[06.01.2016 Wednesday]
Actually, we had booked a few months ago for today a bike tour with snorkeling, this was unfortunately canceled by AIDA. Therefore, we booked instead of the bike the ATV tour (quad), I’ve never driven, but that’s certainly fun.
Already at 5:30 Harry and I had to get up, get ready and have breakfast because already at 6:45 is our meeting point with the group. Prescribed are long pants, sturdy shoes and of course the driver’s license.
The bus drives about 20 minutes across the island to the ATVs, here we get an introduction in English, our AIDA guide has partially translated, then there is headscarf, helmet and off we go. Half an hour we drive a gravel course with some bumps, unfortunately we have bad luck with the group, a woman almost does not dare to press the gas and blocks us and we can hardly drive properly. We reach a place in the middle of the forest and the Mexican tells us again a bit about the Mayas and shows two more statues and explains a little about the botany. Water and a small snack was handed.
Then it gets funnier, the potholes and the gravel get bigger and we have fun with the ATVs to whiz through the jungle, fortunately the quads are with automatic, so we need “only” accelerate and steer, which is already exhausting with the narrow paths without power steeringJ
At a second stop we get green tea (name forgotten) and tacos. I have the GoPro with me and hope it creates good impressions of quad biking.
After just under 80 minutes the ride is over, I notice the arms well, but it was great! With our coach we are driven to the beach, unfortunately, the stay here is very short with 70 minutes, but we have to be on board only 18:30.
On the beach there are many bars, the sunbeds and the Wi-Fi are free of charge, normally a sunbed costs 5 USD. However, one is very attuned to tourism, constantly someone comes and wants to sell us jewelry, food and drink, water skiing or photos with parrots, we “flee” into the water. Unfortunately, there seems to be some algae or the like that sting strongly on the skin, I do not stay long in the water.
We look for a cache and indeed is not 50 m from us one hidden. We search and land in the open bar, chat briefly with a waiter and then log! Our first cache in Mexico, certainly the most western we have ever.
At 11:15 we are back at our ship. But we still want to look at the city, a young person from the neighboring table had told me that there is also a Hard Rock Cafe in Cozumel, which was not known to me.
The store is integrated directly in the cafe with, Harry and I get T-shirts. The souvenirs differed here already strongly from the rest in the Caribbean, there are Sombreros, everywhere skulls and musical instruments, Tequilla, Nachos, Taccos and Burritos. Unfortunately, Mexico is also by far the most expensive in terms of food but also clothes.
The food offered all sounds very good, but we have enough on the ship.
Harry buys another T-shirt and then we head back to the ship.
Since most of the passengers have taken a trip to the mainland, it is very empty.
After coffee we make again for two hours lunch hour, look at the sunset and the departure from the harbor, next to us is meanwhile a giant cruiser the “Carnival Ectasy”.
We’ll try our hand at the oldest ship sport in the world: shuffleboard. It’s similar to curling, is entertaining and fun!
In the evening, for once, there is not the obligatory pool party on the pool deck, but a cool movie event: on LED big screen, “Pirates of the Caribbean” is shown under a starry Caribbean sky – great!
Tomorrow we will go to the Mexican mainland and the longest booked excursion is on the program.