P. Vallarta, Mazatlan & Cabo

Mazatlan has two parts, Old City and New City. Our tour today was mostly in the Old City. Our tour guide and driver was Victor. We had an interesting group of 8, some from Canada and some from the US.

Most of the tour was in the bus but it was interesting. We stopped at the market and cathedral and the lookout point. The area was under siege by the French in the 1800s. The cannon at the lookout is a replica because the locals sold the original for scrap.

Mazatlan means ‘of the deer’ in the native language. The economy is based around tourism. The mayor was a huge Beatles fan so there’s an entire street called Liverpool and full of references to the band.

Next we stopped at a shop (heavily suggested by NCL and other cruise ships and we were stuck there for about 30 minutes.

Finally we ate lunch at a Seaside cafe, La Katina. The garlic shrimp was excellent.Read more

Up a little before 6 to a gorgeous view outside. We have to tender this port so mom and I got up early to wait for the disembarkation message. But I was sneaky and saw the NCL tours heading down. So I asked and they let us on the first tender anyway.

We headed to the meeting stop and waited for our tour to start for about 45 minutes. Got nervous but the driver got us and at 8:15. He left the others who were late. Yahoo private tour. The ride to the Wild Canyon took 45 minutes. I rode the alpha Camel, Salam and mom rode Domingo. Angel and Yair were our camel drivers. The trek through the canyon was stunning. Then we got to pat, hug and kiss the youngest and only female camel Sahara Kardashian.

We thought we were done but turned out we also got to go see the animal park as well. Daniel/Luis let us feed rabbits and guinea pigs, lovebirds and Macaws. The birds would not stay off mom’s head.

Then another surprise, lunch! Cheese quesadillas and mango and strawberry smoothies. Yair even gave us each a free snickers bar. He was highly amused how excited we got over the chocolate.

After lunch we went back to the shuttle pickup place and bought our pictures that Bell took while we were riding the camels. Unfortunately the earlier shuttle wasn’t there…last tender was at 1:15. I’ll admit I panicked a tiny bit but when the shuttle arrived, Oscar, our driver, drove like a bat out of heck. A couple we’d initially picked up on the way to the park rode with us and insisted that the port had to be first, very kind. Luckily we arrived with 5 minutes to spare and the line was looong but fast to board the tender boats. Mom and I were last of the large line to board so we got to sit next to the captain.

The everything was fairly uneventful. We watched a Grobin and Botchelli tribute and made balloon animals. Tomorrow will be our last sea day before we arrive back in LA.Read more