Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

Tuesday, March 12 evening to Wednesday, March 13

Since we missed the Nicaragua port, the ship travelled very slowly up the coast of Central America and Mexico and arrived at Cabo San Lucas late afternoon today.  We will stay here overnight and then leave on schedule Wednesday evening.

As we approach the harbor, it was fun to be out on deck and watch for whales.  We saw several of them just breaking the surface of the water and blowing water up through the blowhole.  The boat is anchored just off the famous El Arco rock formation.

We had no real plans for this port.  A popular activity is to go out on a whale watching boat.  We did that last time we were in Cabo so thought we would just spend some time walking around the harbor area.  The tenders were running as soon as we anchored and people were anxious to get off the ship and go to restaurants/bars and that endless browsing in the shops.  We decided to stay on board and just enjoy the quiet while looking at the lights of Cabo in the distance.

Then, just as we were getting ready for bed, the phone rings and it’s our Aussie friends that went to Iguazu with us.  They had gone ashore and booked a tour for Wednesday and wanted to know if we could join them to round out the group of 8.  So without knowing what we were going to do, we said yes and quickly got the backpack ready for an early departure in the morning.

We all met to get on one of the first tenders after 7:00 am and off we went.  The tour was a little road trip up the west coast of the Baja and then back to Cabo and then up the east coast of the Baja peninsula.

Landscape filled with cacti--looked like AZ to us

We drove about 25 miles to a little town of Todos Santos, first stopping at Ranchera, a lovely resort on the oceanfront.  The grounds and facilities were beautiful and it would be a very restful vacation to spend some time there.

Ranchera Resort

Then it was back on the road to Todos Santos, where the highlight seemed to be the Hotel California.  Now I thought the Hotel California was in Hollywood, but here’s another one.  Appropriately named as the east coast of the Baja borders California Bay.  If the song “Hotel California” was not running through your mind before arriving, you certainly mastered it while strolling through the gift shop, which was basically all we saw.

Gramae and Marion enjoying coconut milk

The town's mission

After a little walk through the town, which is very nice, we headed back to Cabo San Lucas so we could drive up the east coast.  The town we arrived at was Los Cabos and again was very nice, clean, and well set up for the tourist industry with lots of restaurants and hotels.

Beautiful pottery but very expensive

On the way back to the port, our driver almost hit a donkey that suddenly jumped down onto the highway. I’m sure I could see the donkey’s eyeballs as we narrowly missed it—and we were sitting in the back of the van!  We made a stop at the local Wal-Mart as our Aussie friends needed to buy a suitcase to haul home all the treasures they have collected over the past 3 months they have been travelling.  They started just after Christmas by flying to LAX, then taking a train to San Diego to board a cruise ship that took them through the Panama Canal and then to Fort Lauderdale.  Then they boarded the Grand Princess and sailed the Caribbean for a week before we all met up on this cruise.  They came a long way for this vacation and they certainly made the most of it, including side trips from this ship to both Iguazu Falls in Argentina and Macchu Pichu in Peru.  They needed an extra suitcase for all their souveniers.

Cute little girl playing the marimba with her father

Back on the ship, we were up on deck as the ship pulled away from the harbor.  We spotted several whales and one in particular gave us a good farewell wave as he flipped his tail up about 5 times in succession.

Well, that’s the last port before arriving to our final destination, San Francisco on Saturday.  It has been the most wonderful vacation.  We met lots of great people and hope to cruise again with some of them in the future.  South America was never even in our radar before booking this cruise 2 years ago.  We’re glad we did, though, and feel that even though our time at the ports was brief, we left with the satisfaction of getting a pretty good overall exposure to cultures and sites a bit different from our own.

It is an adventure we would enthusiastically recommend!

Goodbye for now.  Our next adventure is planned for August when we visit London, cruise the British Isles and then do a transatlantic cruise across the ocean stopping in Iceland and Greenland along the way.