Globe Trotting 101: Exploring the World as a Beginner

An aerial map of Cozumel appears like a comet—the shallow, aqua waters around it forming its tail. Cozumel. Easily 90, maybe more. The heat here is not like that of Florida, where whenever you walk down the sidewalk on a humid day it feels like you’re fighting a battle with the air and losing. The air here is just hot—scorching. I’d only been here once before, on a cruise. We stayed for a few hours and acted like we were in another world, but we weren’t—not really. We just got souvenirs for a better price and I was constantly reminded of how thirsty I was. This time I’m here to see the sights. Cozumel has an interesting culture. It knows it’s a tourist destination and everyone plays his part. Men and women cover themselves with metallic paint and pretend to be statues, maybe to take a reprieve from only dealing with tourists all the time. It is, though, a genuinely beautiful place. Cozumel is just off the coast of the Yucatan, separated from what we have come to know as “the dangers of Mexico” on which everyone seems to be an expert when they find out you’ll be taking your vacation there. They’re not wrong. Cozumel, though, is different. Only 100,000 people live here. That’s smaller than Fargo, the home of fictional small town car salesmen and wood-chipped murderers. The small population, maybe, is the reason the water is so clear. The water is impossible to ignore. In the U.S., we’ve gotten used to green, murky water and beaches filled with grainy sand and careless day-trippers. When someone travels to another country to go to the beach, rest assured, it will be a nice one. Cozumel isn’t as exotic or hidden a locale as I might have liked. We’ve managed to avoid most of the tourists during the middle of summer because we know someone who can take us to the east coast of Cozumel, where all of the nature is and all of the shops aren’t. When I first see it, I stop. The rocky shore recalls a trip to Rialto Beach in Olympic Park. The water is just as blue here on “the other side” of Cozumel, as it’s known. I’ve been sweating all day, but somehow being able to stand and experience the pictures I’ve seen on Google Images makes it all worth it. Is it a once in a lifetime experience? No. But it’s something I can come back to—this feeling of standing on the rocky edge of the beach and walking down to water and being able to see schools of fish over ten yards away. Gordon Hempton has written about America’s last quiet places, and I think I’ve found one of Mexico’s.