Friday, June 8, 2012

Caribbean Cruise part 5 - Cozumel

The final stop on our cruise was Cozumel Mexico.  Cozumel was kind of the middle ground of all the stops.  Whereas Haiti and Jamaica were foreign (even a little exotic) and Grand Cayman was modern and western, Cozumel felt just like Mexico on the west coast.  The people were friendly, and very few of the vendors were pushy like some of the previous ports.

The weather continued to be hot and humid.  The original plan was to do some light snorkeling in the morning, but I wasn't in the mood so we instead decided to walk up the road towards downtown.  We walked as far as the old light house before returning to the ship.  After lunch we had scheduled a tour at the Cozumel Chocolate Factory (google it and you'll find it).  Wow, that was fun and informative.  It's a small mom and pop shop that makes high-quality chocolate right there before your eyes.  You learn about the history of chocolate and the region.  You also get to make and taste your own chocolate.  And they have chocolate bars for sale to take back with you.  By far my favorite bar was the 2012 Limited Edition bar.  This was a semi-sweet bar (I think 60%) but what made it special was the additional of ground up chunks of cocoa beans.  The raw cocoa beans are in effect 100% dark chocolate, so this makes the bar less sweet and more dark than a standard 60%.  But the ground up bits add a very nice crispy crunch to the chocolate.  It's almost like eating a Nestle Crunch bar, that crunchiness, but the crunchiness is from chocolate itself.  Getting to and from the chocolate factory is going to require a taxi.  It cost us $10 each way for our group of 3.  That $10 cost is for the group not per person.

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