May 7: Cozumel I have been waiting for this day for over 5 years: MEXICO baby! Honey had heard plenty of horror stories from Mexico, and was hesitant of taking a trip there, although I've told him for the last 5 years that he needs to go to Mexico. I knew my chances of ever going back to Cancun hinged upon this day, 8 hours on Cozumel. If he had a favorable impression, it may someday happen. If any little thing went wrong, squash the chance of ever returning. Honey actually woke before me, and saw land from our balcony. Of course I jumped out of bed (with heavy eyes still from crying so hard) and tried to see where we were. Channel 14 showed our track heading south, but having gone nowhere near Cancun. We approached Cozumel from Cayman, which was pretty much from the east, and wrapped around the north point of Cozumel. What we were seeing from our balcony was mainland Mexico, the Riviera Maya and Playa del Carmen. I went upstairs to take as many pics as possible of approaching Cozumel. That same Disney cruise ship from Cayman was also going to Cozumel, so I got some pics of it chasing us. Stalker ship, my friend called it. As 10:00 got closer, we headed down to the gangway to get off the ship as soon as possible. However, as 10:00 passed, an announcement was made that we had to wait for the Disney ship to safely dock before we could get off. Grrrrr. We were actually docked, so the good thing was we could just step off the ship and onto the pier. The great thing is that we were docked at the Langosta pier and not at the farther away International pier. There was a US Coast Guard ship also docked there, in Cozumel. Wierd. So we were off the ship and officially in Mexico! Again here, we made up ou own shore excursion. After a quick walk through of the Duty Free shop, we hit the strip. First stop was to Diamonds International to meet up with the shopping reps from the ship to set up a later meeting about my necklace. As we walked up to the store, we were having a cigarette. Of course there was a greeter saying come into our store. We told him we would come in after our smoke. He said we could smoke in the store. "This is Mexico, you are free here!" WoooHoooooo! That was music to my ears, and Honey liked it as well. We hit the Frogs souveneir store and spent the day shopping and picture taking. I got a 1.35 karat peridot loose stone (which is my birthstone) for telling the manager of one jewelry store happy birthday at the heads up of the onboard shopping rep. We also got a loose garnet and four loose sapphires along the way. I'll get jewelry made of those at some point. Honey got a couple Cubans. We also bought two pictures from the spray-paint guy, one of which has our ship on it and he wrote '"Honey Moon" Cozumel 2008' on it. At some point, we ran into our 'neighbors'. They were wasted! They ran up to us, hugged us and said, "We're going parasailing!" So funny! They had found $1.00 Coronas and tequila shots. As for us, we did some tequila tasting, and had a free daquiri at one store. We ended our time there at Frogs having yards, of course. I think Honey was impressed by his time in Mexico, and would return. He got a real good feel of the laid-back, anything goes feeling in Mexico we all know and love. Back onboard, we went up to the Lido deck. It was funny to see like every teenybopper there wearing knockoff sunglasses! They were everywhere! I went up to the Sun deck to take pics as we were leaving Cozumel, but before we got to the lighthouse at Punta Sur, I had changed something on the camera unknowingly, and sat with my head in my hands because it would only figure that I broke the camera now, too. It wasn't broke after all, but I still didn't get all of the pics I wanted of leaving the island. I didn't even get to see it all. Oh well. It was still a great feeling to know I was in Mexico territory, and what an amazing sunset it was before dinner! Later that night as we were winding down and ready for sleep, Honey looked out the window one last time and saw lights in the distance. I jumped up and looked out myself and told him I bet it is Chetumal. Sure enough, I checked the TV and it was. That was pretty cool. I had one last cigarette on my balcony as I watched the last of Mexico disappear.
