My Walkabout In Mexico

If you haven’t read me before, I’m recently 60 year old Phil Taylor, author of ThePhilFactor, one of the longest running blogs in the history of the Earth, and a handful of novels. In June, my lovely wife of 33 years passed away. After six months finding my emotional stability, I decided that I had enough cold snowy winters in upstate New York. You know when you see those reports of Buffalo, New York getting several feet of snow? I live in that part of the state. So, long story short, I decided to, as my Aussie writer friend Bel Woodhouse would say, go for a “walkabout” to find where I fit in the world. Right now, I’m officially 5,434 kilometers from home and I couldn’t be happier. Everything hasn’t been perfect, but that’s how I like it. It’s my goal to get a real feel for living on the island of Cozumel.

First off, let’s talk about AirBNB’s. Mine is fine. It’s a small apartment, which is all I really need for one guy on his own. It’s walking distance to everything in the town. I like that. It would be nice if there weren’t roosters crowing at 4 a.m. as if someone was tearing them apart. I don’t like that. But you know what? If i choose to stay here I’ll get used to the roosters. They are up only marginally earlier than me. Yesterday I had a fantastic day all over the island with my friend Bel Woodhouse who is International Living’s Mexico correspondent, and that’s really what this article is about.

One thing to know is that Cozumel isn’t a big island but it’s also not small. It’s about 30 miles from end to end and it’s about ten miles wide. I’m sorry that I’m not fully versed in the metric system, but by the end of my journey, I will be. Most tourists visit the island and only see the first four or five blocks from the port where their cruise ship parked. When you go, don’t be that tourist. There is so much more to Cozemel than bars and t-shirt shops.

Apparently, anything might be crossing the road.

If you’ve ever taken a cruise that stopped at San Miguel, Cozumel, you probably didn’t wander into the jungle. I know some of the bars are wild, but they’re not the only jungle in Cozumel. If learning that Cozumel is an island is new to you, you are not alone. I’m not referring to me, but I know someone who had been to Cozumel on a cruise and had no idea that it wasn’t part of the mainland. Don’t be that tourist.

The Mayan ruins is a must see stop when you’re on Cozumel. These aren’t the only ones either. For about $5-$10 American you can have your own personal guide take you through all the ruins in a site.

I was lucky enough to persuade this lovely lady to pose with me. I think we’re engaged now.

You can get up close to some of the Mayan ruins, but you can’t climb all over them. You might not want to because the ruins are truly in the jungle and there’s some jungle residents who think that you’re in their neighborhood, such as this impressive neighboorhood watch member.

After the ruins visit, we went to the Mayan Bee Sanctuary. At first I was feeling my skin crawl at the idea of intentionally being near bees. But these are special bees. No stingers, they just make some really delicious honey. Winnie the Pooh would get himself into big trouble here.

Following our tours of the ruins and the bees, Bel and I visited a tiny village in the jungle that has been there for centuries. Other than a tiny, beautiful church, it also had a tequila maker that had free tastings, and it was fantastic. If you haven’t heard, Mexico is good at tequila. After that visit we headed to the beach for lunch…

Lunch on the beach. No crowds, no cruises, just this quiet little place. Places like this still live on Cozumel.

So this has been my first steps into the rest of the world to see where I want to be for the next chapter of my story. Maybe I end up here in Mexico, or maybe somewhere else. It was such a perfect first day that I felt that I had to end the day with this:

Bel, thanks for your help. Folks if you have any interest in moving to Mexico, you can find Bel on IG as thetravelbag.guru and at International Living. I may not look all that big in this picture, but the whole world just became a whole lot smaller for me. Thank you for reading and thanks for coming along for the ride. ~Phil

P.S. As someone who has worked in and around the medical industry for over 30 years, when you go on a long trip like this, before you go, pack some medical basics like ibuprofen, band-aids, Neosporin and sun screen. Traveling the world is nice but having a medical issue pop up can ruin a “Trip of a lifetime.”