Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta

                Mexico June 2016

 

Cabo San Lucas June 20 2016

            Cabo San Lucas, or the Cape of Saint Luke, is a tourist city at the end of the Baja Peninsula.  It is a gringo town, located in a bay, and is ringed by hotels.  A second concentrical ring surrounds the first hotel ring, and it is made up of the homes of the Mexicans who work for the tourist industry.  It is intersected with the more prosaic businesses that are needed for everyday life, like Home Depot and Costco.  The further that you drive away from the bay the less tourists are present.  The first real Mexican city, San Jose, lies about thirty miles to the north.  But ling the Pacific coast are resorts, time shares, and condos; some of these are owned by American expatriates who are looking for a cheap way to spend their retirement.  Fourteen gold courses are sprinkled around these developments, all of which had green grass that needed a lot of water, in what was otherwise a desert region.

            Armando was the name of our tour guide.  We climbed into his minibus for what turned out to be our own private tour since no one else wanted to go with us.  The kids were supposed to go parasailing, but the winds were so strong that their excursion was cancelled.  They ended up at Senior Frogs for a Margarita drinking contest and first place prize was a shot of tequila for everyone in the bar, so the winner was always popular with the other patrons.  As we were leaving Senior Frogs, a waiter made balloon hats for us and our selfie was immediately put on Facebook.  While they drank away the afternoon, Tracey and I listened to Armando tell his stories for the ninety-minute tour.  He was working hard for the tips that made up a large part of his income.  At the end of the day we all met for dinner and compared our stories about drinking and touring, everyone satisfied with the way our individual days had panned out.

            

Mazatlán June 2016

            Mazatlán looked to me like an industrial and transportation hub for western Mexico and it held little charm for me.  Also, it is the city where El Chapo, the drug cartel leader, was captured and we assumed that meant there was a lot of crime in the area.  We decided to take a seven-hour bus trip into the Sierra Madre mountains to see some of the native villages.  Our ultimate destination was Copala but to kill some time we visited a jewelry store in Mazatlán, a bread store in Malpica, and finally we drove to a furniture and pottery shop.  If I did not know any better, I would think that the travel company was taking kick backs from these stores so that our bus would stop there to buy their wares.

Our tour really began in Concordia.  We were given enough time to walk around the old town square before making our way to the Church of San Sebastian.  I have been a Catholic for my entire life but the story of Sebastian somehow escaped me, so I was shocked when I saw the statue of the saint hanging above the altar.  Sebastian had an arrow piercing his heart.  I learned that Sebastian was an early Christian who had hidden his faith from the emperor whom he was serving.  When the emperor learned of Sebastian’s practice of the new and illegal religion, Emperor Diocletian ordered him killed with a firing squad filled with archers.  Miraculously, Sebastian survived the attempt to murder him, and he became a saint.  In the middle of this church was another statue and it was entitled “The Jesus of the Good Death.”  Jesus was lying prone and under glass in what looked like a coffin in the middle of the church.  As the story goes, the statue went down with a trade ship and had miraculously washed ashore.  The locals thought that this was a sign of God so they gave the statue a name and put it in a place of honor.  It could not stand on its own so the churchgoers laid him down and surrounded him with glass.  The prone Jesus and the pierced Sebastian were enough to put the fear of God into anyone who entered the church building.

Our guide for our seven-hour bus ride from Mazatlán to Copala was Milton, a local who was very proud of the fact that at the age of 65, he had been married for 50 years.  He had a bunch of children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.
Copala was a gold mining town but it had become idle.  The major structure of interest was a 16th century stone church and, on the side of the church, was a bust of a devil's face.  Milton threw a rock at the devil because, as the story goes, the more rocks that hit the face the more the image of the devil disappears, and with him goes the last vestiges of the plague that had swept through so much of the world in the 1500s.
             The whole time that we were in Copala there was a bunch of little boys who following us and trying to sell us wooden trinkets.  The cottage industry in the small town was carving miniature cows and pigs from wood and selling them to the tourists.  The streets are made of cobblestone and are so narrow that our bus could not get through, so we had to walk.  The little boys had no trouble keeping up with us and pestering us to buy their wares.  Meanwhile, chickens and pigs wandered through the streets, unconcerned with being hit by cars and trucks because no vehicles were seen anywhere. 
              Copala was a version of heaven.  Even though most of Mexico was blazing hot during the summer months, this small hamlet remained cool because it is located so high up in the Sierra Madres.  Steeped in the crisp mountain air, it is where the authentic Mexico remained pure, untouched, and innocent.  There is a pavilion with a concrete floor, attached to the only school in town, where the kids were free to play even if it rained.  Time seemed to stand still.  Probably you could come back to Copala in 20 or 100 years and the place would not have changed.   

