Cozumel April 24th, 2009 - Day 7
My mood has hit rock bottom. Our vacation is now limited to forays out in short controlled bursts and then hours of being holed up in our room. It disappoints me to no end, only because there seems to be nothing I can do to fix it. I feel like I have let the family down and it has really cost me morale. I cried this morning after our first tantrum and return to be holed up in the room.
Today was going to be a potentially interesting day, if we could just manage Haylie's stimulation and mood. Colleen and I like the tradition of renting a car and driving to the West side of the island. Cozumel is a strange place. The West side of the island is one large city effectively, San Miguel, though that's the name only the locals use. Tourists for the most part believe Cozumel is the city, not the entire island. On the East side is mostly undeveloped land with a few scattered hotels, beaches, and some restaurants. There is no power grid that extends to the East side of the island, and many of the spots don't even have a generator. They will literally bring in a day's supply of ice, and will cook using propane or some other gas. Given the amount of destruction left on the West side due to hurricanes, I can at least understand why the East side isn't more fully developed, but I fail to see how there are places in this resort community that still don't have basic services. I guess it is a matter of seeing the world through American eyes again.
So, this year instead of a Jeep, we opted for a car that would have air conditioning and could safely hold a car seat. We had to pay cash for the rental because the rental desk informed me that it would cost 20% in surcharges to use credit. I personally believe he's pocketing at least some percentage of the money as I've never once seen a posted rate for the cars. Still, it isn't a bad deal for a one day rental and this car did have a working A/C and they rented us a car seat for $15 USD for the day. We loaded Haylie into her seat just after her morning nap and hoped for the best.
Our first stop was the major grocery store in town. It was quite similar to Wal-Mart in that it had everything from groceries to consumer electronics. We were accosted at the start by a man who just "wanted to help" show us how to find what we wanted. We were worried about running out of diapers and it would give us the chance to see how much we had packed that we could have easily bought here and had less to carry. They had Huggies, Gerber Graduates, and Pampers wipes. They even had the swim diapers we bought for the trip so we likely could have avoided packing almost everything but formula. The ironic part is that learning the lesson doesn't apply unless we choose to have more kids. By our plans, we won't be back in Cozumel until Haylie is almost 4 and won't at that point need any of those items. I don't think we chose poorly to bring all this stuff, but intuitively, we should have known we wouldn't need to bring it ourselves. As we checked out, here came the helpful gentleman again. He was selling a time share in a hotel just down the road from the store! We tried to explain that we didn't need his club, as we were members here at Sol Melia, but his reply was we could do an exchange! WHAT?? Apparently, this company hasn't yet earned a permit to hawk at the airport directly, but to try to tackle us in the store was just insane! We just kept walking and kept saying 'no' until we got out of sight.
Back into the car and onto the open road. Haylie seemed OK for a while but then she started fighting off her natural urge to sleep in the car. That meant she was a little grumpy, but it was just the three of us in the car so we let her grump all she wanted. Our plans had been to get to a lighthouse on the Southern most tip of the island. When we got to the turn off, however, we discovered it was some expansive eco-park and that we'd have to pay an entrance fee to get in. We couldn't even tell from the sign which of 5 packages we'd need to pay to get in, or whether or not we'd be allowed to drive to see the lighthouse. It seemed a very long way in from the main gate and we weren't about to pay 30 dollars (the minimum entrance fee for two people to enter the park) only to get to the lighthouse and not be able to do anything there but basically turn around. So, we were close enough to what was going to be our second stop anyway, Rastas.
