you can't go back

The kitchen Jesus

Helmets. I can't believe the helmets. Beyond all of the new construction going on in Cozumel, the most prominent change I noticed from two years ago was that every single scooter rider was wearing a helmet. This included the young children.

When I was here before, I remember nobody except tourists wearing helmets. I thought to myself at the time that helmets just wouldn't make much sense there. It seemed to me that a lot of the people we met would not be interested in shelling out pesos for a Mexican Department of Transporation approved helmet. And yet, here we are with shiny new helmets on every head. They all look new too. I'll have to ask someone when the new rule was put in place.

We attempted to find a breakfast place that we had read about called Coco's. I parked a couple of blocks from where it appeared on the map. We walked around the corner and looked upon the space where the restaurant was supposed to be - and it wasn't there. Hmmm. I pride myself in my ability to navigate with a map. I became convinced that the restaurant had either closed or moved. At any rate, it was no longer there.

Did I mention that it was hot? Yeah, it was hot, even in the morning. Our backup plan was another place called the San Miguel Cafe. Unfortunately, it was about 8 or 10 blocks away. Further than we wanted to walk, but not far enough to get the car and fight for another parking space. So we tread our way along the grid, keeping to the shade when we can, walking a t a steady, slow pace until we reached it.

It, too, was closed. Permanently. At least we saw the name of the place on the wall of the building. We knew we had come to the right place, it wasn't even closed just for the day, it was completely shut down.

As I was looking at the wall, I was thinking about the others in my group. Zero for two and counting. The heat was going to be getting to them, but they were good sports. A few minutes later, we were back at La Choza for another predictably excellent breakfast.

While we ate, a man showed up across the street with a trumpet and a large drum. There were no windows on the restaurant, so we could hear when he bagan to play. His daughter came in holding out a hat. She was awfully cute and most of the tables dropped some change into the hat. At first, it was hard for me to connect the music outside the restaurant with the girl inside, but we eventually figured out that she was going to all the people in range of the sound of her father's music and asking for donations.

After breakfast, we went home and had a swim before we drove to the east side of the island. One of the last stops we made on our last trip to Cozumel was a place called Chen Rio. At that time, we were greeted very warmly since we were the only customers in the whole place. The recent hurricane Emily had caused the closure of most of the road on the east side. As a result, nobody made it out to Chen Rio. We had some of the best Margaritas, chips and salsa ever. Today would be a little different.

Chen Rio was crowded today. We couldn't really find anything on the menu that we wanted to eat, but we did get a drink and some chips and salsa. On our way back to the car, we ran into a guy who immidiately looked familiar to me, but I couldn't place him. He started talking to Jillian and she said something back to him. He kept talking and then there was a moment of recognition for her and she waved goodbye to him as we made our way to our vehicle.

Jillian eventually explained what happened. This guy came up to her and said hi and asked if she recognized him. She then said "I don't *know* you." and he reminded her that he worked at La Parilla Mission. I looked up the road and I could see that he was getting into a car with his friends. Yep, that was definitely him.

We left and went further down the coast to a place called Playa Bonita. Ian ordered a drink called a "Blue Lagoon." Shelly and I made some Brooke Shields jokes that Ian didn't get. We liked the nachos there as well.

Two guys at Playa Bonita

At Playa Bonita, we met a friendly local guy named Christian, who enjoyed flirting with Jillian - they all seemed to. He was selling necklaces and we didn't buy anything. Later, we saw him out in the water with Ian and Jillian. He was body surfing and, of course, chatting with Jillian. Later she told me that he had invited her to a party tomorrow night. We'll have to see, but it doesn't sound too likely. Shelly seems a little squeamish.

Christian