chartoo presents...

Cozumel, Friday the 13th

The Palancar reef in Cozumel is the second largest coral reef in the world, topped only by the Great Barrier reef of Australia.

This morning we went on an island tour jeep safari. Six jeeps in a caravan first stop the Pee Pee station for a tourist shopping break more the a pee pee break.
The Eduardo, our guide and leader, had all the men stand facing the road sign and act like we were relieving ourselves as the days first big photo op.

We cut across the middle of the island of Cozumel and headed for the deserted northeast coast. At the Iguana spot we turned onto a dirt road carved out of the jungle of palms and ferns.

The highlight, for me, of the whole tour, excluding the beautiful view of the oceans Caribbean sea, was when Eduardo wrecked the umbrellas.
He had the umbrella shafts hanging out of the passenger window of his jeep.
Trying to avoid some of the ruts in the road Eduardo, scraped his jeep into palms and scrubbrush caught the umbrellas shafts, bent them almost in half.

We stopped at the beach we would return to later for lunch, it looked like rain.
Ernesto took out the bent up umbrellas laid them to the side in the sand.

After short visit for viewing Cozumel's north point we changed drivers and headed back for lunch on the beach.
Walter, an older man from Canada got to drive the other half of our tour.
I learned quickly that keeping the jeep in first gear made the jeep tough to control over the rustic path, there were just to many ruts, rocks and whoop tee doos to avoid and running in second gear allow you to almost coast down the bumpy path feathering the gas without having to use the clutch. Walter thought first gear was the way to go..The jeep jerked around everytime he let out the clutch. I loved it bouncing and jerking then he stalled. We got going again when Walter trys to shift just as we hit some soft sand wham, stalled again he gets the jeep started guns the engine and the wheels just spin. Here we go, he guns the engine again the jeep just sinks a little more into the sand. Walter's wife, Sharon was getting agravated with Walter's driving.
Finally he gets smart puts the jeep in reverse rocks the jeep a bit, suddenly we're going again.
Sharon let's Walter know she's not entirely happy with his driving and we continue. It's obvious that Walter is not listening.
.
It had started pouring rain as our jeep tour left the point. I'm thinking I don't want to eat lunch in the rain if there's no umbrellas.

As Walter pulls our jeep up into the clearing to park for our Mexican lunch on the beach it's still pouring now we're totally soaked
Ernesto is directing the jeeps to park lined up side by side in the clearing but Walter decides this is not for him pulls our jeep to the left up by the jungle and promptly runs over the bent umbrellas and puts new twist on the umbrella poles.
I couldn't stop laughing.
First the tour guide catches the umbrellas in the jungles edge, now we run over them again in our jeep, it's pouring rain and we're supposed to have lunch on the beach.

Guess you had to be there.....
Friday the 13th?

Posted by chartoo at February 13, 2004 02:31 AM