Here are some pictures from Kara and I’s week long vacation that we took to Cozumel Mexico.  We stayed at the El Cid La Ceiba resort south of the only town on the island and had an awesome time.

It rained the evening we flew into town, but then never again as long as we stayed.  Weather was beautiful.  Enough overcast to keep you from burning alive but always hot enough that the water felt great.

We declined the all-inclusive option at the resort and rented a car for the week to explore the town and see how much native cuisine we could sample without getting sick.

As far as a typical day went, we hit the beach area by 8:30 every morning – sometimes eating breakfast at the resort’s on-site restaurant and drinking fresh squeezed fruit juices.  As soon as we got hot enough, we put on the snorkel equipment and swam with the fish for an hour or so.  Lunch was a quick drive into town to sample some cheap local restaurants.  Back to the beach area – snorkel, lay in the sun, chat with friends we made at the resort, etc.  Dinnertime was our second foray into town for the day and everywhere we ate had great food.

We figured that by week’s end, we had snorkeled around 20 hours and eaten at 8 different restaurants.  Between those activities and laying around on the beach, we didn’t do much else.  What a relaxing vacation in the most beautiful place either one of us has ever been.

Anyways, here’s a sampling of the pictures we snapped while on vacation.

Flying in to Cozumel.

Chilling down on the beach.

We stopped in the local grocery store a couple times during the week to stock up on 35 cents – 2 liter bottle waters.  Same size was $4 at the resort.  Didn’t try the cactus pads, but did buy a big bunch of plantains to eat during the week.

Did a little shark fishing.

As well as admiring the local sculptures.

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The sunset was beautiful every evening looking right off our unit’s balcony

This was the view from our balcony during the daytime.  You can see the coral heads and a long steel buttress laying underwater in 5-10 feet of water.  They had spectacular snorkeling around them.


This was the picture of the week.  As I like to call it – a National Geographic picture.  This man was cleaning his catch of the day on the rocky outcrop next to the main street in the evening.  The pelican was patiently waiting for scraps just a few feet away.  We saw him later in the evening peddling his catch from restaurant to restaurant on a bicycle.

We thought this sculpture was particularly cool because of how much we snorkeled during our vacation.

One of my many meals during the week.  These coconut shrimp were among the best seafood I’ve eaten anywhere.

This was at the same restaurant.  I guess there is no better way to advertise fresh fish than to hang a 30 pound grouper off a rope directly over the menu table.

On the next to last full day of our vacation, we visited Punta Sur National Park.  One of their feature attractions is an enormous mangrove/estuary complex full of saltwater crocodiles.  This guy was over 11 feet long.

Picture from atop the park’s lighthouse.  Probably the best scenery we saw while on the island.

Apparently the lighthouse was built for oompa loompas because this was the size of the door to get to the top of the lighthouse.

I’ll end the post with a run down of our best snorkeling finds of the week.

*lobsters
*swam with a sea turtle for 15 minutes
*7 foot shark on 2 occasions
*5 foot barracuda
*2 octopus – one of which “inked” Kara
*stingrays
*skates
*starfish
*giant spotted eagle ray
*squid

It was simply unbelievable and each trip out was better than the previous.  I saw every single thing I had hoped to see and more.

It won’t be the last time we visit Cozumel.  What an unbelievable trip!

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