Sunday, May 23, 1993

This morning, Roy fiddled with the tuner, and all of a sudden, it started working again, even though he didn't do anything! He said the problem was in the Send/Receive switch. So now we have shortwave again. All the damage from the squall has been repaired, except, of course, the Belize flag, which we'll never see again.
We paddled to a small marina called Club Nautico to see if we wanted to move Jofian there, and immediately decided that we didn't. It was very crowded. Nearly all the boats there were cabin cruisers.
After lunch, we paddled to the ramp and started walking to the airport, but we saw a bus and hopped on it. The bus took us on a grand tour. We went all around the town. Even the poorer sections here are clean and neat, with almost no litter. They must have really had a big "Don't Litter" campaign here. Once, when we were walking across the plaza, we saw a couple of little kids kicking an empty cereal box around. They started to walk away and leave the box on the ground. Roy said to them sternly, "Basura!" (trash), and the little boy went back, picked up the box and put it in a trash receptacle.
We did the whole circuit and then got off at the airport. We were really impressed. The terminal was large and modern. Looked like many terminals in the U.S. Even had the usual line-up of car rentals: Hertz, Avis, National, etc.
When we left the airport, we asked two cab drivers what the fare would be to the Mayan ruins. They both said, "Thirty dollars," so that must be the standard fare. I said, "Demasiado," (too much), and one of the drivers said, "Si."
A city bus came by, so we rode it to the waterfront. We had seen a big map at the airport that showed all the places of interest on the island. The Archeological Park seemed fairly close, so we were going to walk to it. We walked and we walked. And we walked. Came to a ritzy waterfront hotel, so we wandered around the grounds for a while. Walked some more. Saw a really nice-looking ice cream parlor, so we went in. The place was immaculate and very attractive. In fact, I've never seen as nice an ice cream parlor in the U.S. It was air-conditioned, too. We each had two scoops of delicious ice cream. The scoops were larger than the ones we had yesterday, the ice cream tasted better, and the ambience was far nicer, yet the bill was 10 pesos less!
We walked some more. Then we saw a bus coming, so we flagged it, and it stopped. It turned out to be a hotel bus; the driver thought we were going to one of the hotels. We told him we had thought it was a city bus, and we were just sightseeing, but he let us ride anyway. There was no charge for the bus, but Roy tipped him 12 pesos for being so nice. He drove us miles and miles into the countryside, practically to the south end of the island. The last stop was an ultra ritzy hotel for the rich and famous. There were security guards in immaculate white uniforms all over the place. They wouldn't even let us walk around the grounds, so we had to content ourselves with peering through cracks. This place had everything: tennis courts, volleyball courts, grassy lawns, and a lot more we couldn't see.
We got back on the bus to return to town. This time the driver went down a lot of side roads. We hadn't seen any sign of the Archeological Park on the way out, but all of a sudden we went right by it on 65 Avenida Sur. We never would have found it the way we were going. It was too late in the day to visit the park, so we stayed on the bus, but at least now we know where it is. We keep wishing we had some way to get our bicycles ashore, so we could ride to these interesting places.
The driver let us off back at the Malecon (waterfront walk). We needed to renew our Mexican fishing licenses, so we went in a dive shop to see if they sold them there. (Cozumel is noted for its excellent SCUBA diving; there are zillions of dive shops.) The young man at the counter, Fernando, told us in English we could get fishing licenses from the Port Captain. When we told him we live on a sailboat, his eyes lit up, and he begged us to take him sailing. He loves to sail. So we might stay here an extra day to take him sailing. We don't want to arrive in Key West on a three-day weekend anyway.
Back in town, we passed a small shop on a sidestreet that had attractive hand-woven blankets for sale. When we found out they were only 20 pesos, we bought two. The shopkeeper presented me with a bar of Swiss chocolate.
We finally reached the boat ramp and paddled back to the boat in time for a refreshing swim before dark.