MEXICO
For
years, Christy has dreamed of completing an Ironman. (To be accurate, her real dream is to compete
in the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii.
Hopefully, I’ll get to that in a future report). An Ironman race consists of a 2.4 mile swim,
a 112 mile bike ride, and a 26.2 mile run (a marathon). The events are completed consecutively, with
no real break in between. To officially
complete an Ironman, the race has to be finished in less than 17 hours.
Over
the last few years, Christy has completed three ½ Ironman races. Despite a wide variety of sports injuries,
she was determined to take her training to the next level. With the help of a professional coach, she came
up with a plan that she hoped would enable her to complete a full Ironman.
Early
in 2008 she began looking at the available races. Just finding a suitable event proved to be a
significant challenge. Many races get
booked a year or more in advance. Plus,
some of the more challenging courses didn’t appeal to her. Finally, she settled on an inaugural race
over Thanksgiving weekend in Cozumel, Mexico.
Initially a friend planned to join her at the race, but she was forced
to withdraw. I didn’t want Christy to
have to travel to Mexico alone, so I decided to join her. I figured I could lounge on the beach and
enjoy some Margaritas while she was circling the island.
Making
the trip affordable was also a challenge.
Flights to Cozumel were expensive, so we looked into flying into
Cancun. From Cancun we’d have to take an
airport shuttle to Playa Del Carmen, where we’d catch a ferry to Cozumel. Once on the island, we’d rent a car for the
duration of the trip.
Delta
offered the best fares to Cancun, but there was a catch. We had to get Christy’s bike to Cozumel,
too. The cost of shipping the bike by
UPS was absurd (in the neighborhood of $500 each way), and Delta’s oversized
baggage fees weren’t much better. Their
charge would be $300, each way. We
wondered if we could just buy a ticket for the bike
instead. We could just strap it into the
middle seat between us!
We
ended up booking our flight to Cancun on USAir.
The fare was a little higher, but the flight was direct, and the charge
for the bike was “only” $100 each way.
The
other major expense for the trip was a hotel.
We planned to spend six nights on the island, so that cost would be
significant. Luckily, one of the
benefits of traveling for a living is Priority Club Points. I had quite a few saved up, and I found one
Priority Club property on the island. We
blew a bunch of points there, as I booked all six nights for free. After making the reservation, I went back,
out of curiosity, to see what the nightly fare would’ve been. I nearly fainted when I saw that the regular
price was $450 per night! Initially I
was amused, but then I became alarmed.
This resort sounded way too high class for us. We don’t roll like that. What if we got kicked out?
As
the race approached, Christy’s training lagged behind schedule due to some lingering
injuries. Still, she was looking forward
to the challenge of achieving her goal of becoming an Ironman. I was looking forward to some quiet time in
the sun, as well as the chance to visit some Mayan ruins. My other goal, in the midst of the Swine Flu
panic, was to see if I could smuggle a small, live pig through customs and back
into the United States. Read on to see
if either of us was successful!
NO BRAKES!
The
morning of our departure started off well.
Our next door neighbor agreed to haul us to the airport, and we actually
left the house early. Things didn’t
start to unravel until we got to the airport.
There, we were unloading our luggage when Christy realized that her tote
bag wasn’t in the car. Apparently that
bag hadn’t made it into the pile of luggage by the front door the previous
evening. This was a bit of a crisis, as
the tote bag contained a number of important items, including Christy’s
passport.
Luckily,
we noticed this before our neighbor pulled away. Panicked, we flagged her down. She raced us back home, where I grabbed the
tote bag (it was on the kitchen table), before hurrying back to the
airport. We’d squandered our early
start, but thought we could still make our flight, thanks to the generosity of
our neighbor. Did I mention that she’s a
really good sport?
Our
luck started to turn around inside the airport.
There was virtually no line to check in.
Then, inexplicably, the agent only charged us the standard $20 checked
baggage fee for Christy’s bike, rather than the $100 fee for oversized
luggage. We were feeling pretty smug
about that, and plotted how we could spend the $80 we saved. We didn’t have to worry – we managed to spend
it several times!
Our
flight was smooth, and we breezed through customs in Cancun. At the airport I found an ATM, where I
withdrew what sounded like a lot of Pesos.
Before we left though, there was one amusing encounter. A policeman with a drug-sniffing dog passed
by, and the dog took interest in Christy’s carry-on. In fact, he was so interested he tried to
climb into it! This was amusing, but
also a bit alarming. What was he
after? We conceded to a quick search of
the bag, which turned up nothing. Maybe
he caught a whiff of our dog in the luggage?
