Last Sea Day and LA

This picture is dedicated to Jason because of his comment in my last post... This is what we saw in the water in our glass bottom boat tour. Actually it was kinda silly because it was easier to look at the Mexican piranas over the edge of the boat than through the glass bottom. And really, this is an over the edge of the boat picture. Sorry, I guess I didn't take a picture of the actual glass...

Ok so this picture was actually taken on Acapulco day but for some reason, we didn't take any pictures on our last sea day... Actually there is a reason. We didn't do anything. It was cold and windy outside and so we couldn't play basketball which was on the top deck outside, no one wanted to swim in that kind of weather, and we had explored the boat over and over and over again in previous days. So we basically ate, packed, ate, hung out in our cabins, ate, and watched a show at night. And that was our last sea day experience. The water was pretty rough too, it was tough to walk straight with all that rocking.

For those of you who have been wondering where all these places are that I've told you about, here is a little map. Sorry, it's not the best quality ever.

And if you wanted to know what the fancy restaurant food looks like, I took the liberty of taking a picture of my main entree when we ate at the restaurants.

Row by row, left to right:

Seafood extravaganza. Mahi Mahi on a skewer.

Grilled Salmon. BLT with a fried egg.

Baked Flounder. Seafood Potpouri with Linguine.

Steak Loin with Yorkshire Pudding (yes, that humongo thing!). Chicken Souvlaki Salad.

Vegetable Manicotti.

It was great food but it was nice to get back to LA and have a plain Subway sandwich. Fancy food day after day can get old.

Here's us waiting to check in at the LA airport.

And that is the end of the Mexican Riviera Cruise. I will try to sign up for a picture album account so you can see all the pictures we took on the cruise. By the time I do that, it will probably be old news but oh well!

Cabo San Lucas and the Chocoholics Buffet

We arrived Monday morning at around 8am. I went for a run around the ship on their jogging track as we were pulling into port. So this is me after the run when we were anchored in.

Cabo was a pretty place. The rocks made it cool. I guess it has grown a whole lot in the last few years but I still liked it. This was another place that we had to get to on the tender boats. It was a quick ride to shore, we hopped out and were bombarded by people trying to sell us their tours. Well, we didn't plan on doing anything in Cabo except shop shop shop for souvenirs, but they offered us a glass bottom boat tour for just 8 bucks a person. So we took it and off we went to the marina to hop on our boat. We went on two different boats since our group was so large. We went out to sea and saw some different things - the rocks up close, pelicans, what the boat operator called Mexican pirana (they looked like fun size sharks (teeny guys)), seals, and the open water - not that we hadn't been on open water the last 6 days! Anyway, the entire floor of the boat was not glass, just a small section in the middle of the boat that you could look down into the water. It was neat-o. Probably my favorite shore excursion that we did because it was out in the open, the scenery was great, the weather was lovely, and it was just relaxing.

The marina. Our boat was like a canoe compared to these boats.

Here it is. Our glass bottom boat. That's me on the right side second from the front. I didn't even feel sick on this boat and I hadn't taken any meclizine in over 24 hours!

The sea lions lounging around like a big pile of lard.


One of the sea lions up close and looking like a bronze statue.

After our little boat tour, we went to the large market and shopped till we dropped. We decided to split up into 3 groups, so each staff took 5 people with them. It was still a headache trying to find everything they wanted and bargain bargain bargain! In the end, everyone was happy and stocked up with new hats, shirts, jewlery, and other small souvenirs. Success! We then headed back to the ship for lunch. After lunch, everyone was deciding what to do next and we asked Hope what she wanted to do. She didn't know so we made suggestions: "Would you like to take a nap?" (because most days she would take an afternoon nap). Her response: "What? On a nice day like this?" We were shocked. So we ask: "Well, do you want to swim?" Her response: "What? In the cold?" I laughed. Some of our guys are so funny, always entertaining for some reason or another. However, she did have a point, the pool water was always cold!

Good-bye Cabo as we pulled away from our anchored spot.

That evening at 11pm, they had the chocoholics buffet. A very random event. They had one of the restaurants set up with a very long table of chocolate desserts and all around the room they had chocolate sculptings. It was the only desserts I actually ate on the cruise (besides sherbet a couple of times, but I don't count those) and it really wasn't worth the calories... And it was different then I thought it was going to be. Just a bunch of cakes and squares and mousses and actually it's kind of a turn off when you see all that chocolate together and all you can smell is chocolate. I only sampled a few things and was done. I was kinda hoping for some actual chocolate pieces - you know, like good international chocolate. Oh well.

