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GoCozumel Monthly Newsletter, November, 2009
A personal look at the island, written by an American who has lived on Cozumel since May 2000.
The Day of the Dead
November 1 (All Saints Day) and November 2 (All Souls Day), coincides with the Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico. It’s called El Día de los Muertos and it’s a tradition and celebration that is often misunderstood.
Basically, it’s a time when Mexican families remember their dead. They often gather at grave sites, decorate the graves with flowers and place offerings of food at the grave site. They gather to tell stories about their departed relatives and it’s a time of celebration and remembrance. Tradition has it that it’s during these times, that the spirit of the deceased can come and visit with their relatives for a day.
This is not a morbid occasion but a festive time. In the homes families arrange ofrenda's or "altars" with flowers, bread, fruit and candy and there are pictures of the deceased family members. In the stores you can find chocolate skulls, marzipan
coffins and white chocolate skeletons. Special loaves of bread called
pan de muertos are baked and decorated with design of bones. It’s a rich egg-batter bread sprinkled with sugar and it is good luck to be the one who bites into the plastic toy skeleton hidden by the baker in each rounded loaf.
Thanksgiving on Cozumel
Many restaurants on Cozumel serve a traditional Thanksgiving meal of turkey and dressing and one of those
is the French Quarter on Ave. 5. They also will prepare a Thanksgiving dinner for groups and it certainly does make things easy.
This
year they prepared a delicious Thanksgiving feast for about 20 guests
including a couple of deep fried turkeys, corn bread dressing
(they will make regular dressing) a green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, gravy and cranberry sauce.
It was just delicious and very easy when all you have to do is go by and pick it up just before dinner time.
Ironman Cozumel 2009
This was most likely the largest event of it’s kind that Cozumel has ever hosted, and from all indications it was a huge success. It did pretty much tie up the entire town all day Sunday, Nov. 29, but it was exciting to have an event like this here on Cozumel. There were 2,000 entrants and of course many had members of their family with them.
The race consisted of swimming, biking and running. The swimming took place at Chankanaab Park on a circular route that was 2.4 miles long. The biking began at Chankanaab and made 3 tours around the island for a total of 112 miles ending in the area of the Palacio Municipal. From there, the runners made 3 round trips north to the Cozumel Country Club and back for a total of 26.2 miles.
For vacationers arriving or departing Cozumel on Sunday, Nov. 29 transportation to and from the airport and to parts of the island was a bit more difficult that usual, but although it did take some extra time visitors were able to reach their destinations.
Everything I saw of the event seemed to be very well planned and coordinated. Dates for the 2010 Ironman Cozumel have been announced and the event is scheduled for Sunday, Nov.
28, 2010.
The other side
Cozumel island is only about 10 miles wide so it’s not far way. There is no electricity on that eastern side of the island, but there are some nice beach areas and the landscape is different than the western side of the island where the city of San Miguel is located.
Since the eastern side of the island faces the open ocean the waves are stronger and swimming on that side of the island can be dangerous unless you swim at one of the small beach clubs.
One of the beautiful beach areas is Chen Rio, and they do have a restaurant there that serves fresh fish. Also on the eastern side of the island is Coconuts. It’s not a beach club, but a a restaurant/bar on a cliff that overlooks the ocean.
More than computers
The store Compucentro moved several months ago to a location on Ave. 30 at the corner of Calle 5. On a recent trip there I discovered that they now have more than computers and accessories. We recently found a wonderful selection of candles including scented candles, tapers, votive candles and tea light candles.
There are also a number of candle holders of all types. A great place to find some lovely Christmas gifts.
EXCHANGE RATE
During November the exchange rate that we saw at the money exchanges and the banks when changing dollars into pesos on Cozumel varied from 12.2 to 12.5 pesos to the U.S. dollar.
Gracias y hasta luego,
Kathy at GoCozumel.com
Below
are links to the months of our newsletter that are now online
