The ship didn't have the particular shore excursions my wife and I wanted to take (either to Costa Maya or Tulum), so we decided to head downtown and shop.
I'm pretty tight when it comes to spending money on extravagant things. I tend to keep my cards close to the chest and discern need from want very quickly. Starting out a marriage while going to school and bringing in around $25k per year with a new car payment (not by choice on that one), rent, student loans, and paying for gas to commute to school made us watch every dime. It's a habit we still haven't broken out of--in fact, it was because of an unexpected windfall that we actually were able to take this cruise in the first place!
That's the background.
Here's what happened in Cozumel.
Of course, we had decided to get souveniers, particularly for our children. We were also under orders to buy some Mexican vanilla. Unfortunately, real vanilla extract in the U.S. is generally poor quality or is outrageously expensive. The orders came from my mom who with my dad graciously took care of our children in our absence. I believe it was more than a fair trade. We really had no intentions of buying anything else.
Well, that's before fortune struck. Two cruise ships were actually scheduled to dock in Cozumel that day, but because of a brewing hurricane on the eastern side of the Yukatan Penninsula, one canceled out. That left only us. We literally had the run of the mill when it came to shopping. The other thing that smiled upon us was a cultural phenomenon of the ancient Maya when it comes to the first sale of the day. For a shop keeper, the first sale is very good luck. Making that first sale to a pastor and his wife...well, let's just say that's the icing on the cake.
After visiting with some folks who gave us good advice on where to start shopping, we headed to down town San Miguel. About the second or third shop we went into, we were met by a salesperson who engaged my wife in looking at jewelry. We had no intention to buy.
The guy showed her several tanzanite rings--that's getting to be a pretty rare stone, by the way. That's important information for this story. The first ring, my wife rejected outright because it was too gaudy. Then, the guy pulls out a really nice one. He tells us its 1/2 karat tanzanite, 1 karat of Austrailian opal, and .4 karats of diamond chips. He says the price is $499 us. But, and here the haggling starts, he'll cut it to half price. Of course, we aren't biting, but when he finally comes down to $175 us, I take an interest. Well, more than an interest.
It was, "Happy Anniversary, hon!"
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