Driving along the wild side

Staying in Cozumel for 11 days...we had went to do a Sea Trek adventure at Jeanie's in the morning and after that, we decided to head over to the "Wild Side" and drive around to stop at whatever might strike our fancy and see if we could find the small blow holes that our driver last time had taken us to. 

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I planned on taking the same route that our driver had done when we did the jeep tour. I wanted to cut down the middle of the island (sorta) and to the back and then go around (versus going down by all the beach clubs and around the opposite way). 

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On our way there we passed a few places I thought was interesting. 

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Of course here's the Tequila Tour everyone talks about. I thought the drink being poured out front that was a fountain was pretty creative. 

The "Mayan Bee Sanctuary" was a place we had heard mentioned a few times while we were here. It was located on this road. I'm not sure I would like to go to a bee sanctuary. I don't like bee's and we all seen how "Mija" freaked out over the one hanging onto her net during our Jade Caverns tour. So, not really the thing for us.

Now I don't know what this place was but it looked like a circus to me. There was an el elefante (elephant) out front along with an el hombre (man) and la mujer (woman) larger than the elephant sitting on blocks. I tried looking it up, but I still can't tell what it is. When you look on google earth, it's a pretty big place back there and you can see stands. Is it really some type of circus? Do they have an elephant in Cozumel? Anyone know? Drop me a comment at the end of the review if you know what this place is. 

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Edit, I did find a TA conversation online about (what I think this place is) and the question states:

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The Circus--Without Animals?

6 years ago

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If you have visited Cozumel much, you have likely seen the circus in town either in front of Chedraui or another location. You may have also been unfortunate to see these poor animals paraded through the streets in circus vehicles to promote the attraction. The Mexican government has just passed legislation to ban all circuses with animals from the country. It awaits the Presidents signature. All indications seem to be that he will sign it.

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It also mentioned: lions, tigers, camels, elephants, monkeys, zebras, horses. 

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So, my guess is it went away many years ago. ??

We finally made it to the "Wild Side" and was greeted by these guys everywhere you looked...

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If you've never been on this side of Cozumel, it's very peaceful, not much traffic, and not much over here other than a road, the ocean on one side and greenery on the other and every once in awhile, you'll hit some type of beach club. Very pretty. 

As we are going down the street, not knowing where or when something will strike our fancy and we will pull over, we see this guy standing in the middle of the street. He has a sign and he's waving us in. Now I honestly don't remember passing by this place the last time we were over here on our jeep tour (and I'm not sure how we could have missed it because it's a pretty big place, but then again, maybe it is just blocked out of my memory right now and I'll have to go back and check my previous review). I slammed on the brakes, looked at him as he frantically waved me in, looked at mi familia and said "hey, why not check it out".  We all had to use the restroom anyhow and using an actual bano instead of pulling on the side of the road and finding an abandoned shack, like we did last time, seemed a little less primitive to us. 

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We have arrived at Punta Morena!

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I put it in reverse and pulled into the parking lot. We asked them if there was a cover charge and they replied no. They took our temps and we sanitized our hands and was greeted by a big "Open" sign...just in case we thought otherwise. 

El baño estaba limpio (the bathroom was clean) and pretty nice, so also an added plus to find over here on the wild side I guess. 

We started walking around and checking this place out. Man was this place GORGEOUS! It was huge and much more than I had expected. It was kinda sad to see it so dead. There was a family there with their children, a couple at the bar, and maybe one other couple on the beach. It had beautiful white fluffy soft sand, plenty of seating and everything you could wish for with a beach club...just no one there. The hubby went to go get us some pop while I went around snapping pictures. 

We headed toward the water. Now you have to remember, you are on the wild side and there's a reason for that name. The water really isn't your typical "swimming water" because the waves are so rough. Great for trying to surfboard, but not swimming and can be very dangerous. However, this place did have a little cove area that you could get into to get cooled off, which made it nice. 

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I just love flying kids, don't you?

