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GoCozumel Newsletter, September 2009
A personal look at the island, written by an American who
moved to Cozumel in May 2000.
Hospital on Calle 6
This hospital is called Clinica San Miguel, and it’s only one of the hospitals on Cozumel. It is on Calle 6, between Ave. 5 and Ave. 10 and they have recently enlarged and now have a new laboratory too. After more than 9 years living on Cozumel I’ve gone to Clinica San Miguel a number of times. At times it’s been to see a friend in the hospital, at times to take friends to see a doctor there, to get an X-ray for blood tests, etc.
Luckily I’ve never had an emergency, but they do have an emergency room.
Madereria del Caribe
I found this shop when I was looking for some narrow diameter wooden dowels that I could use for my tomato plants. I stopped at a couple of carpentry shops and one told me about this store. They did have what I needed and they cut them to the length I needed, but I also discovered that they have a large selection of different diameter wooden curtain rods. If you want to put up curtains, and you don’t want to put up those metal rods (metal rusts way too fast here) take a look at Madereria de Caribe on Ave. 65 at the corner of Calle 17. They not only have wooden rods of all diameters and the holders for them, plus wooden curtain rings.
Cozumel for Christmas
This is the time of year that many begin thinking about a trip to Cozumel for the holidays. Although many of the vacation villas and condos are already booked for both Christmas and New Years week there are some still available. Check the website
http://www.gocozumel.com/vacation-rentals.com
to see a selection of vacation rentals. There is everything from very economical 1 bedrooms to large, luxury private villas and condos.
Mojito recipe
If you enjoy mojitos, the critical ingredient is fresh mint leaves and plenty of them.
8-10 mint leaves per drink…muddled (squashed).
Wedges and juice from ½-1 lime (depends on the size of the lime)
¼ cup simple syrup*
¼ cup rum (any type, but coconut rum is great)
Ice cubes
Club soda
Cut wedges of lime, squeeze the juice into your glass and then drop in several
of the wedges too.
Muddle (squash up) the mint leaves to release the flavor and put them in the glass. Pour in the rum and simple syrup, put in plenty of ice, top with club soda and mix.
*simple syrup is 1 part of sugar to 1 part of water. Heat the mixture to melt the sugar completely. I usually make a lot (2 cups sugar and 2 cups water). I store part of it in a glass jar in the refrigerator so it’s always ready when I want a mojito or other drink that needs this simple syrup. With the rest I will mix 1 part of the simple syrup with 2 parts of water and I put that mixture in the hummingbird feeder.
NOTE: If you are in a real hurry and don’t want to wait until the sugar melts and the mixture cools, you can mix powdered sugar in water and use that.
The last time I went over to the other side of the island (the eastern side) we saw a new statue that has been put up there. We laughed that it looked a bit to us like Captain Jack Sparrow and I guess we were close. It’s a tribute to the legend that many pirates used to come to Cozumel to escape. On a plaque below the statue is an explanation and we did our best to read it in Spanish, but it was difficult. Then we noticed that it was written in English below that. Actually, not much easier to read in English either as the weather has discolored the lettering and made it hard to read.
From what we have been able to learn, the statue commemorates the pirates that used Cozumel as a safe harbor.
Cozumel Pirate
From about 1600 to the mid 1800’s Cozumel was uninhabited and the pirate Henry Morgan is said to have often stopped over in Cozumel during his Caribbean raids in the 17th century. In the early 1800’s another famous Caribbean pirate, Jean Lafitte, is said to have come to Cozumel to hide from his pursuers.
Annual sale
This year, the giant clearance sale at Los Cincos Soles is Sunday, October 4 and it starts at 9am. Los Cinco Soles is on the corner of Ave. Melgar (the oceanfront street) and Calla 8, and last year it was held just around the corner from the store or Calle 8 and it was truly amazing. Hundreds of people were going through thousands of items that were offered for sale at extremely low prices. There were tables full of clothing of all types, plus decorations and souvenirs. Most items I saw were damaged…some very slightly and some a great deal more, but there are normally some remarkable values if you are willing to spend the time looking for them.
I did go to the sale last year and found several items.
One was a beautiful white dress that had what looked like a coffee stain on the shoulder. It was 40 pesos (the exchange rate at the time was 10 to 1, so about $4 U.S.) so I took a chance. The stain came right out when I washed it. I bought two pair of slacks for 30 pesos each. I had to make minor repairs in each of these, but they are beautiful and originally sold for 15 to 20 times what I paid for them. I also found a beautiful large velvet sombrero trimmed in gold braid and shiny gold decorations for 15 pesos (about $1.50 U.S.) Since I planned to use it as a wall decoration I didn’t mind that the lining inside had been pulled away from the headband, but I did repair it before I put it on the wall.
The sale is a bit of a madhouse, but kind of an adventure. Sort of like searching for buried treasure.
EXCHANGE RATE During September the exchange rate that we saw at the money exchanges and the banks when changing dollars into pesos on Cozumel varied from
12.8 to 13.1 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
