A Surprise Addition to Our Itinerary!

The problem with chatting with other travellers is you often discover new places to visit.  I had such a discussion yesterday with someone who has been traveling around the world for the last 6 years and has been funding his travels by playing competitive backgammon online. Talk about if there’s a will, there’s a way!  Anywho, he and his Chilean girlfriend, who he met while visiting Venezuela, and I were chatting, and he...

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What a 9-year-old has learned from 3 weeks as an expat

We’ve been living in Cozumel for 3 weeks now, so I figured I’d post just some of the things I’ve seen Tigger learn as well as sharing some things straight from the source. The value of money.  When wanting to rent a scooter again, he thought nothing of the 25 USD cost. Until I explained that was almost half a week’s groceries. He has learned about exchanging one type of money to another. Right now the USD to...

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Two Parties, Two Different Worlds

In the last week we’ve attended 3 birthday parties, 2 of which were for kids. One was a local friend and the other some visitors from America. I’ve always loved that in Spanish, particularly the Mexican form, there are 2 words for “party.” One, fiesta, is your average, run-of-the-mill celebration that will only last probably 2-3 hours and won’t get too crazy or too exciting. The other is pachanga....

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When Plans Go Awry

Our trip into town to look for longer-term housing started out well.  The hostel owner was going to help me search for a place, and she had scored a deal on a rental car (for less than a scooter, so really nice deal!). When we got to the rental place, however, things turned a bit sour. Let’s just say you don’t mess with a Swiss woman. So we were without a car in a town without cheap transit options. And it was one of the...

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Our 1st Week!

We have put out 1st week behind us now.  Hard to believe it went so fast, even though the last 6 months went about as quickly.  Don’t know why I bother continuing to be surprised when time flies.  So what have we done with our 1st week? Well, I have managed to earn my advanced open water diver certification (underwater orienteering, deep water, night, shipwreck, and drift diving). In between those dives we’ve managed to go...

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