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There was a bench, sitting up on some rocks, that I seen a man and his son coming from. They were really struggling to make it back with the waves crashing along the way. It was about knee deep and the waves were just angry. I took one look at Hija and said "absolutely not!" It just looked too dangerous...even though I was foregoing a neat picture. 

Man these waves were rough and it was windy. We walked along the rocks taking in the view and not really sure what we wanted to do (other than to take pictures). The hubby was getting nervous that I was walking on these rocks. For the most part, it was smooth rocks with holes in it, but other places that were pointy I didn't go on. There were a lot of sponges washed up on the rocks. 

A video of the waves crashing against the rocks.

One of the places, that looked like it was next door, caught my eye. It looked run down and maybe like a hurricane had hit it. There was a large palapa that might have been a restaurant or club and a swimming pool. Hija squeeled with excitement thinking that she was going to get to go swim, but we would find that this was not the case. It was all in despair and so sad to see. I really didn't know what the story behind it was but of course once I got home, I had to look it up!

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This was actually part of Punta Moreno and was part of the restaurant and it was also their pool. Now the area just sat in rubble, the roof missing off the building, the roof missing from the large palapa and the pool filled with trash and debris. So sad. I could only picture how nice this area used to be.  

I was finding pictures of this place online and it definitely was a beautiful place before this happened. 

Take a look at that beach area over there! It's muy grande! (Very large). Of course not swimmable because of the waves, but definitely a place that you could splash and cool off at. One thing I didn't notice was there was a boat over there and close to the road. I don't know how I missed that as we were driving by. We must have been talking or something. But, after I got home, I seen pictures of it online. I wished I would have walked over this way now. You can even see it in the background of one of my pictures. 

Well we knew that if we wanted to continue on, we would need to leave this beautiful paradise soon. It was just so gorgeous that if I had an entire day to spend at a beach, I would probably come back here.

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We headed to the bar and decided to sit down and get one last pop. Although it was a bit cloudy today, it was still hot. 

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Below you will find their menu. If we hadn't had all those nacho's at Jeanies, we would have definitely ate here and supported this business. I know I have read that their prices are a little high, but I didn't feel like they were much different than the other places we went to for the most part. You also have to realize that this side of the island doesn't have electricity. So, they have more expenses with using grills and such. 

Hija loved the swings at the bar. 

When Hija finished her drink, she headed to a hammock. It was the funniest thing to watch her try to get in it. The first time she sat down, she did a complete flip backwards and landed in the sand. Of course after I noticed this, I had to get a video of her trying a second time but it wasn't as entertaining since she had already had one go-around at it. 

Ahhh, finally!!! She made it but was still unsure about the whole situation. That smirk on her face said it all.

We finished off our pop and decided to grab one for the road and then started to head back to the car and on to the next adventure. We definitely loved this place and will hopefully come back again in the future. 

As we were pulling out, the guy that had waved us down was still at it. Hey, I guess this advertising works because we did see another vehicle pull in as we were leaving. 

Headed down the street we spotted this guy. I guess it was the advertisement for Mirador Chumul. I'm not sure if he was doing a good job flagging down motorist to come there but he sure caught my attention. 

I really loved staying on the island and being able to do things on our own time. Driving on the wild side made it possible to just do whatever and we could go as slow as we wanted and stop in the middle of the road when we seen something (or for me to take a picture). It's just such a different experience.

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Now I do know that I wanted to actually stop at Chen Rio since we didn't the last time we were touring this side of the island. I know a lot of people come here to hang out because there is a protected area to swim in here. However, when I say "swim", it doesn't mean actually swimming...like in the ocean...like up to your head...or even your waist for that matter. It's a wading pool type of thing. But, it seems to be where a lot of people go on this side of the island and it was definitely a "local" place. 

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The locals were there with their familys and had brought tables, chairs, umbrellas and even set up huge tarps. I'm not even sure how they got the large poles in the sand to attach them to or if these poles are always there. The children were playing ball in the water and the parents were sitting in it talking to one another. 

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We picked a spot between the locals and put our towels down in the sand. The hubby immediately went out to test the water out (which is shocking because Sakari & I are always the first in).

