Mexico: Part 1

December 29-30, 2012
Puerto Chiapas, and Huatulco, Mexico

Mexico!  I'm happy because I'm half Mexican, and it's been a long time since I've been in my mother's country.  But it's a culture that comes second nature to me and it's a place that I feel mostly comfortable, oh and did I mention that I speak the language?!  Anyway, it's just good to be so close to home.

Puerto Chiapas, our first stop.  This is probably the best stop for crew and the worst for the guests.  For this reason, there's nothing at the port.  It's a few straw pyramid huts, a restaurant, and a swimming pool.  For everything else, you have to take a taxi.  So what happens?  CREW POOL PARTY!

For a day, we all feel like we have our own private resort.

 And this totally happened:

 The food was good, because it was Mexican.

And I had the best company.

She has huge enchiladas.

Oh yeah.

A view of our restaurant while sailing out.

The next day: Huatulco.

Huatulco is a little bay.  There's not much there, but in comparison with the nothing of Puerto Chiapas, it feels like a big city.  The first thing you notice upon sailing in are the building up and above you to the right.  I don't know if they are ruins or if they're supposed to look like that.  Your guess is as good as mine.

I will now show you what the best Mexican restaurant looks like, and what it will always look like:

I'm not kidding.  Most of my friends walked off the ship and right into the first restaurant on the beach.  They were charged over $10 for their drinks and even more for their food, and when I asked them about it, they said it wasn't very good.  Here, at this little stand where are the locals were eating, for five dollars, I had about seven tacos and two drinks.  It was so good, I gave them twice what they asked for.

Tacos de pastor, barbacoa, y nopales con queso.

As much as I love homemade tacos, I love the aguas frescas even more.  Today, I had two Horchatas con coco.  This is a sweet cinnamon rice water with coconut.  I even went back later that day and had some fresh cucumber juice.

I did think it was weird how it came in plastic bags.

After food, I found my friends having a day at the beach.  You know why they're all on the sand?  Because all of the locals are in the water.  It was a bit crowded.

There's a phenomenon in Mexico that I like to call, "Bang on sticks until someone gives us money."  This is not the last video of this $&#% that I will post.

Some pictures need no explanation:

It may be a little nothing town, but they still spare no expense when it comes to the appearance of security.

On my way back to the ship, I told Silvia I would find her a hat.  This is the one I picked out for her.  She really loved it.  What do you think?  How did I do?

Next Post: Acapulco and Cabo San Lucas...and then I'm home!

Zip Lining in Costa Rica

Thursday, December 27, 2012
Puntarenas, Costa Rica

Not only was this my first time in Costa Rica, it happened to also be my first time playing around with iMovie and Final Cut Pro.

Check it out:

There's something special about this trip that is in contrast with every thing I've recorded up until now.  There are no guests or no other crew members with me.  Everyone else chickened out at the last minute, and I said, that's okay, I don't need you guys with me to have an awesome time.  So, I hired a local cab driver for the day, and off we went.

 This place was an hour away from the ship, but it was worth it.

The ship is somewhere out in the distance down there.  I don't know where, it was far.  Oh well.

I wore my superman shirt for today.

 When you go ziplining, you go in a group with other people.  There was an international family with me.  It was a mother, father, and their two kids, a boy and a girl.  The seemed to be from everywhere and spoke every language.  Here's the girl on the zipline.

Costa Rica is known for being one of the greenest countries in the world.  I don't mean like Ireland, but rather like how they have five trash cans because of how much you have to separate your trash.

 After our zip line course, we took a van up a hill, and then went on a small hike to one more zip line that was higher and much longer than all the rest.  This last zip line was the one where you could "fly like superman."  They have a harness for your feet as well, and you get a parachute to slow yourself down at the end.  It's in the video.

The tree at the top.

The view from the Superman Zip line.

It was a good day.

I was a little bummed at first that no one came with me, but to be honest, I forgot all about that after a little while, and then I think I ended up having a better time.  It helps knowing Spanish.  The guy I hired to drive me around turned out to be a fun person, and he had all these local connections too.  Here we are on the other side of the port security where he is driving me all the way down the pier, passed my friends and all the guests who are walking, so that he can drop me off right in front of the ship.  Yeah, it was a great day.

Panama Canal Christmas Crossing

Merry Christmas, 2012

Traversing the Panama Canal.

If you would have asked me a year ago where I would be for my next Christmas, the middle of the Panama canal would not have been one of my guesses.  Not even if you gave me an entire year to guess random places.  But life is funny, and here I find myself.

Christmas started the night before, or rather the morning, with a midnight mass.  This was a really special time because for the first time, the crew and the guests sat together and partook in the same thing.  And this thing happened to be the celebration of the birth of the Lord Jesus.  It was pretty special.

Midnight Mass.

(We still sat in the back, but it's okay.)

