Our friend from Cozumel

For the pass few weeks we have been exchanging emails with our friend in Cozumel.

We have talked with Adrian Angulo Romero. Adrian is a gold mind of information on Cozumel and native from the Island. You need something he knows were to find it. You want a good meal his restaurant is one of the best on the Island. This is where we are going to have our first dinner on the Island on December 29^th and it's called Especias (Spices).

We have met Adrian on the beach close to our hotel on our second trip to the Island. He was doing Snow Boarding on the Ocean with a kite attached to him?

This strange sport to us caught our attention and Christian and I started walking on the beach towards Adrian and his friends to find out what it was.

The sport is called Kite Boarding. From the looks of it, it is very demanding physically but to Christian it looked cool. For more information go to Adrian’s Web site, he now has a Kite Boarding school on the Island and gives lessons to the tourist that are seeking a new trill and sport.

http://www.cozumelkiteboarding.com/

I wouldn’t be surprise that Christian will try this, one of these days when we are in Cozumel.

As for his restaurant it's in a new location since Wilma and we just can’t wait to have dinner under the stars.

Especias serves fresh Gourmet World Cuisine in an intimate, open-air setting.

Address: 3rd Street between 5th and 10th Avenue Cozumel 77600
Telephone: 987-876-1558
Staff: Adrian Angulo, Chef
Open: MON-SAT 5 pm-11 pm.
Getting There: Just two blocks away from the ocean front, on the second floor of a shop called
Casa Bella and just in front of the parking lot with mayan graffity mural.
Meals Served: Dinner.

You can reach Adrian via his web page for both the Kite Boarding or the Restaurant.

Can't wait to show you the pictures from the restaurant. You will see that food is devine and on top you have a great host to serve you.

Salud Adrian

Golf equipment is ready

Today we cleaned up and prepared all of our golf equipment.

We are allowed a bag, 12 balls, 14 clubs, glove and a pair of shoes each. Your golf equipment will be part of your entitlement of two suite cases, but the weight will not be regulated at 22 kg for both.

So we started by cleaning up the club from all the sand and grass accumulation of this summer. Then we took out all of the spikes out at the bottom of the shoes to clean and replace the broken ones. After the shoes have dried up, we wax and water proofed them. Not that we intend to play in the water, high grass or the sand traps but from Robin Williams monologue “they put shit in the way”.

http://www.golf-nf.ca/media_links.htm

Put clean towels on the bag and will put more balls in our suitcase because we will need more then 12 for 5 round. The course is very hard so balls will go into the jungle and you can’t retrieve all of them because you can encounter poisons snakes, iguanas, scorpions, trees and flowers. They have warnings everywhere along the course. In the ponds you have a bonus crocodiles. We also have a rain jacket and baseball cap for mother natures ups and downs.

Our golf clubs are then put in the protective cases. Get one of those because they will not take responsibility for any damages other wise. In the protective cases we have just enough room for our fins and mask for snorkelling.

We have also looked at what golf clothes we will need for the 5 rounds and see if everything is order or if some need replacements or fixing up.

Christian will need: 5 polo’s, 3 pairs of shorts and 5 pairs of golf socks.

Lyne will need: 5 sleeveless shirt, 3 golf skirt and 5 pairs of golf socks.

This is the link to the Cozumel Golf and Country Club

http://www.cozumelcountryclub.com.mx

This is it at this time and have fun under the sun.

Time to pay

Thursday of this week got called by Paula we have to do the final payment before Saturday. Yes we are now 45 days before departure time.

I have been to the CLSC for my vaccination for Tetanus and Polio. Christian and I tried to go to the flu vaccination for the general public. Way to may people turned around and called the CLSC for an appointment. Left a message and they will call us back.

Now we are looking at what we will have do before we go:

1-. Emailed the hotel for some tee times at the golf course. Eleazer answered us back right away. Because we wanted breakfast before we go he could get us out at 8h45 am on the following days December: 30, 31 and January 02, 03 and 04/2007.

2- We did our reservation for a car with Smart rent a Car for the full week.

http://www.islacozumel.net/services/smartcar/

William will send someone to pick up Christian at the Airport and I will leave on the shuttle for the hotel with the suitcases. This way we will both get to the hotel and be ready for the beach in no time. This is the first time we will have a car for the full duration of our vacation. We got a good price $191.00 usd full insurance. You need to take the Mexican insurance your Canadian or credit car ones will not cover you the proper way so piece of advice take them.

3- Send another email to the hotel. Since it’s our first time to this one we needed to know if they will provide us with the beach towel. Eleazer said no problem they are included in our package. Just like every other hotel he also told us that if we loose them we would have to pay for them.

4- Did the reservation for the Ottawa/Toronto with Aeroplane miles + taxes $168.94 for both of us. This is a good way to do it for not to much money.

Made a list of things we will need: Golf equipment and shoes, clothes and shoes, snorkel gear, medication, MP3 players, beach games and books.

Left a message on the Travel note board for Tony Rome to see if we could make our reservation for the New Years Eve party he will be throwing. Went to the Cozumel Insider Web page and the sun his shining. Tony Rome is a great place for Ribs and roasted chicken.

This is it for now will be back this week for some more insight before we go.

Start of a new adventure for Cozumel

Let's start by introducing our self's.

We are Christian Coulombe and Lyne Rivest. We have been traveling to Mexico for the past 14 years. We just love the Mexican culture and would like to share our love for this culture with you.

This trip is to Cozumel and it will be our 4^th one to this destination. We will be going from December 29^th till January 5^th. This time we are going to show you what we are doing to prepare our self for a trip down south.

We have purchase out trip through the lovely Paula Capano at Redtag.ca. She has provided us with all of the information on the destination plus the travel insurance for this trip. Since we have purchase this trip a few months in advance and we can’t read the future we also accepted the full travel insurance package.

Package is 7 night at the Playa Azul hotel with breakfast and golf included.

http://www.playa-azul.com/

We had to make a deposit of $500.00 + insurance at this point.

We also need valid passport to get in the country. Check and we are OK expiration is in 2010.

Vaccination book:

Christian will need Flu, book appointment for November 11^th.

Lyne will need Tetanus + Polio+ Flu, book appointment for November 9^th and 11^th.

For now this is it will get back after vaccination is done!