The water was crystal clear, but the temps were a little cooler (I thought) than the water on the "calm side". 

The waves were still crashing beyond the cove and every once in awhile it would come all the way in over the rocks protecting the area and you could watch the familia's in the water sitting flapping their arms around like they were about to take flight only instead, they would get thrown about the water, recover, then go on as if this was just normal.

I decided I would sit this one out. I was perfectly happy with only my feet in the water (no sitting in there for me) and then resting on the beach while Hija started a sand creation. (I was shocked she didn't want in the water either). 

The sand creation was a sea turtle, only she didn't even get to finish it off before a huge wave came in and washed it away like it didn't even happen. 

We stayed here about an hour and decided to move on. We were real interested in finding the blow holes that our jeep guide had shown us last time. All I can remember is that there was a torn up abandoned shack by it and we kept a look out for it. I only remember that part because Hija and I used it as a cover to go to the bano that time. 

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As we went along, we remembered stopping at the next beach for a short minute for pictures and our guide showing us the markings on the road that meant turtle nesting was going on and how they keep track of it then mark it out with black paint when the nest has hatched.

We decided to stop and the hubby went across the street to buy some pop for us. 

Hija said she needed to use el bano and I told her to head across the street where her el padre was and find them. She came back saying a guy there said she would have to pay $5 to use them. Wait what? Oh no. Mi esposo is over there purchasing drinks from them and they wanna charge her more than a drink cost to use the restroom. Here comes momma bear to the rescue. 

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Now this place is called San Martin beach...so remember it. If you want to use the bano's, they will try to rip you off! I walked over to where the hubby was standing and ask the guy behind the counter "Donde esta el bano?" He told me where it was at and pointed. I ask him if it cost money to use it and he said "no". Are you kidding me? Someone was trying to make a few bucks off us. Not cool! We headed around the corner and back to the restrooms and Sakari pointed to the guy that told her it cost money as I glared him down in shame. 

Moving along I see a turtle with no head. I slammed on the breaks and had to pull over and take a picture. LOL

Then we approached a building that was vacated and run down. I'm not sure what happened to it but I hear a lot of people talk about Hurricane Wilma and a lot of places didn't recover. I have no idea if this was one of the places. 

When I researched it when I got home, I found that this use to be Playa Bonita and it looked real pretty before the destruction. However, they still have a website up but it says closed. They do have a facebook with people posting and it looks like people are still going there to hang out. I also see posts from previous (not long ago) post that does show the outside of this building in despair but they are eating inside? Anyone know what's up with this place? Did the hurricane wipe it out but they continued to operate with the building like that until covid hit and now it's no longer a business? If anyone know the story, drop me a line below. I always love to hear stories behind places.

Here's what it used to look like: 

Moving along, we are still looking for the building, where we were taken to by our tour guide last time, that the small blow holes were at. 

As we are going along, we are seeing the water on the other side crash up against the rocks and shoot straight up in the air. Some were pretty big. We got to an area that you could no longer see the ocean, but you would see the water shoot up high. The hubby would say "there's one!" and I would say "it's just the water crashing against the rocks babe." Then at one point he said "there's one for sure!"....me rolling my eyes and telling him he's just thinking he seen one, he says "It was different, I'm telling ya it was different!"

I slammed on the brakes and turned the car around. Ok, we are going to check this out just to see. We parked the car along the side of the road where it was safe and walked up the hill to take a look. Then he yells 'SEE! THERE IT IS! THAT'S A BLOW HOLE!" Well guess what...he was RIGHT! And there were 2 of them and they were HUGE shooting way up in the air. I couldn't believe it! We locked the doors and I was armed with my camera's and we decided we would walk over to where they were at. I have never seen anything like this before. It was amazing! 

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It took quite some time for me to maneuver the rocks and water leading up to them and once again the hubby was saying "careful, watch out, oh baby please don't fall".   

We got closer and closer and the excitement built. Sakari was anxious to get there and was squealing with excitement. We had found them! All by ourselves! Without a tour guide! And they were HUGE! No the baby ones we were shown before!