The chocoholics buffet... There were so many more chocolate desserts.



The chocolate sculptures at the buffet.

Isn't this the cutest picture ever? I love it! Hope and Susie got these moo moos in Cabo.

Next up - our last day at sea and arrival to LA!

Puerto Vallarta and the Tequilla Factory

So on Sunday we arrived in Puerto Vallarta. We had a city tour set up, this time on a bus. It was alright. We went to this church... and I can't remember what it's called but it's a historical site. And when we went there, there was a congregation there and they were performing baptisms... while tourists were coming in and out and taking pictures. Bizarre? That's what I thought. Anyway, we saw some other things in the bus and finally stopped off at the Tequilla Distillary and learned how tequilla is made... It was part of the tour and they had tasting after, but we left before that part and took a look at the farm before the Fiesta began. The Fiesta consisted of food, a drinking competition for the men, a tortilla making competition for the women, and some dancing. It was pretty entertaining.

The church built in the early 1900s sometime.

How to make tequilla - You grow the plants, you fire up and cook the pineapple looking things, then you crush it up. Then you ferment the stuff that comes out and then you put it through the distillary. And then maybe we missed the rest of it when we went out to the farm because someone later told me something about how worms are part of the process... Anyway, I wasn't really paying attention to the tour so you only got the very short and incomplete version of how to make it.

Meeting the animals at the farm.

The Mexican Fiesta.

This guy and his family paint these tiles using thier fingers and a fingernail that he keeps long long long. Those are the tiles he made that day. They only take about 10 minutes to finish. The bottom right painting was my favorite. One of our participants bought it.

We went back to the ship later and celebrated one of our participant's birthday which was that day. Then we went to the show that night which was a magic show which was very entertaining. Stayed tuned to see our last stop in Mexico: Cabo San Lucas!

Zihuatanejo - Try Pronouncing That!

The correct pronunciation is this: See-Watt-Tan-Ay-Ho said quickly. We had to take a tender to get onto shore. That was a little scary for some of our participants but with enough coaxing and support they managed to all board the boat successfully. Zihuatanejo is really cool little town. Although we really didn't see much. We looked at the beach and only I and Spencer (another staff) wanted to test the water. It was a little cold but not bad. Then we just helped them shop for souvenirs. It was pretty hot here too but many trees provided excellent shade. And that was pretty much our taste of Zihuatanejo.

See our boat tenders. That's what we took to get to shore. They are actually the rescue boats from the ship. Also the view from the ship.

Most of our participants on the beach with our ship in the background. Hope and Susie refused to walk on the sand.

My feet in the cool ocean water. Chacos courtesy of Alyssa - thanks!

The beach.

The busy market area. "Amigo! Take a look! This is real silver! 25 dollars but for you I will sell for 20!"

After we got back on the ship, a few of us watched this guy do ice sculpting. I think it ended up being a bird of some sort.

We also played basketball and saw three other shows that day. I actually kept awake for 2 of the 3 shows. Hooray for me! Really it meant they were fairly entertaining - and of course because one of the shows was Chinese acrobats! They were so awesome. And onward to Puerto Vallarta!

Acapulco!

We got to Acapulco at noon on Friday, the 11th. We spent the afternoon taking a city tour and then watching the cliff divers. It was pretty fun, we learned some interesting things. But it was not my most desirable way of seeing the city. I would rather walk around and explore, but with our guys, that is pretty hard. So a van tour was a good option. We saw different parts of the city and experienced Mexican drivers. They are crazy! I saw very few traffic lights, people pretty much do whatever, and everyone understands how it works. We also saw a little farming village which was pretty cool. There were piles of coconut shells everywhere and they use those to make fire. They also use the coconut for food (obvioulsy) and they use the palm tree wood to build things and so nothing goes to waste. We also watched a guy make some roof shingles. Very educational. Then we saw the cliff divers, which was ok, but i wasn't totally amazed or anything, but I suppose it is pretty impressive. I guess it was something neat to see, but not something I would go around raving about I guess. It was a hot and tiring day and we had to pay 30 cents each to use the washrooms (i didn't need to, but i think i might've refused to go anyway). But overall it was an interesting experience.

The city of Acapulco.

Piles of coconut shells waiting to be used for fires.

Nick & Bruce sampling fresh coconut.

Watching this man make roof shingles.

Cliff Divers. Look closely, you can see a diver who had just started going. He's kinda blurry, kinda hard to see...

Hope, Susie & I winding down at an evening show back on the ship... which I snoozed through...

Next stop - Zihuatanejo!