Cozumel Part One

To celebrate Chris's 40th birthday (coming up at the end of March) we went on vacation to Cozumel with some friends. It was so amazing. Beautiful, warm, mostly sunny, excellent company, yummy food and being with my husband. My own little piece of paradise.

We rented a house (Villa Torres) that was basically on the ocean. There was just a little road that ran in front of us and then a (slightly rocky) beach. We had daily maid service so no one had to make their bed or worry about getting sand in the house. We had a chef come and make us breakfasts and dinners and then clean up afterwards. We had a chauffeur
(thanks, babe :). Basically we were living the good life.

Chris and I flew down on Valentines day (Sunday) and got there in the early afternoon. The first thing we saw was a big iguana that lived by our pool. His name is Stubbs because he's missing some of his tail.

We were welcomed "home" by Malachi and Lauren (who got there on Saturday) and joined later in the day by Antz and Gina, and in the evening by Dave and Kirsten. While it was just the four of us we ran into town to go to the grocery store to get food for lunches and munchies. Too bad we did this when we were hungry. We bought so much food that we never did get around to eating and ended up giving it to Isabell the chef. While we were there we decided to get some taco's from the little deli there. It took quite a while to figure out we were waiting in the wrong line to order. Once we got our tacos though we realized it was well worth the wait. As we were leaving there was a big float from Carnival on the side of the road and we decided to take advantage of it.

On Monday we went to the store again and stopped in the bakery section. It was so cool. They give you a big platter and you just fill it up with the breads you want and then they put it in a bag with the total printed on the outside. We picked a bunch of different treats and most of them were pretty good.

On Monday night we went to town planning to take part in Carnival (we didn't plan on being in Mexico for this, it was just a pleasant surprise) but it had been rained out. So instead, we went to Senor Frogs and had virgin strawberry daiquiris. It was fun. There were almost no people there and so we had a blast being loud by ourselves. At one point we all went on the dance floor (Dave has got some moves) and shook it up. Some strange drunk girl kept trying to come dance with us but we would just dance away from her and turn our backs. We decided it might be a little harsh but we weren't about to let her start dancing with our husbands. Sadly, she left Frogs when we wouldn't let her in our circle. Hopefully she didn't remember it the next morning. While we were there they brought out these nasty wigs and put them on the guys. Come to think of it, I haven't checked Chris for lice since then. Hmmm...



On Tuesday we went for a drive around the island. We had planned on possibly going zip-lining but didn't want to make a final decision until we'd seen the course. Boy are we glad we waited. It was so cheesy. Basically it was three big rock walls that you zipped between. Plus, there were rope bridges and you could climb the walls! For only $70 a person! Wow, how could we pass it up? Very easily. It was at a pretty resort though.


As we kept driving we were passing some pretty bushes and Chris hopped out and got me some purple flowers to put in my hair. What a sweet husband I have! Ü

On the north end of the island we found a little family of raccoons that really liked us. Of course that could be because we were feeding them all sorts of junk food...

On the east side of the island there are gorgeous sand beaches and big waves. They actually advise you not to swim on that side because there's a serious undertow. We went into the water but stayed close to shore. Even still, it was amazing how easy it was to be swept out. At one point we realized we were further out than we wanted to be and as we were swimming back in I had a moment of panic. I'm not a great swimmer and I felt like I was swimming really hard and not making any progress. Once I made it back to where my feet could touch I made sure to plant them firmly anytime the waves pulled against me. We did do a little body surfing while we were out there though. Gina got swamped right near the end. It was awesome. Ü

When we got to the south end of the island we found a resort that had some safer areas for snorkeling. I didn't see much of Chris after that, just the back of his head. Ü

There were some nice lounge chairs for laying out and so we did a bit of relaxing while wild and exotic animals wandered around us. Okay, some of them were exotic...


For dinner on Tuesday we started out by going to a restaurant we read about in our tourist info.

After being seated and waiting about twenty minutes with no one coming to greet us or give us menus we decided to leave and go someplace else. The second place took our drink orders immediately.
The food was great and when we heard fireworks going off for Carnival the server let us go up on the roof to watch them. They were pretty but there were some major sparks drifting down. Yikes!
The bathrooms left something to be desired. The men's room had a big trough (there's no other way to describe it) and the women's was a two-seater. Awkward!
(Yes, I took pictures...)


I must go to bed now so I'll have to finish this another time. But, at least I got started on it...