Day 12
We weren't due to dock until late in the day so I had planned to treat myself to a lie-in, but as is ship life, I was awoken bright and early so decided to head up to the Lido deck for an early morning session of Just Breathe. You wouldn't think stretching was terribly strenuous (well, with the exception of repeated attempts to balance on one leg, a particularly hard feat on a moving ship) but the humidity of the open air left me feeling pretty sticky, so I hopped into a cool shower before indulging in some pancakes for breakfast.
The ship itinerary for the day was fairly slim, so I entertained myself with a promenade round the deck and took advantage of the ships DVD service, which was fine when the discs actually decided to play. Lucky future generations who won't have to deal with the stresses of scratched DVDs...
Just after noon, we began approaching the port of Huatulco in Oaxaca (pronounced Wahaca) on the South West coast of Mexico. It was a very pretty port to pull into with little beaches filled with people and banana boats galore, including the one that we eventually docked just a hundred metres or so away from - an example of just how close you can get a cruise ship at some of these docks.
Wasting no time, we hopped off the ship into the port. Given that a) we're not beach people and b) it was a Saturday meaning that all the locals had decided to have a beach day too, we decided to avoid the beaches themselves and instead walk over a pass through the hills to the neighbouring town of Crucecita.
With little plan in mind, we made our way to the central square of the small town and the church which sits towards one end, still made up with cute Christmas decorations. This church's claim to fame is that it is home to the largest ceiling paint of Our Lady Guadalupe - the more you know.
It being excruciatingly hot, I dove towards the first sign I saw for ice cream, which just so happened to be rolled ice cream - the kind they make right in front of your eyes, slice and roll into spiralled tubes. At the recommendation of the server, I opted for a Ferrero Rocher and Philadelphia cheese mix, an unusual combination but very very good.
It didn't really seem like there was much else to see in Crucesita so we headed back into the town near the port, Santa Cruz. I was sure there was another church to be found as one had been mentioned in the EXC port talk a few days prior, so we spent a bit of time looking for that before finding it literally right on the beach. This church's claim to fame is that it is home to a small wooden cross which was once part of a larger cross brought to the area many years ago by a holy man. The original cross was made into three smaller crosses, one which remains here and another which is currently in the Vatican.
There was only so much time we could waste so ended up back on the ship with probably more to entertain us there. I spent a little while watching the little boats and jet skis roam by as the sun dipped behind the hills before heading to a Mexican themed dinner in the Lido. It didn't look like the cuisine was much suited for vegetarian food, so I ended up with another pasta dish, made better by dessert in the form of the freshest mango I've ever tasted.
We had another Legends talk that evening, this time recounting two legends in relation to the two most recent ports. The first, The Legent of the Bird and The Brave, told the story of how the Quetzal bird got its distinctive red marking on its chest and is now Guatemala's national bird.
The second, The Girl and the Tree of Life, relating to the Oaxaca region of Mexico, was about a girl who used to carry avocados to the elites who lived at the top of the mountains, found a loom and began weaving the Tree of Life, was thrown out of the city by the elites leading to great anger from the Gods, who then gradually destroyed their elite city leaving only ruins behind.
I'm inspired to look into legends from my heritage, of which I know there are many, as they paint such a vivid picture of a place and can explain why certain things are the way they are today. I would highly recommend checking out some of these Central American legends if you're interested, and of course coming to visit the places themselves someday!
Our entertainment for the evening was comedian Andrew Kennedy. If you read about the last comedian who came on board, you'll know I'm difficult to please but this was quite a different type of humour. Andrew based his stories off of his own life, which meant poking fun at all the different parts of his heritage, including his Colombian mother, English father, Black great-grandmother, and time spent in places such as Hong Kong - basically an excuse to make fun of various nationalities without seeming insensitive! Funnier than the last one, but I'm still looking for someone to make me laugh out loud - if you know anyone, leave me a link in the comments!
Day 13
Back to the cruising part of the cruise as we had yet another day at sea. I don't mind these so much as there's usually plenty to do, and if you're ever stuck for entertainment you could always go and eat... Being back at sea meant we were back to our regularly scheduled programming of America's Test Kitchen where Maria did some demonstrations of Salad for Dinner. Am I likely to eat salad for dinner? Probably not, but at least she made salad a bit more interesting than it usually is.
As Mexico was out there somewhere beyond our view, we were treated to a live folkloric performance up by the pool with an absolutely fantastic Mariachi singer (I'll hire him for my wedding please) and two dancers festooned in masks to make them look elderly as they performed hunched over dances to the music.
I promised you another show with magician RanD Shine and that was on this day, in a room much too small to accommodate the number of people who showed up. Whilst I was about 50/50 impressed last time, I was much more impressed this time. He did a number of card tricks which I honestly couldn't say how they were achieved, coin tricks which were interesting in that he did most of them at least twice so the keen eyed of us could try and see where the sleight of hand took place or else revel in the magic if we couldn't figure it out, and another mind reading trick which I think I figured out, but was still nonetheless very impressive - as a magician never reveals their secrets I guess I'll never know how they were done!
We had our final port talk on upcoming port Puerto Vallarta which looks very pretty and will hopefully keep us entertained for longer than the previous port as we'll be spending the whole day there too.
The onboard naturalist, who we'd dropped off in his home country of Costa Rica, had since been replaced by a team of Mexican ambassadors, so we started off with a talk on the history of Mexico, taking us through its tribal beginnings with the Olmecs, Mayans and Aztecs, to the invasions by the Spanish and the French leading to the important celebratory dates of 16th September and Cinco de Mayo, the many rulers who moved in and out of power within the last few centuries, and even why despite being the less important holiday Cinco de Mayo is the more popular one in the states - perhaps because most Mexican migrants come from the Puebla region where it is most celebrated, because it coincides with a Russian holiday that the American government would rather not focus on, or perhaps because Cinco de Mayo is just a lot easier to say than dieciseis de Septiembre!
We had dinner with a US Airforce couple from Texas and a German/El Salvadorian couple - beer & cheese soup, ricotta stuffed shells and delicious warm chocolate cake. The entertainment that evening was very enjoyable, with singer Derek Floyd and his Lionel Richie experience. He sang hits like All Night Long, Dancing on the Ceiling and Endless Love, as well as telling us bits about his interesting life, including starting a brother sister band 'Derek and Cindy' who's song reached number 98 on the top 100; being scouted through a Christian singing show to audition to be a member of the Commodores which he turned down believing he was exactly where he was supposed to be; seeing a beautiful woman reading the news, rushing to the station to meet her and later becoming her husband; his wife dying of brain aneurysms two years later, being consoled by local churchgoers one of whom later became his wife of the last thirty-something years. Quite an interesting life and one where so many decisions led to him being there to before for us that evening. It gave me a big appreciation for Derek and a new appreciation for Lionel Richie - I think I'll be listening to more of his music when I get home.
No comments:
Post a Comment