Famous Hat: Mexican Riviera Cruise

Cabo San Lucas

Cabo San Lucas (Spanish for "Cape of Saint Luke") is at the very tip of Baja California and is famous for its jagged rock formations and its abundance of sea life.

The famous Arch of Cabo San Lucas

We went whale watching but did not bring a camera. We did see a mother and baby humpback whale, and the baby playfully jumped out of the water several times. We also saw sea lions all over one of the rocks by the famous arch. As we were riding on top of the tender (small boat) back to our cruise ship, a sea lion suddenly poked its head right out of the water beside me, and I was so surprised that I almost fell off the tender!

This is an old-fashioned schooner with lights on the riggings. As it sailed past us, we could hear the strains of "The Chicken Dance" coming from it. Can you believe that? The other party boats played salsa or disco music.

Our Trinidadian housekeeper Clarion make towel animals for us every night, and that night she made us un conejo - a bunny rabbit!

(He's wearing my sunglasses!)

Mazatlan

Mazatlan is Nahuatl for "place of the deer." It is a large city that boasts the highest (or possibly second-highest, I've seen both claims) elevation lighthouse in the world.

Lighthouse of Mazatlan

Cliff Diver
(yes, he did jump)

Cathedral of Mazatlan

Las Flores Resort

Palm Trees at Las Flores

Free AND compulsory? Sign me up!
(Shuttle to and from cruise ship)

God may be your copilot, but check out who our driver was.

Famous Hat and the Giant Oompah Band of Inexplicability

Mazatlan had almost as many beautiful, craggy rock formations as Cabo San Lucas.

Tropical sunset

That night, our towel animal was an elephant. Then we spent a day at sea. We saw lots of dolphins and whales, and even a sea turtle, but we never had a camera ready. The next night, our towel creature was a hound dog, or maybe a lamb.

Acapulco

Acapulco means "place of the broken bamboo," but unfortunately I have no idea what language it is. Apparently the people discovered it right after a hurricane had flattened all the flora.

Sunrise over Acapulco Bay

Acapulco at dawn

Good to know who's in charge here.

(Sign reads "Jesucristo Senor de Acapulco," or "Jesus Christ, Lord of Acapulco")

Our cruise ship, the Radiance of the Sea.

Acapulco is a very colorful place.

Cliff divers barely visible on the cliff to the left. Club in the back is the one Hedy Lamarr's husband ran when she came up with the idea of cliff diving.

The cliff divers swam to our tour boat and joined us for beer and a Mexican buffet. I cannot remember their names, but it was the birthday of the one on the left.

Byzantine-style Cathedral of Acapulco

Interior of the Cathedral

Another view of Acapulco

That night Clarion made us a sea lion!

(In Spanish they are called "sea wolves," lobos del mar.)

Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo

We never actually made it to Ixtapa, which is a resort area four miles north of Zihuatanejo. (Say "See what a nay hoe.") Zihuataneja (which is a Spanish corruption of a Nahuatl name that means "place of the women") is a lovely, unspoiled fishing village that one of our fellow snorklers said reminded him of Acapulco back in the 70's. It was my favorite place, and I hope it does not get overrun by tourists. Wait, scratch that. Zihuatanejo is awful and nobody else should ever visit it. Got that?

We went snorkling and saw all kinds of beautiful fish and coral, but unfortunately no seahorses. (In Spanish, caballitos del mar.) One of our guides told us there was a man who gave glass-bottomed boat tours for only $3, and he guaranteed you would see a seahorse or he would give you your money back. Unfortunately, when we went to seek this man, we were informed that he had just left for Acapulco. Oh, the irony!

This cruise ship was also docked in Zihuatanejo. It started in England and was sailing all around the world, and a passenger on it had already died of the tragic cause of old age. (The average age on this ship was much higher than on ours, and we had plenty of older folks.) Guess what they do with you if you die on a cruise ship? They stick you in the freezer! At least, that is what they told us, but they're British so maybe it's a joke. They have a very dry sense of humor, you know.

Sunrise in Zihuatanejo

The beach at dawn. One of the birds had only one leg, but you can't tell in this photo.

Weird, scary boat we took to the catamaran

Porpy the Boat!

Zihuatanejo lighthouse

Here are some scenes of the beautiful Bay of Zihuatanejo:

That night, when we returned to our room, we were disappointed not to see a towel creature on either of our beds... and then we spotted this parrot hanging from the ceiling!

Another stunning tropical sunset

The next day we got a sea turtle (with my suglasses pushed back on top of his head). Tiffy saw another sea turtle in real life, and we both saw a marlin leap out of the ocean. We found the best place to see real sea creatures was from the helicopter pad at the front of the ship, but of course they never came around when we had our cameras ready.

Puerto Vallarta

Puerto Vallarta means "port of Vallarta," who was President of Mexico back in the 60's. It had another name before that which I can't remember now. The guy who told us that also told us about another cruise line (which will remain nameless) that had a lot of issues there, like one of their ships had recently had a bomb threat, so everyone on the entire pier had to clear out. Then another captain always ran into the pier - the guy showed us the damage - and he had become so infamous for it that all the newspaper reporters flocked down to the docks when that ship was due in the harbor. He also ran into our ship, but not while we were on it. I asked if he only did that in Puerto Vallarta, and our native informant said, "No, he did it in Cancun too."

We took a speedboat to the place where we swam with dolphins.

The Mexican men adored me! Meet my new boyfriends Nemo and Ali.

I'm telling you, the Mexican men couldn't resist me!

We also got to hold a little lovebird named Tweet and a huge scarlet macaw named Mambo, but unfortunately we did not have our cameras with us, so I don't have pictures of that. There was a sulfer-crested cockatoo named Squishy who wasn't friendly enough to hold, but he would talk and dance for his trainer, who called him "Squishito."

That night, Clarion made us a ... sphynx? Your guess is as good as mine.

At Sea

If you look closely, you can see a whale spouting in the distance in this photo.

Another glorious sunset

Demonstration of how to make towel animals. The announcer, who was Latino, kept telling us the towel artist was from "Phili-penis." You know, that phallic-looking archipeligo of islands in the South Pacific. The capital is MAN-ila.