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I'm yelling "don't go too far! Don't get too close!" I have never been around something like this before and I had no idea what it was going to be like. Would we get sucked in? Was it so powerful we'd get thrown into the ocen?I didn't know. 

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I finally caught up with her and it was just amazing to watch and the sound.....oh my gosh, it was so loud and so neat. 

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The hubby thought it would be neat to feel it blasting up out the the rocks. He ended up wet. LOL What did you think was going to happen? He was enjoying it and did it over and over. Then Sakari tried it and got soaked (in video).

The water was crazy wild and it was way down below and shooting up really high in a cove beside the blow holes.

We found a lot of places that the water was coming up in the rocks away from the ocean. It was neat to see how the ocean does this. You could watch the water coming in and out of these area from underneath.

We found a really huge hole (it's really hard to tell by the picture), but the water was rushing in and out of it and it was deep enough for a person to fit down in there and stand up. Yikes! Better watch where you are walking...especially someone like me who is danger-prone. 

There were also little crevices in the rocks where the water had came in and got trapped, then the water dried up, and it left tons of salt behind. Now that was really cool to see. 

Here's my video of the blow holes and the fun we had watching them.

We spent about 1/2 an hour here and decided to move on. Sakari said this was the best part of the day. She is such a nature freak and would rather do anything related to nature than anything else. For her birthday (that just passed...yes, she just turned 13!!!) I ask her what type of party did she want since this was a big event...with her turning a teen and all. I ask if she wanted to do a roller skating party, go to the trampoline park, a party house or this new place we have only been to once with rides inside a building and glow in the dark putt putt. She replied "I don't want any of that, I want to go to a park where there's nature". Yep, that's my child. 

​Well, how's this for nature? More buzzards!

As we walked back to the car, the hubby spotted something coming out of the jungle on the opposite side of the road. He yelled "Run! Wild boars!!" We looked across the road and down about 30 feet and seen 2 of them! Oh my gosh...I CAN'T run! I'm going to die! I hopped the best I could and remember we have a car without a remote and without electric locks to unlock them all at the same time. All these emotions are spinning in my head about what to do and I figured if worse comes to worse, I'm jumping on top of the car! About that time another car was coming down the road. When whatever it was seen the car, they scurried back into the jungle. We safely made it to the car and turned the car around and went over to where we had seen them. We looked and looked (funny how we ran when they were far away but here we were trying to find them now). We could hear them in the brush but this jungle area was THICK and went WAY down. Like all you can see is the top of the palm trees, which tells you how far down it went. They never did come back out but we looked them up online and found that they were called a Collared Peccary aka Javelina. The following pictures are not mine but off the web.

Only a face a mother could love right? Our lives were spared and we talked about it the rest of the day!

This would be the last picture I took before we went around the corner and the ocean on the wild side was no longer in our view. 

We had a great time on the Wild Side and definitely hope to go back again and see if we can remember where the blow holes are since it was the highlight of the day. 

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If you want to know where to locate the blow holes, if you go on google earth, you will see a silver car with black rims parked right on the side of the street where the blow holes are (obviously someone was stopped and looking at them when the google earth person went by and you can see a couple standing over by the blow holes). There's also a sign (if it's still there idk) that says "Precaution Dangerous Curve". It's before you get to the Punta Sur street exit and before the road curves. 

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Driving along the wild side is simply breathtaking and amazing! It's the part of Cozumel that a lot of visitors don't get to see. Cozumel is pretty small, so it really doesn't take that long to get there (other than driving 19 mph for the speed limit in town). 

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Of course you won't find a lot of beach clubs over there, but the few that are there are beautiful...especially Punta Moreno! Definitely worth a day visit there! Plenty of space to spread out and relax.

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The blow holes are just an amazing work of art from the ocean!

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Although it's sad to see some of the destruction that mother nature has caused, it's a constant reminder that nothing in this world is promised. 

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If you want a unique experience, take a tour over here, or rent a car and do it on your own. Cozumel is so simple to navigate and this is the main road that circles around the island.