I’ve been on a cruise before and usually with disastrous results. Rushing madly back to the boat with it’s warning horn sounding the–We are pulling out to sea!–common event for me.  Wild winds and storms, fellow passengers crawling along the floor, desperate to get back to their cabins as the seas wild and furious, tossed their stomach contents about, normal cruise, and once there was a hurricane that landing me on a sand bar for three days. I learned all the words to Gilligan’s Island on that voyage whilst waiting for rescue! This voyage  the sea was calm. A nice feeling as I was beginning to feel like a cruise jinx!

I was reminded several times that I was on a ship, not a boat. My retort, Well boat rhymes with float and that’s all I care about! Pass the G & T please!

Going on a cruise boat (ahem… ship) is not the best way to see any country. I have been to Mexico before and walked on a rope bridge, had tacos from the man called Don Chewy, and discovered cockroaches the size of small turtles. A cruise boat lands you in pre-planned packaged tour land, Senor Frogs to get totally obliterated with booze, and a street full of shopping deals that do no exist anywhere in the world but here, today! Señora! Come! Come into my shop!  Not my idea of fun.

I got up early before the shops were open to shoot a few snaps and to try to find the Paleta man. This was my first time in Mexico when I did not find the Paleta Man shouting,  “Paletas de aqua y leche! Paletas!”  I confess, I just cannot resist the coconut ice pops, or the tamarindo ones, but this time…not a single push cart was to be seen.  Quite an alarming turn of events!

Truth be told, it was too early in the morning for the Paleta Man, who could care less about my addictions, or my vow that  I will eat a paleta any time of day!  Only the boys were up and about collecting newspapers to sell from their bicycles and motor bikes.

As soon as they loaded up,  they pedaled or roared off.  Quickly a boy made a sale to a man riding his bike. The man sat by the side of the road,  reading the morning’s news, and that young boy?  Gone in a flash to make another sale!

It was time to leave the front road, usually teaming with tourists, and head off to the back streets of Cozumel! I just had to get back far enough from the tourist footpath to see what the town was really like.

Next post– gigantic house plants in the back streets of Cozumel!