We
found our shuttle van quickly, and before long we were cruising down the
highway towards Carmen del Playa. It was an interesting drive. The road was good – parts of it were probably
up to freeway standards back home – but occasionally we’d encounter a speed
bump. This seemed odd, out in the middle
of a high-speed highway. During the ride,
I took the opportunity to take in the scenery, and used road signs to work on
my Spanish. As we traveled, I noticed
dozens of dogs along the road – but not a single Chihuahua.
The
van dropped us off at the edge of a pedestrian mall in Carmen del Playa. This was a
bit of a hassle, as we had to muscle our luggage through the mall and down to
the ferry. Later, we discovered that
there were plenty of guys with carts in the area that were willing to haul
luggage for a tip. We made use of that
service on our return.
The
pedestrian mall / tourist trap features all sorts of shops and
restaurants. Despite my urge to leave it
as quickly as possible, we stopped at The Baking Company for lunch. Surprisingly, we enjoyed one of the best
meals of the trip there. The restaurant featured a menu written only in
Spanish. Most of the people we met
during our trip spoke English, but we occasionally went out of our way for a
more authentic Mexican experience.
After
lunch, we headed down to the ferry dock.
Typically we just miss ferries, and today was no exception. We arrived just in time to see the 2pm boat
pulling away. The next scheduled
departure was at 4, so we decided to kill some time at one of the bars
nearby. After a couple of margaritas at
Senior Frogs, we were ready for Cozumel!
I
blame those margaritas for what happened next.
I must’ve had my guard down as we strolled towards the dock. For some reason, I succumbed to a sales pitch
from Eric with Island Holidays. I’m
going to chalk this whole thing up as a learning experience. Next time, I’ll keep walking. On the other hand, most of the really
hilarious parts of the trip wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t agreed to do
business with Island Holidays.
Island
Holidays offered us a rental car for one week on the island for $100. This was cheaper than the car we had reserved
from Thrifty. More enticing was the fact
that they included liability insurance for no additional cost. This was extremely tempting. Our own insurance doesn’t cover rentals in
Mexico, and our credit cards don’t provide international coverage, either. Purchasing liability insurance would’ve
doubled the cost of the car. At this
point, Eric had my attention.
At
some point in the conversation, we’d mentioned that we were hoping to make it
back over to the mainland to take a tour of the Mayan ruins at Tulum. Eric agreed
to throw in another rental car from Playa Del Carmen, with insurance, along
with a pair of round trip ferry tickets, and a pair of tickets to Tulum, all for no additional charge. So what was the catch?
I
figured this deal would save us at least $200.
The only drawback? We’d have to attend a “presentation” at a
resort in Playa Del Carmen before we drove to Tulum. Eric assured us that the “presentation” would
only take 2 hours. Alarm bells were
going off in my head. I was having
flashbacks to that South Park episode where the entire family gets roped into
an eternal timeshare “presentation” at a ski resort. Despite this, for reasons that still remain
unclear, we agreed.
Getting
all of our luggage on and off the ferry proved to be
one of the biggest challenges of the entire trip. Otherwise, the ride was smooth. The ferry left 15 minutes late, but we still
made it to the island before 5pm. There,
I found the Island Holidays representative, who escorted me 2 blocks to CP
Rentals to pick up the car. Meanwhile,
Christy waited back at the ferry dock with our luggage.
I
signed the paperwork and was presented with a 2-door Chevy P.O.S. At first glance, I knew it would never work. How would we fit Christy’s bike in
there? Plus, the car was a stick
shift. I was pretty confident that it
would be in everybody’s best interest if we had an automatic.
I
requested another car, and eventually a 4-door Chevy P.O.S. showed up. It looked like an improvement, but in
hindsight, it couldn’t have been.
Before
I left, the clerk went over some really important tidbits of information with
me. Most significant was that traffic on
most of the north / south roads on the island have right-of-way. Eastbound and Westbound drivers have to stop
at each intersection (which rarely have stop
signs). The exception to this was the
main eastbound and westbound roads. On
these major thorofares, cross-island traffic has the
right-of-way. So, all you have to
remember is A) Which direction you are driving, and B) whether or not you are
on a main road. If you can keep those
things straight, you might be able to avoid an accident. Maybe.
At
this point, it’s probably worth mentioning that the free insurance covered only
liability – not damage to the car.
Before I left, the clerk made quite an event of examining the car from
every angle, noting every dent and scratch.
