Just Two More Ports

La Paz
The trip to the port of Pichilingue was short, so the late departure didn't affect our scheduled arrival. La Paz is a thirty minute bus ride from the port. It was fairly quiet on a Sunday morning, even with the busloads of tourists descending on the town.

After wandering the short main street with the Lake Oswegians, who we met after making our first purchase of the day, we had ice cream, then a cool drink before heading to find the Mercado.

Tom wanted to find some tequilas that we can't find at home (which would be a lot since Oregon is ah alcohol-controlled state). There was a really pretty bottle in a locked case, but for even for Tom 1512 pesos (US$137) is a lot for "sight unseen" so we found some interesting bottles as considerably less.

Back on the ship
The Master Chefs Dinner was billed as "dinner theater," with the dining stewards dancing and singing with an "amazing dessert" to finish. The entertainment consisted of less than enthusiastic dining stewards marching around with trays of food. The amazing dessert was a white chocolate mold with chocolate mousse. Good, but like most of the food on the ship, nothing exceptional.

Our regular dining partners had reservations at the Pinnacle Grill so missed wearing the chef's hats, but ate far better than we. Apparently main seating guests can get seated early if they wait till serving is ready to begin, so six others were brought to the table. The most interesting were Nelson and Dottie, who have been married for 62 years. Dottie told us a story about a young couple that approached them because Dottie and Nelson were holding hands. "We hope we're holding hands still when we've been married as long as you." Dottie's response, "We just hold hands because Nelson is holding me up."

The best show of the cruise was comedian Chris Pendleton. In addition to the stand-up, we were treated to music in the form of an electric fiddle. She was excellent at both.

A turtle was waiting for us on the bed.


Cabo San Lucas

The second badly handled event occurred Monday morning when I awoke to a waste back up in the bathroom.

"Mr. Hudson, it's not your fault. There was a block in the port side aft plumbing and the engineers are working on it now." That's what Tom heard at 6:30 am on Monday. The question was, couldn't they have told me that at 5am when I went BACK to the front office after reporting the problem an hour earlier. Why I hadn't seen a plumber to fix the toilet that wouldn't flush and the sewer back up in our bathroom? I waited for over two hours for a plumber or some information and nothing. I do understand that these things happen but a little communication of the situation would have been under the circumstances.

The Day
It was a brief visit into town. We had hoped to get to the glass factory but it didn't open till noon, and we'd tendered in before nine. Even at that hour it was already heating up with high humidity. The souvenir for the port was something with Cabo Wabo, so we found the bar and Tom got his third bottle of tequila.

We got dressed up for the last time. The red carpet dress made an encore appearance. And Tom was once again very handsome in his tuxedo. He also was the only person who got the AAA trivia question right.

We passed on the show and got back to a very cool monkey.