With no driving, no GPS, no fingers crossed for correct hotel reservations, no crappy Motel 6 service and with no roads travelled we wake in a different town... Machine gun toting army joes in green fatigues swagger and smoke in front of rusting shipping containers out our window, behind and above them rise billboards for cheap diamonds, Pacifico beer and behind that a wild array of radio 
towers sprouting like wild hair from a lush rocky hill... this is Mazatlan in Mexico – really a world away from the towns and ways of the America we’ve known for the last 2 months...
On one side of the ship lie the port and the city, spreading away to the golden sands of the bay and the hazy distant towers of the “Golden Zone” – a mashup of foreign investment and local funseekers. On the other side of the ship lies the dingy river mouth and a tumble down shanty town fighting back the ravenous jungle. Birds soar in crazy circles and a huge black helicopter judders its way through the smog of a belching factory, back into the pale blue sky and across the city.
Today is hotter than the last if possible, and I break into a sweat just thinking about going outside... thankfully its much worse than I anticipate... within seconds leaving the ship we’re waving away a barrage of taxi offers and walking towards downtown... A few seconds more we’re begging for a taxi and a fresh towel to dry the profuse sweat that’s carving a canyon down my back and pooling on the cracked sidewalk. We slug into town in a converted VW beetle and soak it all in. Its busy and relaxed at the same time, so much going on, banners and flags and stall holders at the market vying for attention, the spires of the cathedral flashing in the hot sun and the cool shade of the trees in the plaza providing respite before I urge us ON! ON! There’s too much to see – we buzz on in another taxi to the golden zone – sounding like something from a John le Carre novel or a Bond movie – its nowhere near as exciting. A bunch of jazzed up shops catering to tourists need for a bargain (though in no means providing one) and tropic frayed hotels teetering over a too thin beach... we spend an age trying to find a good place to swim – there really isn’t one here – it all “looks” good but the swimming is... underwhelming. So we fake our way into the restricted area of a very up-market resort and spend some time using their pool and facilities... Thanks El Cid! Not only did we have a better swim, but my inner cheapskate was well pleased...
The next port though, Cabo San Lucas was stunning. Even though we were awakened in our cheap cabin by the clanking and goings on of the ship preparing to send us ashore by tender it was worth it. A stunningly beautiful day dawned out the window over the desert town of Cabo, perched at the end of the Baja peninsula and surrounded by water so clear that I could almost see the bottom from my cabin window.
The tender drops us in the heart of the marina and I feel a sense of déjà vu – the lighthouse across the bay looks somewhat familiar... then it strikes me... Cabo... CABO! That bloody tequila I trapesed across the whole of west LA looking for, for Chris, the famed Cabo Wabo – came from here – DUH! They’re practically giving it away on the wharf, sales ladies ask me if I need a free six-pack of the stuff – the locals use it for cleaning the dishes with and watering the window gardens they have! Actually though, and much to my inner cheapskates eternal thanks I got it for the same price in LA that they sell it here for – with NO duty troubles...
Like Mazatlan the taxi drivers swarm us – but here they all drive glass bottomed boats instead of cut down Vee-dubs. We shug out to Lovers Beach and spend our time in the clearest water I think I’ve ever seen... its beautiful, and we watch our ship float majestically in front of us and I drink Pacifico beer play with the girls in the surf and watch the waves and the birds and the buzzing town a few miles away which we haven’t even entered and life is good until I get a stupidly blazing dose of sunburn – oh the irony –I’d been happily pointing out all the burnt idiots on board and laughing maliciously... until now – ouch. Stupid beer.
I walk across a spit of sand to the western edge of Baja and look out. The Pacific is my favourite ocean, the bright blue sky and deep blue powerful swell remind me not to mess with it, and I don’t jump in. With the hot sand burning my feet I turn my back and walk through the bright sun past the white rocks to the clear bay and our playing children and the jumping fish, and our little glass bottom boat comes to take us back to the Marina, and our tender to our ship. We set sail, round the southern tip of Baja, then full speed back to Long Beach and the United States of not Mexico...