I don't know if the myth surrounding this place is true or not, but it has offered them an easy theme for the bar. Bob Marley supposedly loved Punta Sur and spent many days in Cozumel, specifically at the bar that originally stood on this spot. Rastas has picked up on that legend and now blasts Reggae music and sells shirts honoring the late genius. As an aside, I would imagine Marley would roll over in his grave if he knew that his name was being merchandised the way it is globally. It wasn't his style. When we were at Rastas last year, Colleen and I wrote our names on the bar along with Haylie's. We had hoped to find it when we returned, but of course it was long gone. So, we decided it would be OK, we'd just take a picture this time. Oh, but of course, the camera's battery was dead. I'd forgotten to charge it overnight and now we'd have NO pictures of Haylie's time on this side of the island. She started grumping a bit because the bar was stuffy and humid (no power means no air conditioning), and because she wanted to try to drink from mommy's Pina Colada herself without assistance, so I bundled her back into the pack and we walked out to see the ocean. It is a radically different experience on this side. The East side is exposed to the greater Gulf of Mexico and the Carribean Sea, which the West side faces Cancun and the Yucatan Peninsula. So, there are hard crashing waves, rough coral worn over the centuries creating natural blow holes, and other outcroppings not dissimilar from the ones we saw in Australia at 12 Apostles, or in Ireland around the Giant's Causeway. The difference here is the rock is predominately coral that's been worn down. Would have had some nice pictures to show you here, oh, wait, that's right, dumbass forgot to charge the camera!
We bundled back into the car and drove on toward Coconuts, our planned lunch stop. This restaurant and bar is a little more commercial, they use a generator so they do have power, but they still require cash because there's no phone to link them to a credit card clearing house over a POS terminal. When we went last year, they told us that they'd trade shirts where if we brought them one, they'd give us one of theirs in return. So, we had packed items specifically to make that trade this year. We had a good lunch with a couple of beers and used our new strategy for handling Haylie's outburst. If she starts screaming, we scooped her up and took her to a new scene that had less stimulus or even down to the car for a burst of A/C during a diaper change (no changing tables in the outhouse style toilets on this side of the island for sure.) It had moderate success. We still spent more time eating alone at a table for the three of us than we did eating together. We managed to communicate our desire to leave a shirt, but one of them was rejected. Still, we did leave one behind with our names and that we loved Coconuts. Of course, the fine print is that they'd prefer you flash your coconuts while removing the shirt from your back in exchange to get one of their shirts for free, which was NOT happening. So, we didn't get a new shirt from there, but I suppose we didn't really care.
Back into the car and onto the road. We didn't even consider stopping at the Tequila tour because we knew Haylie would need her nap. I had to stop at the gas station to put back in the consumed fuel, and that took a bit more time than I would have wanted. No such thing as self service at the station, and once again no credit accepted. I miscalculated the amount of gas, and bought half a tank when I only needed a quarter tank to return the car how I got it, but I considered it a nit and we drove on. We got back to the room with no incidents and got Haylie down for her nap without much incident.
Our approach tonight was for us to go to dinner as soon as the restaurant opened, which is supposed to be 6PM. That way, we could actually get in, eat, and try to keep her stimulation levels down. Of course, as we were getting ready we knew it would not happen as we'd hoped. She wasn't grumpy, but she was definitely frustrated. She's acquired two new skills on this trip, crawling and standing and she wants to practice them constantly. When she can't find something to help pull herself up (I guess that's a skill as well she now owns) she will scream about it. If we move her from whatever she's using to pull herself up because it will hurt her, she will scream. If we lay her on her back to change her diaper, clothes, or whatever, she will scream. All of those were in full effect when we left for dinner so I knew it would not go off without a hitch.
I let Colleen eating dinner when my attempt to pull Haylie out to calm her down only served to rile her up even more. So, if the new scene didn't calm her, our plan was to reutrn to the room and put her into a calm setting that way. I got her onto the floor and she started babbling and cooing indicating she was happy again. Of course, the tears started streaming down my face once again. I was a wreck. I just wanted to curl up into a ball and die and even though I tried to show her how proud I was that she used daddy's legs to pull herself up and could stand there for a few seconds using me as support, I just couldn't stop crying.
In before 8. No choice really. Tonight they were having some sort of beach party and it made me realize that it was a Friday night. I ran once the entire time I was here, mostly because I was so hung over but also because my mood was really black. Oh well, nothing we could do but begin our routine of forays out alternately to grab a round of drinks and then sneak back past the crib and sit out on the deck and consider what this vacation really was for us. I am distraught and I don't know what can fix my mood at this point.
