the house where a tiny dog spends the day on the sloping metal roof. (He's stopped barking at us, finally.) There tacos are sold, and our Canadian neighbors in the apartment next to ours buy guacamole from him. (They were amazed to learn guacamole was mostly just mashed avacados. They had never known what an avacado looked like before they encountered one in our fruit bowl.) There's a guy who welds all day long in his garage. Another house has Abarrotes (groceries) Gaby painted on the wall, and the living room behind the open front door displays racks of chips. Many of the houses look run down, and some are empty: a severe hurricane sat malevolently over the island in 2005. There are broken down vehicles, scrap metal, discarded plastic toys, metal drums, plastic barrels--all sorts of detritus stuck here and there. Many houses are built right up to the sidewalks, which border the street. Walking the sidewalk is often not possible because of the clutter. And other issues. Sidewalk construction is the responsibility of the property owner, we surmise. Each section looks different, and the quality varies. Some are perfect, even cut with striations so they are not slippery in a rain. Others, though, are broken, heaved, cracked, humped or missing altogether. They are blocked by concrete electric poles, a parked car, a garbage can chained to a wall, or even, in one case, a row of recently planted royal palm trees, thriving in their concrete casing. This morning I had to detour around a clothes line filled with wash. We walk a lot. We have a little Nissan rented sedan, but it's a bit scary driving it around town, what with all the motorbikes filling the streets, passing cars whenever and however they can.

So this is our neighborhood, and we think the prosperity is a little thin. Maybe not trickling down to so very many on the island. Many of our neighbors seem to be just getting by.

We walk in the morning for exercise. There's a soccer field/track only a few blocks away, and each morning it is full of locals jogging and doing calesthenics. One very heavy guy has been there every morning bundled up in long pants and a Donald Duck sweatshirt. We are in shorts and a tank top in my case. It is warm. He was walking really slowly the first day, but he's picked up a little speed. Geo thinks it's a New Year's resolution. Our favorite walk is to the the old mercado, which still exists downtown, even though there are modern supermarkets just south of the city a few kilometers. There we visit "our" fish man, who filets the freshest of sea critters for us--snapper, mackerel, grouper. They cost about $7 a kilo--less than $3.50 a pound, guys. Another favorite is to the ice cream shop, also downtown. The coconut has so much actual coconut in it you have to chew. Okay, let's see it's 17 pesos--$1.30.



When we want to go to the beach, we drive. The beach scene in Cozumel seems a little strange. Maybe because of the day-visits of the thousands of cruise ship passengers, a series of day-use beach clubs line the calm, western side of the island instead of multiple hotels, though there are a few of those. Buses and taxis take the passengers out to these clubs where they can pay a fee to rent a beach chair, swim in a pool, drink a margarita, parasail, snorkel, kayak, scuba, play on giant inflatable water playground equipment (picture a floating slide and trampoline) or eat a $13 hamburger, or a $15 serving of ceviche. Happily at most clubs you can park, walk in, pass the souvenir stands, restaurant and booking staff, and walk up or down the beach to a relatively quiet spot to spread your beach mat, all without parting with a peso. We smuggle in a lunch. Posted signs tell you no food or beverages--in English. Better is to leave all that behind and find an empty beach, but this is a bit of a challenge. The island is a solid slab of ancient reef limestone, and much of the coast is rock. (Tidal pools form in the sculpted, sharp stone, and tiny crustaceans take up residence. You miss this on a jeep tour.) The best sandy bits are taken up by these clubs, hotels, and national parks that cost a lot to enter. The solution is to go to the wild east side where the surf roars in, there are no hotels and only a few palapa restaurants, and most of the visitors are just passing by on jeep tours of the island. But much of that coast is rock too, with intermittent pockets of beach. Still, you can have them to yourself. It's dangerous to swim, however, as there are currents and undertows. Our favorite beach, on the south coast and not dangerous at all, is in a park variously called Punta Sur or Faro Celarin. There's a reef off shore there, and after a long swim out to it, you can follow it with a current parellel to the beach. There are great fan corals swaying in the surges, and heaps of fascinating fish. The fish seem to swim with us as the current pulls us all along. Magical. We saw one absolutely brilliant fish today that had at least six colors. There must be a fish life list. I have to find out what he's called. Dive shops have fish ID cards. It's great that this beach is protected from development, but it's not so nice that it costs $12 a person to visit. Another way to snorkel is to go out to a reef with a boat. We tried one such outing, and were impressed. Snorklers were given neon green vests, and a snorkel master with a buoy went with us. There are many boats about, so we appreciated such concern with safety.


