As awesome as Cozumel, Mexico can be…

Part of the big Allure of the Seas cruise I went on months ago now was a stop in Cozumel, Mexico. And, other than the fact that other things have taken priority in my life, there’s a pretty deliberate reason why I haven’t gotten to recapping Cozumel, Mexico.

It f*cking sucked.

Let me back up.

Because we cruised for free, we decided to splurge on an excursion in Cozumel. Our excursion was supposed to be a self-driven dune buggy ride through the jungle. What it actually was is a completely different story. It was a complete piece of garbage. We took a smelly van to a remote location that was 15 minutes from the port. We got a rickety old dune buggy that had a stuck gas pedal and brake and had to drive that stupid thing through a cleared and extremely uneven path of lime. The dune buggy didn’t have power steering, so the ride was insanely bumpy.

Before we started, they warned us that we were going to be filthy at the end. About 1/10 of a mile into the ride, the tires hit a pool of mud and it splashed us good, but, the people behind us did well to just avoid the puddle. The rest of the ride was extremely dusty and the assholes there even made us buy bandanas to cover our mouths so we weren’t inhaling limestone.

Also somewhere near the beginning of the ride, the brakes stopped working, and Cassie (who was driving) lost control of the buggy. Luckily, it happened just as there was a fork in the road, but to get the buggy to stop was a different story. Because the brake wasn’t working, Cassie thought to turn the ignition so the engine wasn’t going. Well, the key broke off when she tried that. Friction finally stopped us a fair distance down the wrong path, and a guide caught up with us to scold us by saying, “why’d you go out here?” He then proceeded to blame us for breaking the cart.

The rest of the ride was pretty miserable, especially since the passenger harness on the replacement cart was awkward and hurting my collarbone, but when we got back to the base, I got to enjoy a couple of Mexican Coca-Colas in glass bottles for a buck each.

Since we were really soiled good from our mud flop and from driving through clouds of lime, we decided to not do much at the port in Cozumel. That means no tacos, no mole, no food. We got back on the ship and ordered room service before we both took numerous showers.

But, before I got back on the ship, I took the chance to get some lucha masks for cheap. Four masks and package of twenty terrible wrestling action figures costed me $54 (American). Here’s what the masks looked like!

It’s funny, they have just about every mask you can name, Juventud Guerrera, La Parka, Mil Mascaras, anyone.

And the Mexican lucha mask is actually something with a pretty important tradition and carries lots of prestige and history. I think it’s pretty cool that I was able to turn a crap experience in a foreign land around into something positive.