Puerto Vallarta, June 20 2016

Puerto Vallarta and the Sea Lion Adventure.  We got into the pool where the sea lions were trained to give the tourists a hug and kiss us, to smile and act ashamed, and to stick out their tongues and sing.  It was wonderful.  Shanna was the gentlest sea lion and it allowed Tracey to feel her face.  The sea lion stuck out its whiskers while Tracey touched her nose and mouth; the expression on Tracey's face was pure joy.  Not to be out done, I leaned in to kiss the sea lion when it was my turn to come in close.  After our lips touched I looked over to Tracey and said "there's no difference between Shanna and my wife."  To end this part of the show, Shanna swam up to us and held onto us as the trainer talked.  The trainer said that Shanna sometimes gets lazy and holds onto the tourists so that she doesn't have to swim any more.  Shanna waved goodbye to us as we moved to the second pool where Cassandra, another sea lion, was trained to jump over us.  She did it one at a time and, when she was done, she jumped out of the pool to the concourse.  It was time for Cassandra and Shanna to rest and we were instructed not to touch them on the way out.  The two sea lions looked up at us just like a lap dog would, as they waited for the next group of tourists to enter the pool area.
            We rode high-powered speed boats to and from the Sea Lion adventure and I heard Lillian laughing in delight as the captain opened up the engines.  We were going so fast, and bumped over the wake of other boats, that even I became a little nervous.  Once we landed we met up with Grant, who had done the ATV Adventure, but he didn't want to go to visit Puerto Vallarta because he had some tequila on the excursion

 

Carnival Ship Miracle 2016

            This was our sixth cruise together and we keep going back because they bring us together as a family.  Our vacations are the only time that the kids are forced to spend time together for any length of time and they usually enjoy themselves.  This was our most expensive, and logistically challenging cruise but it was worth to share quality time together.  Also, it had been exactly 27 years since my wife and I took this exact same cruise for our honeymoon and so western Mexico held some extra meaning for us.

            I am proud of the fact that I ran and lifted weights every day while on the cruise ship.  I ran in the morning and watched the sun come up as I did laps around the upper deck.  The growing daylight, reaching through the clouds, looked like an impressionist painting from Monet, Gaugin, or Cezanne.  I gave myself permission to be myself  and to not feel guilty about going to bed so early and for working out and reading so much.  

            The look of pure joy on Tracey’s face as the sea lion kissed her face and then rolled on its back to allow her to scratch its belly.

            Or more simply, it felt good to shake Rolando’s hand and look him in the eye and say thank you.  Rolando was our cabin steward and he worked like a dog all week and I wanted to show him some respect, which I am sure that he appreciated.

            The only snag in the whole week was the return trip.  We flew on American Airlines on the way out of LAX and we departed an hour late because they took so long to load our luggage onto the plane.  When we arrived in Dallas we late and we literally ran to the next gate to make our connecting flight.  The attendant had already closed the door to the plane and, even though the plane was still connected to the terminal with the passenger tunnel, and even though the plane wouldn’t leave for another hour after we had reached the gate: we were not allowed to get on the plane.

            We were not the first passengers to arrive at the gate right after they closed the door on us.  The people in front of us were also denied entry onto the plane but the difference was that while we were deferential, these people made quite a fuss.  The airline was obligated to give us a hotel room so the complaining couple were given a room at the Hotel 8 while our family, who were nothing but respectful, were given a room at the Marriott.  I like to think that we got better accommodations because we’re nice people.

            We had an early flight so we were only at the hotel for a few hours.  American Airlines gave us a food voucher so we ate in a nice hotel restaurant and then had breakfast at a Dunkin Doughnuts at the airport.  I ate my feelings of anxiety because were coming home a day late so I had three cream filled eclairs.  I told the waitress to wait for ten minutes and then call an ambulance and make sure that they had insulin.  

            When we took off from LAX our plane ran into some turbulence but it was the head stewardess, and not the passengers, who panicked.  With fear in her voice, she ordered everyone back to their seats and to buckle themselves in.  If we weren’t concerned before, we certainly were now worried