I found this hysterical. The car
was a piece of junk. The interior was a
disaster – it looked like someone had given birth in the back seat, and it
smelled like mold. Examining this car
for door dings was like counting warts on a toad. What was the point? I could’ve worked over that car for 10
minutes with a crowbar without reducing its resale value one Peso.
I
finally got away about 30 minutes after leaving Christy at the ferry dock. I knew she was probably wondering what had
happened to me! I drove half a block
north, and turned west (not on a main road) to head back to the dock. It wasn’t until I was almost at the first
intersection that I discovered that the car had virtually no brakes! This was all kinds of exciting – luckily
nobody was coming from the other direction!
I pushed my foot through the floorboards, and the car eventually came to
a stop – just before the next intersection, which happened to be the island’s
main road.
I
probably should’ve gone back immediately to request another car. I was tired of dealing with those guys
though, and didn’t want to have to endure that whole process again. At this point, I just wanted to pick Christy
up and head to the resort. Very slowly,
I made a left onto the main road and crept down to the ferry dock where Christy
was waiting.
The
drive from the dock to our hotel was a series of thrills. In fact, all driving on the island is
exciting, even in a car with functioning brakes. Most of the locals get around on
scooters. The scooters aren’t just
limited to individuals, either. They appeared
to be the top choice of transportation for families, too. On more than one occasion, we saw a man
driving, with a female sitting behind him, and a toddler riding shotgun. Driving among all those scooters is fun,
because they come at you from virtually every direction. Aside from the scooters, the rest of the driving
experience was sheer chaos, too. Every
few seconds, a car, bike, pedestrian, cart, child, dog,
or livestock would dart out into traffic in front of us. This was extremely exciting in a car with
virtually no brakes!
To
add to the fun, the windows began to fog up as we drove. The defrost had no
effect, and wiping the windows was nearly as useless. Before long, I had my head out the window,
steering with one hand. It was a huge
relief when we reached the resort. We
valet parked, which was a little like entering a three-legged, mud-covered mutt
into the Westminster Dog Show. It was
difficult to resist telling the valet to take good care of it.
We
checked in to the resort, where we got a free upgrade to an oceanfront room.
The staff was extremely friendly, and the room had everything we needed. After unpacking, we both did a brief
workout. I used the resort’s gym, which
was small and miserably hot. Meanwhile,
Christy jogged around the resort. Later,
we bravely drove back into town for dinner.
Somewhere along the way we figured out how to get the
defrost to work. The brakes were
still nearly worthless, but I managed to avoid running over any locals,
tourists, or athletes along the way.
At
some point I figured out the trick to getting the rental car to stop. Basically it involved braking long before you
actually wanted to stop. Of course, this
took some getting used to. We could only
pray that we wouldn’t need to stop suddenly.
If we did, I planned to try the emergency brake. After a couple of days, the biggest problem I
had was backing out of a parking space. If we parked on any sort of incline, the car
would roll as soon as it was in gear, regardless of
how far down the brake pedal was pushed.
We
weren’t feeling very adventurous, so we settled for a visit to the local Margaritaville Café.
The restaurant features a nice deck on the waterfront, great frozen
margaritas, and decent food. Afterwards,
we were exhausted from our long day, and headed straight back to the
resort.
Editor’s
Note: In our reports following our 2005 trip
to Canada, we introduced a feature titled “the French word of the day”. Due to its overwhelming popularity, we’ve
decided to reprise that feature with “the Spanish word of the day”.
The Spanish word of the day is “sin frenos”. “Sin frenos” translates to “without brakes”, as in “Our
piece of crap rental car is sin frenos”!!!
CHAKANAB
We
got up early the next morning and had a light snack for breakfast. Then, we drove a couple of miles down the
coast to Chakanab National Park. There, Christy did an organized training
swim. I didn’t join her in the park, as
I would’ve had to pay the $19 entrance fee.
Instead, I went for a run along the old coast road. It was a decent run, even though it was
miserably hot and humid. At least the
scenery was nice along the coast. There
is very little development at this end of the island, and I enjoyed sweeping
views of the ocean.
I
returned to the park entrance and met Christy there. She’d had a rough swim due to strong
currents. She was extremely concerned,
as she was counting on the swim being the “easy” part of the race. She’s been an avid swimmer since childhood,
and was expecting the 2.4 mile ocean swim to be nearly effortless. If that wasn’t the case, it would drain a lot
of the energy she would need for the final two events.
