At some point during the night, the clocks went back an hour. Yippee … an extra hour of sleep. We were not getting into Cozumel, Mexico until 10:00am so we decided to take our time getting ready. What is really nice about our stop today is that we do not have to be back on the ship until 10:30pm.
Since we had lots of time today, we decided that we would a few things in Cozumel. While doing research on TripAdvisor, we found a tour called Salsa & Salsa that sounded like a lot of fun. The first part of the tour you learn to make salsa by actually preparing them and the second part you learn how to salsa dance. And all you can drink margaritas. Ole!
We got to the Hotel Cozumel & Resort right at 10:30am and we quickly learned that they were expecting us at 9:00am. At this point, they were half way through the salsa and margarita making. They apologized for the mix up and said that we could either get a refund or we could join the tour. We decided that since we were there, we would jump right in.
The first thing that we had to do was to get caught up on the margaritas. Immediately upon getting to our table, we each received two margaritas … a traditional and a frozen strawberry. Things were off to a good start. The second thing we had to do was to quickly make the salsas they had already prepared. A couple of the tour guides helped us prepare the Fiery Red Salsa, Tangy Salsa Verde and Oaxacan Guacamole. Now we were caught up to our table mates. Karen and I did end up making Pico de Gallo, Tropical Salsa and Rompope Dessert Salsa. The recipes are very basic and I think that’s what makes the salsas so good. Once we were done with the salsa making, the table and chairs were cleared away to make room for dancing. The cooks/dance instructors break the salsa dance down into basic steps that you then put together. What a total riot we had. The salsa is much harder than it looks. I think it will take a lot more practice and a lot more margaritas before I get the hang of it.
After the tour was over, we were given access to the pool at the Hotel Cozumel Resort. It was really nice spending a couple of hours cooling off and recovering from our dance lesson.
We were originally going to take a food tour of Cozumel but when Karen inquired, Emily (the tour guide) said she was not offering the tour at this time. She did give us a list of places that we could visit on our own. One of them was a chocolate factory called Chocolates Kaokao. When we got there, we learned that there were no more tours for the day but we were able to take a quick peak at the factory and purchase some of their delicious chocolate.
We asked the cab driver where the best shopping was and he said downtown would be our best bet so we had him drop us there. We ended up spending a few hours walking around in the hot sun looking for bargains. I forgot about how each of the shop keepers tries to get you into their stores. They will either tell you that their items are practically free or they will tell you that they have a special price just for you. We were getting hungry and tired so we decided to stop for an early dinner at Las Palmeras. Fish tacos, fajitas and all the chips and salsa you want. We made a quick stop at the Mega Supermarket to pick up some chips before heading back to the ship.
We ended the night by heading to the Mexican Fiesta at the Lido Poolside. There was lots of Mexican food accompanied by a traditional mariachi band. Lucky for us tomorrow is a sea day … a day of nothing.
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