Cozumel, Mexico (1/5/07)

From: Sherman Rootberg (BiggiRoot)
Date: Jan 6, 2007 12:17 AM
Subject: Friday, January 05, 2007



Friday, January 05, 2007

Cozumel, Mexico

I hope you are getting a picture with each of these daily notes I send. They are not bought or copied. They are all taken by Bobbi and I with her little pocket Nikon P1 camera. The satellite Internet on the ship is very slow and these take a long time to send and are often corrupted or destroyed causing me to resend.

We are docked as close as possible to land. There are two other cruise ships docked on the same pier, behind us. There are other piers and some ships anchored. This is a very busy port. Too busy. Far too many people get unloaded here at once. When we first started coming here, many years ago, there was mostly nothing. Now there is just about anything. There would be more but they can’t build any more because there isn’t enough fresh water as it is.

You won’t be getting today’s episode until very late. We are not receiving Fox News on the TV. When it can’t get through that means there is no Internet or ship to shore phone either. They all come off the same satellite. I see no buildings tall enough to block it so I am wondering if the Mexicans block it so that we would have to use their phones etc. At any rate, I wont be able to send until around midnight which is when we leave.

We are at the pier at the far end of town. Years ago there was nothing here and it was a $5 rip off for a ride into town. Now it is built and full of stores, bars and restaurants, continuous, from one end of what they call town to the other. At the land side of the pier is the main road around the island. For quite a few years now, there has been a modern shopping center. They provide a walk over the main road with escalators at both sides. There is nothing on the pier side. All there is, is a breakwater, a narrow sidewalk and no room for any buildings. This center use to have the few up scale shops on the island. Those are gone and the couple of stores that looked like they had a little higher quality merchandise also had no one in them. From here, as you walk toward the center of town, it is all the same. Hundreds, maybe thousands of mostly small stores, bars and restaurants. Most of the US fast food chains are well represented. The sidewalks so crowded you can hardly walk.

As I mentioned, we have been here many, many times and have done just about everything you can on this island. It is only 29 miles long and 9 miles wide and 11 miles off the mainland. So this afternoon we just took a long walk down the street for a mile or so and walked around the one shopping center. Bobbi forgot to bring insect repellent. She likes the kind with at least 50% Deet. There were several drug stores but all they carry is the very weak stuff with just a few %. I will have to ask our slave to see if she can pick us up some at the grocery in FL and bring it on the 9th with the rest of the stuff we forgot. Almost every store has someone standing outside asking, begging, or ordering you to come in. Some of the little better stores have young women in black evening gowns asking you to come in and are offering brochures. Like many other places, it is one store after another with just about the same junk to sell.

My eyes were not much better this morning and even itchier then yesterday. So I went back to Dr I Don’t Know. He said he had treated about half a dozen people with this problem and I was the only one that didn’t clear up quickly with the steroid drops. I suggested that I might have conjunctivitis. Dr I Don’t Know said I don’t know. But he gave me some different eye drops with steroids and antibiotic. I think he is really Rodney Dangefield’s old doctor. Remember Rodney? I don’t get no respect Rodney. His doctor was Dr Vinny Boombatz. This guy has got to be Boombatz hiding out in the Caribbean on a cruise ship under a new name. I asked Dr I Don’t Know how long these drops should take if they are working. He says until I feel better. I says, about how long should that be. Dr I Don’t Know said I don’t know. I then asked him, what if I am still not getting better? Is there anything else I could take? Dr I Don’t Know said I don’t know. I’ll give him this. He is consistent. He didn’t charge me anything this time. Good price. Probably what his doctoring is worth. Maybe more.