Everything about a ship changes for a Christmas cruise.  One of those little things are the doors to our cabins.  Crew Welfare sponsors a door decorating contest.  I bought a 3D place mat of some kittens in Honfleur, France and tapped that to my door and put a wreath over it.  But somehow, that just wasn't enough to beat the Filipino who shaved beer cans into a Christmas tree, built a manger, and then carved out the entire nativity scene out of bars of soap.

I think the judging was rigged.

Amanda gets into the Christmas spirit at the piano.

Jeff gets into the costume.

The Panama Canal is considered to be one of the wonders of the world.  The engineering technology is over 100 years old, and is still being used today.  Over 1 million ships have crossed through the Panama Canal.  There is a series of locks where the water level is raised and lowered.  It's quite a thing to experience.  So, I made a video:

The cast decides to play secret Santa, only for some reason they call it "dirty Santa," because you can steal gifts.  To me that just means white elephant gifts, but oh well, it's Christmas, so "dirty Santa."  The price limit was $25, I think.

I bought Ashley a ring.  Not on purpose.

I hope Courtney likes Glee.

I got a really cool mask, but I didn't get to keep it.

So, what did I end up with?  Well, let's just say that Amanda misunderstood why the game was called"dirty Santa."

Thanks Amanda.

Hey, let's take another look outside!

Panama City

I made friends with the Boutique team, so we decided to have a secret santa game as well.  Only this time, we weren't stealing gifts from each other.

Katie loves to draw so she got a new toy.

I got Neil hours of fun in a box.

Mercia got me a bookmark for my kindle, and then she thought it would be funny to include some white powder from Colombia.

Thanks, Mercia.

At last, after over six months, I'm back in the Pacific Ocean.  Just about another week or so and I'm back in the states.

Merry Christmas, 2012.

Hecho en Cartagena

December 24th, 2012
Christmas Eve in Cartagena, Colombia

I got up a little earlier than usual to watch the sail into Cartagena, and I was amazed to find a completely white city!  As we got closer, it turned out that it was just the clouds, the haze, and the atmosphere that turned all the buildings white in the distance.  But still, this city was much more than I expected out of Colombia.

Yo ho, yo ho.

When it comes to your time in Colombia, you have two options: you can stay in the cruise terminal area, which is big, has a Juan Valdez coffee shop, souvenir shops, wifi, and an open tropical bird habitat.  Or you can venture out into the city.  I put it this way because the rest of the world tends to think Colombia is dangerous.  And maybe they're right.  I can tell you that my bank was upset I was going to Colombia, and I have a pretty main stream bank.

Well, I had one hour to spend in Colombia, and here's the breakdown of what I did.:

Snapped a picture of the flamingos at the cruise terminal.

After being funneled through the main souvenir shop, you emerge into a little square, where these guys are waiting to distract you.

And distract me they did.

In the Tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki room.

¿Paolo quiere una galleta?

After having my fill of parrot talk, I walked out of the safe area and ventured into the taxi stop.  A funny thing happened here.  Just about every taxi driver called out to me and said, "¡Oye, vamos a los chicas!"  But I passed on the Diseases-R-Us and found a guy and asked him for a quick tour.

I should have stayed with the birds.  My first clue: our first stop was the house that belonged to the former head of the Colombian mafia.  I think his name was Pablo Columbo, or something like that.

I should have stayed with the birds because in Colombia, there's a high chance that your cab driver is going to be a sleaze bag.  And I ended up with one.  I'll tell you why later.  I don't want to spoil the picture of the fort.

Here's a giant fort.

See this next sign?  Take a wild guess on whether or not my cab driver observed it.

No honking sign.  Not enforced.

Another fort.

Here is where things got rough for me.  I took a picture of these horse statues, and then looked at my watch.  I told my driver that it was time for me to go back to the ship because I had to make a sail away time.  He told me, "Oh, no let me just quickly take you through old town."  I said no thanks and that I really just needed to turn around at go back to the ship.

Instead of listening to me, my driver gets on a one way bridge to old town Cartagena.  Once we're there, there is only one way out of the city, and that's to drive all the way around it, and take the bridge back.  At least, that's what he told me and that's what he did.  I call bullshit on this one.

It's not like he was running up a meter, because there was no meter, but we never discussed a price.  Anyway, there ends up being traffic in old town, my driver is pissed, I'm pissed, and he's honking, and then he's driving on the sidewalk, or with one wheel on the curb.  He eventually gets me back to the ship...20 minutes late, and then expects to be paid.  Well, I have to give him something.

I made the mistake of not presorting my Colombian cash, and when I took it out, he saw how much I had, so when I handed him the equivalent of $30, he pretended that it wouldn't even buy him a coke.

What a dick.

Anyway, he's gone now.  Whenever I meet people like that, I like to remember that God will deal with each and every one of them in his own time.

Guess which one of these monstrosities is my ship?

Not vacation.

If you said "neither," you are correct!

Here's my ship!

Goodbye Colombia!  Take all your drug money and buy some manners.  Oh, and Merry Christmas Eve!