Cozumel, Mexico: Day 6: Saturday, 2/6/10

This morning we were served cheese enchilladas topped with a black bean sauce and grated cheese and a piece of corn bread. We went on-line and checked the weather forecast which looked very good. We decided to head to Mr. Sancho's again.

The day turned out to be one of the most beautiful of the week - brilliant sunshine, low humidity, about 80 degrees, not-too-cold ocean, and gentle, lapping waves. We sat there all day and ordered our favorite: Mr. Sancho's Nachos and some drinks. The waiters weren't on our backs too much today, which was nice. The icing on the cake was that we were treated to a live performance by a Mariachi band, performing inside the restaurant area. We stayed there until 4:00 p.m. and then headed back to the hotel to hang out and relax before dinner.

We decided to pay a visit to a restaurant called La Parilla Mission, which appeared to be a long walk on the map, but only took about 15 minutes to walk there. It was located a couple doors down from the Covi liquor store. We really liked Parilla Mission. It was a homey place with very good food at super cheap prices and the staff were really nice. It felt very comfortable and we got the impression it was a family-run place.

I ordered my favorite (one again) - chili relleno which was some ridiculously low price that came out to about $5 USD and Mr. Sassy ordered a grilled fish platter that was about $6 or $7 USD. These were full sized dinners with side dishes! We also got 2 drinks (which were about $6 each), so our total bill came to about $27 including tip.

After that, we walked to the center of town. Mr. Sassy was in desperate need for coffee to juice himself up for dancing in the plaza (he was up for it tonight!), so we stopped at this little store on the plaza (forgot to note the name) that had a coffee bar. Mr. Sassy ordered 4 (yes, you read that correctly) shots of espresso. I ordered some ice cream (chocolate and coconut) which was very good.

Once we were thoroughly pumped up on caffeine and sugar, we headed over to the square and were happy to see that the same excellent band was playing again. We had even more fun this evening because we were both in a really good mood and up for dancing and there were lots of others dancing along with us - locals and tourists.

There was a group of Americans that were so entertaining to watch - their dance moves were just hysterical - so once we had enough, we sat down and watched them. They were doing all kinds of silly dance moves like the robot, krunking (similar to hip hop dancing), breakdancing, "the ministry of silly walks" (Monty Python) and all kinds of silliness. Set to the Latin music, their dancing was even more entertaining. I captured a video of them (below) but sadly, I turned the camera on after they had done their craziest stuff. Still, you can see how much fun they were having.

We danced full throttle for a good hour and a half or so before we decided to sit down. What I really enjoyed (once we sat down) was watching the expressions of the locals as they were watching the tourists dance and seeing how much they enjoyed it. I have the feeling a lot of the locals go to the plaza on Sunday nights not so much to see the entertainers, but to watch the locals make complete asses of themselves (us included).

Exhibit A: Mr. Sass:

As we were sitting there, Mr. Sassy was carrying on a conversation with a nice Mexican man who was sitting next to him. I got up and walked over to the big gazebo where the band was playing, hoping to get a good close-up photo of the band. As soon as I arrived next to the gazebo, an older Mexican man came down the steps to talk to me. He spoke very poor English but tried his best to chat me up. He was talking about the big festival starting tomorrow night called "Carnival" and said I should make sure to come tomorrow night. He took my hand and asked me if I wanted to dance. I declined, telling him I had danced all evening and was exhausted. He asked me if I had a husband. I said, "yes - right over there" and pointed to Mr. Sassy who still sitting on the wall engaged in conversation with the man sitting next to him. "Where? I don't see him." I pointed again. He looked at me with disbelief and said, "he's not your husband". I guess he didn't want to believe me and I realized he was trying to hit on me. This is when I made my exit and wished him a good evening and headed back to Mr. Sass.

After all that dancing, we were pretty worn out so we headed back to our hotel. At this point it was about 10:30. We were wiped out and went right to bed. This was probably the most fun evening we had in Cozumel.