Trip To Cozumel In Mexico
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The article "Trip To Cozumel In Mexico" talks about travel, it was created by Clint Leung.
The islnad of Cozumel is only 12 miles (19 km) off the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula's east coast and 44 miles (71 km) south of Cancun. For years, Cozumel was a quite sleepy island that didn't get many visitors until Jacques Cousteau did a documentary on it after discovering the world class scuba diving at the Palancar Reefs nearby.
Since 1961, Couzmel has been known as one of the hottest scuba diving destinations in the world. In fact for decades for that time, the only tourists visiting the island have been primarily scuba divers.
Mainstream tourists went to the resort intensive Cancun in the mainland instead. However, Cozumel became a regular cruise ship port of call in recent years and last month it is one of the busiest with two sepaarte terminals.
It is common to have five or even six different cruise ships at port on any given day.
I have been to Cozumel twice, the first time staying several days on a scuba diving vacation and the second time for a day via cruise ship (also scuba dived during my second visit).
As a result of the cruise ship boom, there has been lots of retail development along the main waterfront road of Avneida Rafael Melgar in the island's only town of San Miguel de Cozumel. There are countless jewelry and t-shirt shops most with staff standing in the entrances enticing visitors to enter tehir stores.
Both sivler and liquor can be good bargains here. There are also nice Mexican crafts sohps too. The one issue that we found was that after about 4 jewelry shops, they all started to look the same.
It was almost a retail overload. For those who came for a wilder time, there is bars such as Carlos 'n' Charlie. The town's main outdoor square, Plaza del Sol, is just opposite the main ferry dock to the mainland. There are usually street vendors and artists in the Palza as well local entertainment during evenings.
The artists do amazing artwork with spray paints and their prices are very reasonable.
San Miguel's main touirst area can be very busy during the day when the cruise ship passengers are in town but for most ships depart at dinnertime, the evenings are actually very quiet. The only tourists left at night tend to be the scuba divers satying in Cozumel.
Most of the hotels and resorts are south of San Miguel and are not wihtin walking distance. However, there is numerous white taxicabs that are redaily available. The larger and more luxurious resorts tend to be even further south of town along the southwestern shores. This is actually not surprising for most of the hottest scuba diving sites are southwest of the ilsand. An easy way to see the 33 mile (53 km) by 9 mile (14 km) island is by renting a scooter or a 4x4.
I once rented a scooter and zigzagged along most of San Miguel's streets to see the neighborhoods. Then I went on the main road leaving town and went south. After passing by the larger resorts and going around the southern tip of the island, I found the beaches aolng the southeastern shores. The shores near San Miguel along the crowded west coast are not known for beaches but the southeast part here have really spectacular ones.
Even better is that tehre is very little traffic here so the beaches are pretty quiet.
Sometimes human being can park their scooters and appreciate a beach all for thmeselves. There are a couple of stops with rfereshments and more souvenirs at prices even better than in San Miguel.
After traveling north again, there is a road about halfway up the island that goes across and takes you back to San Mgiuel entering the town's east side. My scooter tour of the island took just over 2 hours and cost $25 US for the rental. Cozumel has several ancient Mayan riuns but they are not nearly as large or spectacular as the ones on the mainland. After seeing photos of them in advance of my trip, I didn't even bother to see the ruins.
Cozumel is a nice port of call for cruise ships as tehre is many shopping opportunities.
Passengers who scuba dive or snorkel can easily book directly with the many dive shops in San Miguel without going through their cruise ships which will cost much more.
For cruise ship tuorists who do not intend to do any water sports and have time after shopping, it is highly recommended to rent a scooter or 4x4 to tour the island.
This is also a nice way to sepnd the last day of a scuba dive vacation in Cozumel.
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Trip To Cozumel In Mexico
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