Cheers!
Today was going to be a potentially interesting day, if we could just manage Haylie's stimulation and mood. Colleen and I like the tradition of renting a car and driving to the West side of the island. Cozumel is a strange place. The West side of the island is one large city effectively, San Miguel, though that's the name only the locals use. Tourists for the most part believe Cozumel is the city, not the entire island. On the East side is mostly undeveloped land with a few scattered hotels, beaches, and some restaurants. There is no power grid that extends to the East side of the island, and many of the spots don't even have a generator. They will literally bring in a day's supply of ice, and will cook using propane or some other gas. Given the amount of destruction left on the West side due to hurricanes, I can at least understand why the East side isn't more fully developed, but I fail to see how there are places in this resort community that still don't have basic services. I guess it is a matter of seeing the world through American eyes again.
So, this year instead of a Jeep, we opted for a car that would have air conditioning and could safely hold a car seat. We had to pay cash for the rental because the rental desk informed me that it would cost 20% in surcharges to use credit. I personally believe he's pocketing at least some percentage of the money as I've never once seen a posted rate for the cars. Still, it isn't a bad deal for a one day rental and this car did have a working A/C and they rented us a car seat for $15 USD for the day. We loaded Haylie into her seat just after her morning nap and hoped for the best.
Our first stop was the major grocery store in town. It was quite similar to Wal-Mart in that it had everything from groceries to consumer electronics. We were accosted at the start by a man who just "wanted to help" show us how to find what we wanted. We were worried about running out of diapers and it would give us the chance to see how much we had packed that we could have easily bought here and had less to carry. They had Huggies, Gerber Graduates, and Pampers wipes. They even had the swim diapers we bought for the trip so we likely could have avoided packing almost everything but formula. The ironic part is that learning the lesson doesn't apply unless we choose to have more kids. By our plans, we won't be back in Cozumel until Haylie is almost 4 and won't at that point need any of those items. I don't think we chose poorly to bring all this stuff, but intuitively, we should have known we wouldn't need to bring it ourselves. As we checked out, here came the helpful gentleman again. He was selling a time share in a hotel just down the road from the store! We tried to explain that we didn't need his club, as we were members here at Sol Melia, but his reply was we could do an exchange! WHAT?? Apparently, this company hasn't yet earned a permit to hawk at the airport directly, but to try to tackle us in the store was just insane! We just kept walking and kept saying 'no' until we got out of sight.
Back into the car and onto the open road. Haylie seemed OK for a while but then she started fighting off her natural urge to sleep in the car. That meant she was a little grumpy, but it was just the three of us in the car so we let her grump all she wanted. Our plans had been to get to a lighthouse on the Southern most tip of the island. When we got to the turn off, however, we discovered it was some expansive eco-park and that we'd have to pay an entrance fee to get in. We couldn't even tell from the sign which of 5 packages we'd need to pay to get in, or whether or not we'd be allowed to drive to see the lighthouse. It seemed a very long way in from the main gate and we weren't about to pay 30 dollars (the minimum entrance fee for two people to enter the park) only to get to the lighthouse and not be able to do anything there but basically turn around. So, we were close enough to what was going to be our second stop anyway, Rastas.