Many days we stop at the Mega on the way home. This is a Walmart sort of store with a terrific produce department. And anything else you can think of to buy. (Its logo is a pelican with a large pouch.) I fill my cart with more than I need, failing to focus on the fact that my present home is just a couple of kilometers away and I can come back tomorrow. It's an ingrained habit for someone living 40 miles from a grocery. I remembered to bring an old Mexican paperback cookbook from home, and it's been fun hunting ingredients for regional dishes and experimenting. There's a local flavoring paste called achiote that's used in sauces for fish and pork. I made Yucatecan Fish one night using it along with orange juice, onion and limes as a simmer sauce. The local tacos are made with unfried corn tortillas--just heated briefly on a griddle. You top this with cooked fish (or meat), chopped onion, cilantro, tomato, cabbage and lime. They are served open face, and you have to figure out how to pick them up and eat them. Delicioso. I've learned how to make an acceptable ceviche. I figure a flash frozen fish from Costco might just work. It could be my new pot luck hors d'ouvre. Food from the grocery is cheaper here than at home, if you buy tortillas and local produce, fish and meat. Most costly are processed and imported things like chips, canned salmon, peanut butter. We bought a heavy metal orange juice squeezer once we'd found 20 pounds of sweet ripe oranges for two dollars. It's a lot of work, pressing out that juice. But wow, is it good.


Local Color. We gave a worker at the Punta Sur park a ride one day, and I asked him if he was a Maya. There are many of Mayan descent here, and they do look a bit different than most Mestizo Mexicans. He said he was, and that he came from a small inland village where all the residents were of Mayan origin. He speaks Mayan, as well as Spanish and English, but his children do not. He says now kids can study Mayan in school, but his 14 year old daughter does not want to. "I tell her she should," he says. "It's important. It's our culture." The fear is so many young Maya are moving to the coast to serve the tourist industry, the language and culture will disappear even more rapidly than in the past.



At the lighthouse museum, Punta Sur, we learned that the Maya were great navigators, and undertook long trading voyages up and down the east coasts of the Americas. They built stone structures to tell themselves something about where they were, and if there was a good port--or danger. They planted signal palm trees, as in, pull in at the three palm island. I didn't know that.

There's a really good history museum here with descriptions of exhibits in Spanish and English. Gripping is the tale of a Spaniard of the 16th century who married a Mayan maiden and raised a family. Subsequent Spanish explorers urged him to return to Spain, but of course he was now a committed immigrant. He was later killed in an uprising, fighting along side his new people.



Tips for Travelers. We assumed renting a car from a local company would be cheaper, and benefit the locals. Wrong. We started looking for a car after we found that we could not get a pair of decent bicycles for a reasonable cost for a month. Renting bikes by the day is the norm--for $14. If you reserve a car online, even after you get here, it is MUCH cheaper than just showing up at the local office. For $28 a day-- one week minimum--we got a car including the local liability insurance--a must to stay out of jail if you have an accident. The local guys want $60 a day, and $25 for a motorscooter. There's no local bus transport except around town. The taxis seem to have island travel locked up, and it's $10 each way to get to the nearest beach.

There are a few small hotels and other apartment rentals on line. Staying in town is cheaper than any beach hotel, but you have to be prepared to rent a car, or bring your own bicycle. Some nice beaches are 10 or more miles from town, and the loop road around the island is more than 40 miles. Just for fun we looked up the price of a modest looking beach hotel. $275/night. This is the Caribbean, I guess.