For our honeymoon we cruised on Carnival Imagination for four days to Cozumel. This is part of a series of anecdotes on the experience.
Our ship stopped first in Key West, but we stayed aboard and enjoyed massages at the spa and other onboard luxuries. When we got to Cozumel, though, we raced to disembark as fast as we could say, “One giant bottle of water, please.”
Even walking down the deepwater pier toward the port at San Miguel, we marveled at being on foreign soil for the first time — discounting a visit to Montreal as “barely foreign at all”. Our eyes picked out every detail identifying this new place and making it distinct from our home. And what were the first signs we were able to read? Starbucks! Burger King! Welcome to Mexico.
Just beyond the pier is a small shopping district (“Cozumel’s only shopping mall”) catering blatantly to the cruise ship crowd. One or two men — exclusively men — stand outside each store beckoning passers-by to sample their wares. “Maps of the ruins! Rent a scooter to see the ruins!” were popular enticements. And my favorite was when we were caught leaving one store and skipping the next: “It’s my turn now! I have something different for you!”
A few stalls christened themselves “The Dollar Store” and tagged all their merchandise with hand-written $1 USD stickers. More legitimate businesses quoted prices in pesos, but every business on the island accepted pesos and dollars interchangeably.
If a stall wasn’t “The Dollar Store” it likely had no prices at all, making everything negotiable. When we saw one man selling woven name bracelets and spotted a “Sophie” in the mix, we asked for a price. $12. And a moment later: $10. And when we put it back down, $8.
And when we walked away and saw nine more men selling the same bracelets? $4. Welcome home, Sophie! We got you a bracelet in Mexico!
At the appointed hour we lined up for our tour of the Mayan ruins with our guide Mimi, and our group marched back through the shopping mall to our bus. The place was transformed. The pairs of men still sat on stools beside their shops, but nobody made a move or uttered a word. They know that nobody can entice even the weak away from a tour group.
The Mayan ruins at San Gervasio offered a chance to see and touch and explore history in a way no textbook photography or classroom filmstrip could ever emulate. Some of the forgotten history has been hilariously substituted with wild speculation (“we don’t know what this was, so it was probably ceremonial”); but when you see a rocky road stretching off toward the distant ocean, met at the town’s entrance by a great stone arch, its purpose is hard to misconstrue.
With the sense of ancient history comes also a sense of a truly different place. Rain forest surrounds the ruins on all sides, and more than a few iguanas lounged beside the path as we passed by (some eyeing the tourists with familiar indifference; others fleeing at the sight of us). Even on a cloudy day, the temperature was easily 90°, and only a potent insect repellant (evidently not available in the United States) kept the mosquitos from eating us alive.
Follow that historical adventure with an hour to read on the beach, sipping a “Coca-Cola Light”, and dipping our feet into the impossibly blue water of the Caribbean ocean, and we’ve got ourselves a vacation.