I don't know if the myth surrounding this place is true or not, but it has offered them an easy theme for the bar. Bob Marley supposedly loved Punta Sur and spent many days in Cozumel, specifically at the bar that originally stood on this spot. Rastas has picked up on that legend and now blasts Reggae music and sells shirts honoring the late genius. As an aside, I would imagine Marley would roll over in his grave if he knew that his name was being merchandised the way it is globally. It wasn't his style. When we were at Rastas last year, Colleen and I wrote our names on the bar along with Haylie's. We had hoped to find it when we returned, but of course it was long gone. So, we decided it would be OK, we'd just take a picture this time. Oh, but of course, the camera's battery was dead. I'd forgotten to charge it overnight and now we'd have NO pictures of Haylie's time on this side of the island. She started grumping a bit because the bar was stuffy and humid (no power means no air conditioning), and because she wanted to try to drink from mommy's Pina Colada herself without assistance, so I bundled her back into the pack and we walked out to see the ocean. It is a radically different experience on this side. The East side is exposed to the greater Gulf of Mexico and the Carribean Sea, which the West side faces Cancun and the Yucatan Peninsula. So, there are hard crashing waves, rough coral worn over the centuries creating natural blow holes, and other outcroppings not dissimilar from the ones we saw in Australia at 12 Apostles, or in Ireland around the Giant's Causeway. The difference here is the rock is predominately coral that's been worn down. Would have had some nice pictures to show you here, oh, wait, that's right, dumbass forgot to charge the camera!
We bundled back into the car and drove on toward Coconuts, our planned lunch stop. This restaurant and bar is a little more commercial, they use a generator so they do have power, but they still require cash because there's no phone to link them to a credit card clearing house over a POS terminal. When we went last year, they told us that they'd trade shirts where if we brought them one, they'd give us one of theirs in return. So, we had packed items specifically to make that trade this year. We had a good lunch with a couple of beers and used our new strategy for handling Haylie's outburst. If she starts screaming, we scooped her up and took her to a new scene that had less stimulus or even down to the car for a burst of A/C during a diaper change (no changing tables in the outhouse style toilets on this side of the island for sure.) It had moderate success. We still spent more time eating alone at a table for the three of us than we did eating together. We managed to communicate our desire to leave a shirt, but one of them was rejected. Still, we did leave one behind with our names and that we loved Coconuts. Of course, the fine print is that they'd prefer you flash your coconuts while removing the shirt from your back in exchange to get one of their shirts for free, which was NOT happening. So, we didn't get a new shirt from there, but I suppose we didn't really care.
Back into the car and onto the road. We didn't even consider stopping at the Tequila tour because we knew Haylie would need her nap. I had to stop at the gas station to put back in the consumed fuel, and that took a bit more time than I would have wanted. No such thing as self service at the station, and once again no credit accepted. I miscalculated the amount of gas, and bought half a tank when I only needed a quarter tank to return the car how I got it, but I considered it a nit and we drove on. We got back to the room with no incidents and got Haylie down for her nap without much incident.
Our approach tonight was for us to go to dinner as soon as the restaurant opened, which is supposed to be 6PM. That way, we could actually get in, eat, and try to keep her stimulation levels down. Of course, as we were getting ready we knew it would not happen as we'd hoped. She wasn't grumpy, but she was definitely frustrated. She's acquired two new skills on this trip, crawling and standing and she wants to practice them constantly. When she can't find something to help pull herself up (I guess that's a skill as well she now owns) she will scream about it. If we move her from whatever she's using to pull herself up because it will hurt her, she will scream. If we lay her on her back to change her diaper, clothes, or whatever, she will scream. All of those were in full effect when we left for dinner so I knew it would not go off without a hitch.
I let Colleen eating dinner when my attempt to pull Haylie out to calm her down only served to rile her up even more. So, if the new scene didn't calm her, our plan was to reutrn to the room and put her into a calm setting that way. I got her onto the floor and she started babbling and cooing indicating she was happy again. Of course, the tears started streaming down my face once again. I was a wreck. I just wanted to curl up into a ball and die and even though I tried to show her how proud I was that she used daddy's legs to pull herself up and could stand there for a few seconds using me as support, I just couldn't stop crying.
In before 8. No choice really. Tonight they were having some sort of beach party and it made me realize that it was a Friday night. I ran once the entire time I was here, mostly because I was so hung over but also because my mood was really black. Oh well, nothing we could do but begin our routine of forays out alternately to grab a round of drinks and then sneak back past the crib and sit out on the deck and consider what this vacation really was for us. I am distraught and I don't know what can fix my mood at this point.
Cheers!
posted by Derek Botti at
10:35 AM
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