10-28-08 Mazatlan:

Today we woke up in Mazatlan.  We had never been here before either.  So we found a couple excursions to go on.  First one was a city tour.
First stop was at an overlook.  of course there were a bunch of venders there, but some of them did have some pretty neat stuff (none of which we bought)

 view from the overlook

 back on the road admiring the colorful housing.

 cool lightpost

Here we elected to take the Mazatlán Highlights and Papantla Flyers/Deluxe City Tour tour offered by Holland America. I believe it was something like $39@.

Included in the stops was the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conceptio. This building was finished in 1899 and is being restored to its original beauty. A unique detail is that at the time of the construction, there was a Jewish family living in Mazatlan who donated money towards the construction. People were so happy that they decided to set the Star of David in the top windows of this cathedral. One of the only Catholic churches with the jewish symbol.

 loved the shadows

 and the old doors.

 Mazatlán Cathedral is the main religious building in the city of Mazatlan.  It is built in Baroque-Revival style of Sinaloa, Mexico, and home of the Catholic Diocese of Mazatlan. It is located in the historical center.

 The works of the temple began in the year of 1856, by order of the then bishop Pedro Loza and Pardavé. Later, the parish priest Miguel Lacarra takes over the works and it is for this that they are concluded in the year of 1899.

 Carolyn heading into the church

 very ornate

 Another neat doorway

 Minimalist?

We also saw Cliff divers. These daredevils do something similar as in Acapulco, but it is lower and more shallow. The rock formation that they climb up is about 45 feet high and dive into water that is only 5 to 6 ft deep. They also have "associates" walking amongst the onlookers asking for donations for the diver. I wonder if the divers really do get the money?

 Great views

 continuing along the road.

 some odd site along the way

 another church?

 and resorts

Another stop is to see the Dance of Papantla's flyers (middle lower picture). It is a ritualistic dance in Veracruz, Mexico performed by the Totonac Indians and Olmeca Indians. Five men, each representing the five elements of the indigenous world climb atop a pole, one of them stays on the pole playing a flute and dancing while the remaining four descend the pole with a rope tied by one of their feet. The rope unwraps itself 13 times for each of the four flyers, symbolizing the 52 weeks of the year.

 It was very much a "show".

 but it was colorful

 and they did some odd things.

 Don't think I'd want to do this!

 Back in the bus and passing more colorful buildings.  I do like all the colorful buildings.

 And a little Americanization. 

 Don't know what this is, just liked the designs.

 a view of the historic town from above.

 back to the marina

 back on the ship.  They were getting ready for Halloween.  Cool Jack-o-lantern.

 We both enjoyed the vegetable carving demonstration.

 enjoy seeing the decorative fruit around the lido restaurant, too.

I enjoyed Mazatlan a lot more then I expected.  Maybe it's because noone tried to cheat us!  But since this cruise, Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta have been taken off the cruise itineraries from time to time due to violence towards visitors.  Guess it happens everywhere.  Just too bad it happens where they can use the vacationers money.

10-27-08 - Cabo

 Our first port was Cabo. I had set up a tour for us without going through the cruise ship. First time I've done a non-cruise tour, but it was great. I wanted to spend some time in the water, so Carolyn agreed to this tour and I let her pick the tours for the other 2 ports.

I chose the CHILENO and SANTA MARIA 4 hour snorkeling trip with a stop at Lover's Beach on the way. It was a zodiac tour with Ocean Riders and was $64/person---really reasonable compared to cruise ship tour prices. Getting to the tour place was an experience in itself, though. Cabo is a tender port, so we got up early and headed out to get in line. Ended up being so early that there was no line and we were put on the first tender. Once on the dock, we weren't sure where the dock was that we needed to be at, so we hired a little boat taxi to take us to the side of the port where Ocean Riders was. Beforehand I had read that the taxi ride is about $4/person, so that didn't come as a surprise. But when we were getting off at the other dock, someone came up and said we had to pay to get off there, too! The bull in me came out and I jumped off saying we aren't paying. He tried to push the boat out so Carolyn couldn't get off, but I grabbed it and pulled it back in and told her to get off. Hindesight says, "pay the $1 each !" Since then I've seen way to many episodes of "Locked up Abroad"! We ended up arriving at our tour office a couple hours early. So we decided to walk around a bit along the nearly empty port.
Anyway---we found our raft and waited for our tour.

 I enjoyed looking out over the marina as we waited.

 love all the reflections.

 Soon we were on our way and looking back at our ship.

 Finally it came time to head off on our adventure. First stop was near Lover's beach. The white rocks and bluegreen water and blue sky made for amazing viewing.  The beach is by the distinctive rock formation at the southern tip of Cabo San Lucas, which is itself the extreme southern end of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula. The arch is locally known as El Arco.
 Those who wanted to were allowed to jump off the boat and swim to shore (it wasn't knee high water like some of the advertisements say, but that was ok with me since I like to swim and the water felt great). Carolyn chose to stay on board the zodiac.

 Carolyn admiring the views

 We were allowed to get out of the raft and swim to shore.  Carolyn elected to stay on board.  Good thing she did.  She's a non-swimmer and the water here was rough.

 our raft with the Oosterdam in the background.

 walking between the rocks to the other side of the formation

 contemplating.

 They said this side of the beach was called divorce beach.  I think because it's suppose to be rougher then the other side.   This is open to the  Pacific ocean.

 But it sure is beautiful.

 the rocks are really cool, too.

Then we sped our way on to Chileno Bay. At the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, Chileno Bay overlooks the shimmering Sea of Cortez from two-and-a-half miles of pristine coastline and nearly 1,260 acres of richly textured landscape. The boat anchored in the bay and many of us jumped in and snorkeled around the bay. I was expecting Santa Maria to be better for snorkeling, but this particular day Chileno Bay was quite a bit better. I would have loved to stayed even longer, but after about an hour or so we were told to reboard and headed on to Santa Maria.

 Looks like all is going well so far (later she complained about her back hurting from the bumpy ride)

 the beach at Chileno Bay.

 Carolyn had said she wanted to snorkel.  Turned out she was terrified of the water and didn't snorkel. 

 But I went out for a bit.

 large puffer.

 little blue damselfish

 the raft.

 looks like a queen angelfish, but somewhat different then the ones on the Caribbean side.

 lots of little wrasses

 lots of porcupine sea urchin

 the angelfish again.

 the beach at Santa Maria

 more boats there

 pretty calm

At Santa Maria Cove Carolyn finally decided to get off the boat and swim to shore with the aid of a snorkel mask and a noodle. I didn't find out until later that she was terrified, but I did stay close by until she made it there and came back to accompany her back to the boat. I was surprised that the charter didn't supply fins, just snorkel masks. There were fish to be seen, but they were pretty far out.

 Lots of white bar butterflyfish--some of the few fish I saw at this beach

 looks like a Caribbean grouper, but probably more like a gobbie.

 back in Cabo, we wandered around the marina

 Made our way back to the tender for the Oosterdam and made it safely back onto the ship. 

 As we sailed away, we could see these guys on the rocks. 

 Good Bye Cabo!

 Hello dessert!  Key lime pie---one of my favorite desserts.

 and strawberry shortcake

 Then we went to the Elton John tribute musician. He was excellent!

 Forget who this guy was so he must not have been as good.

 but Elton was fantastic!

 later we found this guy at the piano bar.  He was excellent, too.  We spent many nights there checking him out---at least I did.

 It was a fun day.  Although it started out iffy with the guys trying to pull a fast one over on us!   I've always been a little hesitant to go to Mexico---this didn't help that feeling!  But it looks like Cabo could be a fun place to explore.