We
returned to the resort and attempted some snorkeling. There are some good snorkeling areas right
from the beach (which is manmade) behind the resort. Unfortunately, the rough surf made swimming
challenging, and seemed to scatter the schools of fish we were trying to
watch. We gave up on the snorkeling
pretty quickly and headed into town for lunch.
We
parked at the Mega Mart, mainly because their parking deck offers the easiest
parking on the south side of town. We
stopped inside the Mega Mart to pick up a few groceries. There, we bought a 5 gallon jug of water for
15 pesos. Back at the Cancun airport, a
pint of water cost 43 pesos. We found
the Mega Mart to be just like a Wal Mart back home –
it was full of cheap merchandise for sale, and everyone there was speaking
Spanish.
We
walked across the street for lunch, and picked the restaurant that is next door
to Margaritaville.
This restaurant actually had a turkey Thanksgiving dinner on the menu
(one day only!), but we both chose to get fajitas. They were good, but a bit heavy for lunch.
After
lunch, Christy walked down to the convention center to officially register for
the race. Meanwhile, I retrieved her
bike from the car and found the bike assembly area. Christy had no idea how to put her bike back
together. Fortunately, a local bike shop
had a booth set up for that purpose.
They assembled her bike for her and didn’t even charge a fee, although I
did give a tip. Afterwards, while I was
waiting for Christy to finish registering, a sudden storm swept in. Sheets of rain fell, and fierce winds
threatened to blow away the bike shop’s tent.
The storm passed almost as quickly as it came. By the time Christy emerged from the
convention center, all of the excitement was over.
We
loaded the assembled bike back into the car (it barely fit) and went
exploring. We drove through town, and
found the main cross-island road heading east.
We were almost to the eastern coast when we reached the entrance to the Mayan
ruins of San Gervasio. We arrived at 3:48 to find the gates
closed. Apparently, the park closes at
3:45. 3:45? How did they come up with that time?
Since
we were almost half way around the island, we decided to keep going. A couple of miles down the road we reached
the east coast. Here, we passed a dirt
road heading north through the jungle, just inland from the sea. This road leads into the largely undeveloped
northern end of the island. It passes a
number of Mayan ruins, but these are only accessible on guided tours. Instead, we followed the main island road
south.
The
drive along Cozumel’s east coast was fantastic!
There is very little development on this side of the island. For the most part, it’s just a wild coastline
with rocky bluffs, tide pools, and pounding surf. We cruised the main
road, enjoying the scenery. Meanwhile,
Christy took the opportunity to scout out the race course. She would be cycling through here on Sunday –
three times!
After
a few miles, we spotted an appealing beach and pulled off the road. We walked down through rocks, coral, shells
and blooming flowers to stroll among the tide pools. We didn’t see much in them, but it was still
fun exploring the area and listening to the pounding surf.
Although
it was warm on Cozumel, it was still late November,
and the sun set almost as early there as back home. With the day nearing its end, we resumed the
drive. At the south end of the island,
we passed the Faro Celarain Eco Park. This park covers much of the south end of the
island and features an impressive lighthouse.
Because it was getting late, we decided to save it for later. Unfortunately, we never made it back over
there. Missing out on that is one of my
few regrets from our trip.
We
drove back towards the resort, making only a brief evening stop at the ruins of
El Cedral.
That area didn’t seem very exciting, and we were both getting
hungry. We returned to the resort
briefly, before driving downtown for dinner.
There, we found a cheap parking lot with one open spot. It was conveniently located near the
pedestrian-only area in the middle of downtown San Miguel. Strolling through there was enjoyable, albeit
a little tedious due to the many aggressive salesmen. We found the people of Cozumel to be
extremely friendly, even if they mistook every gringo for a walking ATM.
We
had dinner that night at Casa Denis, which is in the pedestrian mall. The meal was excellent, and Casa Denis ended
up being my favorite restaurant of the trip.
Although Casa Denis isn’t exactly a local hangout, it was a much more
authentic Cozumel dining experience than the Margaritaville
Café!
After
dinner and a couple of cervezas, we headed back to
the resort. We were exhausted, as we had
a lot planned on Friday. That morning,
we would catch an early ferry over to the mainland. We were both looking forward to checking out
the Mayan ruins of Tulum while we were there.
The Spanish word of the day is “Perra Moto”,
which translates to “bike bitch”. As in,
“Christy came to Cozumel to do the Ironman, and I was her Perra
Moto.” While waiting for Christy outside
of the convention center, another athlete informed me of the term, which
describes the triathlete’s helper (literally the
person that hauls her bike around for her).
Back to Cozumel
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