"Down in Mexico"

Playa Del Carmen 

Church * Cozumel

We did our best today to make it feel like a Sunday. We were up early, dressed and pressed, and ready for church. We took a quick 10-minute taxi ride into Playa Del Carmen and arrived at 8:50 a.m. - 10 minutes before church started. There was 1 lonely car in the parking lot. Gratefully when we walked in there were a few people in the chapel and one other family visiting from Utah. 

The meeting started on time, but a member of the bishopric showed up 15 minutes late and didn’t worry about walking to take his place on the stand, during the Sacrament song. Welcome to Mexico. It was fast and testimony meeting which made the gospel topics a bit easier to understand, except that most people are still wearing masks which made it hard to hear. It was kinda cute - as soon as the sacrament was over, people jumped to their feet and headed to the stand to share their testimonies. There was not a pause in testimonies for the entire meeting.

We decide to stay for Sunday School. We’re studying the Old Testament right now which is hard enough in English, let alone in a different language. I gave up rather quickly trying to follow along and ended up just reading a conference talk on my phone.

After church we decided to get adventurous and headed into Playa Del Carmen for an authentic Mexican lunch. It took some convincing of Andrea that we wouldn’t get sick (and honestly, I didn’t know if we would or wouldn’t), but we found a local dive that was perfect and yummy! I read the reviews on-line and ordered the pozole. A chicken and beef soup with pasta and beans. It reminded me of a tortilla soup back home.

We enjoyed a quick walk through the center of town down to the Ferry dock where we purchased our tickets to Cozumel and were talked into pre-purchasing our scooter rentals for the afternoon. There is a lot of commerce going on in Mexico - it’s quite honestly exhausting. I had reserved some scooters for the afternoon already, but this guy had a good sell, so I canceled my reservation and went with the salesman I met at the pier.

After a short Ferry ride to Cozumel, we made our way to the scooter rental shop and rented 3 scooters. It didn’t take long for Andrea to turn over the driving of her scooter to Catherine (such trust)! I drove our scooter with Sydney. I’m not sure I’ve ever driving a scooter before, so it was a bit intimidating maneuvering the streets to get out of town and having a passenger on the back was tricky. We probably didn’t clear 30 km/hr until we were well out of town. I also stayed in the “bike” lane for longer than I should have just to be away front the cars.

It would have been nice to have some extra time on Cozumel to stop at the beaches, swim, and explore. Rather we had a goal of circling the island so only had a few minutes to stop at the southernmost tip to use the bathroom and grab some water. There was a little “watering hole” that looked like it could have been out of a movie. I enjoyed the ride back up the eastern side of the island best. The road was more open, and I could see the ocean while we road.

We timed the ride perfectly and were back on the boat by 5:45 for our journey back to the mainland.  We were bushed and retired early tonight. Not sure why riding a scooter felt like I’d spent 2 hours on a horse, but my legs were tired.