Txepo Time

Beach Bar
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After taking a flight from hell from London to Miami (9hrs) with screaming kids and a women next to me (cb) who wouldn´t sit still and insisted on taking up half of my seat too, we arrived with just 5hrs to spare! before our next connecting flight to Cancun, Mexico.

The Cancun flight was unfortunately delayed which meant we had a bit of a rush at the other end trying to make it to the last ferry to Cozumel. A quick battle through immigration and past the waiting tour guides trying to sell you time shares or something, we managed to make our bus to Playa del Carmen and our ferry destination. So with 10 mins to spare we raced to the very last ferry of the evening, arriving in Cozumel at 11.30 (we were supposed to be there at 10pm!!). Luckily for us Txepo (pronounced Chepo) was still awake and welcomed us in to Villa Anna Maria, our B&B for the next few days.

The best bit was spotting a green turtle..

Post Dive
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Thursday 20th. Hired bikes and explored Cozumel island, well, in the intense heat (35+ °C) we managed to cycle from beach bar to beach bar for refreshments. We were very careful that we didn´t get fried as we wanted to be ready for diving. Apart from locking the bikes together, losing the key, pushing the makeshift tandem a mile before finding some friendly workmen to cut the lock we had a pleasant, relaxing day! We saw a pod of dolphins offshore and snorkelled in crystal clear waters.

Happy Diver
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Friday 21st. DIVING!! Our first dive in 7 years. Luckily we had one on one guidance from Txepo, who was brilliant and very experienced (he only dives with guests so every dive is a fun dive). He went easy on us and we went to 30m on the first dive and 18m on the second. We both loved it! Claire struggled a bit with her buoyancy and spent a bit of time at the surface rather than the bottom!

Saturday 22nd. MORE DIVING!! Our second day was fantastic as we were both much more confident and relaxed. Our first dive of the day to 28m took us around a horseshoe shaped reef with beautiful coral and loads of fish. The best bit was spotting a green turtle diving down to munch on the coral, he didn´t seem to mind us being there. Our second dive was a drift dive, using the seas current to move us along the reef. Callum remembered to bring the underwater case for the camera and took the photos you can see! I managed to overcome a fear of diving into caves and followed Txepo straight into a series of caves to see fish hung in to water in big sholes, fantastic! After diving we all went for lunch including Pierre, who we met on the diving boat, he has been travelling for over a year and Cozumel was his last stop before returning home so he gave us loads of usefull info about South America, yippee!

Txepo Dive Instructor
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Sunday 23rd. We left Cozumel late and travelled by ferry and bus to Piste, near Chichen-Itza. Again we arrived late and in really bad rain, but still really hot! Luckily the hotel was just across the road from the bus stop and had lovely air con!