Goodbye Cozumel; Lets Try It Again Next Year

[ggunn]

What's the big deal with the cab fares? Is there some moral objection to giving the guy a little extra?

I don't see anybody here saying the fare should be $4 and the cabbie said "$20" . . .

Terry

It's not morality, it's a game. The cabbies are always tring to find ways to inflate the published fares, and I am always looking for ways to thwart them from doing that to me. It's all good natured.

A cab story: I lived in Peru for a while, working in the oilfield. While I was there, a new guy flew into the country and changed planes immediately from Lima to Iquitos, a little jungle town where nobody spoke English. He didn't speak a word of Spanish, and he had a pocketful of Soles (Peruvian currency) that he had gotten at the Lima airport exchange, though he didn't really have a grasp of the relative value of the local money. He also didn't know what a taxi from the airport to his hotel should cost.

When he got to the hotel, the driver told him that the cab ride was something like 80 Soles, which was about two bucks (this was 1976), which of course the guy didn't understand, so he pulls out this wad of bills and peels off the biggest bill (1000 Soles, about $20) in his wad and hands it to the driver. The driver explains to him that he doesn't have change for it, and again the guy doesn't understand a word of it, so he figures it's not enough, so he peels off another 1000 Sole bill and hands it over. The driver slowly and loudly explains again that he doesn't have change, and the guy still doesn't get it, so he peels off yet another thousand and gives it to the driver.

At this point, the driver concludes that if the guy is that stupid or crazy and has that much money to throw around, so be it, so he just said "gracias" and left. Needless to say, when Our Hero found that his own ignorance caused him to pay $60 for a two buck cab ride, he was, shall we say, chagrined. The guy was also a racist, which made it all the funnier.

 

[Martha]

Great cab story Gordon!

 

[pilot fish]

Don, good, balanced report. Thanks for sharing your experience.

 

[NadMat]

Good report Don, sounds like you managed a good time despite the 'total destruction' some have reported. I too stayed at Caribe Blu and dove with Blue Angel when up there in Dec. and want to know where you loaded on the boats at? Did they have the pier behind the pool rebuilt yet? We had to load from the big dry dock pier next door or had to load at the boat harbour down the way when work was going on next door. They were just finishing the pool repairs and starting on pier foundations when we left day before christmas eve.

 

[Christi]

Good report Don, sounds like you managed a good time despite the 'total destruction' some have reported. I too stayed at Caribe Blu and dove with Blue Angel when up there in Dec. and want to know where you loaded on the boats at? Did they have the pier behind the pool rebuilt yet? We had to load from the big dry dock pier next door or had to load at the boat harbour down the way when work was going on next door. They were just finishing the pool repairs and starting on peir foundations when we left day before christmas eve.

Almost all of the hotel piers are operational again, including Caribe Blu.

The only exceptions to this are:
Presidente (hotel closed until at least September)
Casa del Mar (loading next door at Atlantis Submarine dock)
VillaBlanca (under construction)
Papa Hogs (under construction - but one part can be used on calm days)
Reef Club

I think that's it.

 

[NadMat]

Almost all of the hotel piers are operational again, including Caribe Blu.

The only exceptions to this are:
Presidente (hotel closed until at least September)
Casa del Mar (loading next door at Atlantis Submarine dock)
VillaBlanca (under construction)
Papa Hogs (under construction - but one part can be used on calm days)
Reef Club

I think that's it.

Thanks Christi!

Yea, in Dec. I saw them walkin' into the water down at Papa Hogs on the remains of old pier and loading up. I was fine with the way Blue Angel loaded us, but remember looking at them working on pool and pier and thinking how extra sweet it would be to step off boat and walk right into hotel before going next door to Rendez Blu for some food and a beer.

 

[dlndavid]

Yep, I may have been a bit harsh suggesting this re-start at page 1 and should have been more precise in my count. There was some good stuff after that. I just got p***ed off after reading page after page of unrelated dross.
:05:

can you type without all the astericks? It makes it hard to read your posts.
So are you planning a trip to Cozumel for the first time? You seem like a nice person, but you shouldn't take things so serious. This is a board where many divers are experiencing long SI's, they get funny, and punchy, show some humor. If you like, send Don a PM and he will take up your Coz concerns with you via PMs, since you don't appreciate the jabber. :mrcool:

 

[MMM]

In a desperate attempt to get this thread back on track...:10:

It's more than a money saving issue for a number of people who make this choice (me included). I don't like waiting around while the van waits for enough people to fill (some might say JAM) it before we can leave. By hiking down the road with my luggage (which is on wheels) I can hail a cab that I have to myself for a couple of bucks. But the important thing to note is that I stay in town and am, as I said, by myself. There are certain group economies.

I always use the shuttle, but some prefer to save a couple of bucks doing it the other way. For a downtown hotel, the shuttle is something on the order of $5 per person.

 

[DandyDon]

In a desperate attempt to get this thread back on track...:10:

It's more than a money saving issue for a number of people who make this choice (me included). I don't like waiting around while the van waits for enough people to fill (some might say JAM) it before we can leave. By hiking down the road with my luggage (which is on wheels) I can hail a cab that I have to myself for a couple of bucks. But the important thing to note is that I stay in town and am, as I said, by myself. There are certain group economies.

Yeah, they do jam us in tight. There's always a few folks with manageable luggage walking off the airport as I wait for my van to fill totally! I just do not remember what the cab fare was for a private car from the Caribe Blu to the airport - $5 maybe, half the cost of a packed van with multiple stops to carry me from the airport to the hotel.

I can't drag my bags off the airport, tho - way too loaded for that.

 

[MMM]

Umm, thought you were joking when I saw your post before you edited it. Glad I seem like a nice person. You do too.

My staff would tell you I have a great sense of ha-ha and try to inject a sense of humor wherever I can, in order to lighten the mood. I used the asterisks just to be sensitive to all readers.

If you check my profile you'll see that I've done a lot of diving in Coz and don't need to check things out with Don. I don't make a bazillion mindless posts about everything under the sun but try to add some useful content to any discussion on matters I have some experience with or understanding about. If my relatively meagre number of posts may have confused you into thinking I was a newbie on the board or to diving or to Cozumel, I apologize.

I was simply distressed with the tone that this thread had taken, along with a few other recent ones. My family will tell you that I often try and "direct" things. As an eldest child, I'll chalk thatup to my birth order!

can you type without all the astericks? It makes it hard to read your posts.
So are you planning a trip to Cozumel for the first time? You seem like a nice person, but you shouldn't take things so serious. This is a board where many divers are experiencing long SI's, they get funny, and punchy, show some humor. If you like, send Don a PM and he will take up your Coz concerns with you via PMs, since you don't appreciate the jabber. :mrcool: