Desperate Housewife Cruise (4)

In the previous entry I forgot to mention that the first thing I saw when I woke up Saturday morning was a small, fast gun boat cruising at a fast pace towards us then right up next to us......I thought Welcome to Mexico girls!

Like I had said in the previous entry, I quickly washed up, threw on my sweat suit camera in hand and went up to the Lido Deck. (open deck) As soon as the doors opened I heard the seals! We were just about into port and they were playing in the water, I had my camera ready....pushed the button....nothing happened....pushed the button again...........again nothing happened...I never changed the roll of APS film and this one was already shot up!....I know... DUH!!! By the time I made it back down to the cabin and back up to the lido deck we were already in port, no sight or sounds of the seals.....GRRRRR!

The town of Encenada looked beautiful with its green hills and valley's polk-a-dotted with small homes high in the hill tops, it had to have the biggest Mexican flag I have ever seen! Today was the day of going into port to do some shopping, we had all agreed with the recent travel advisory and threat to American tourists that we would decide if we were going to go into town by how we felt once we docked, our threat level seemed low and after talking to the Purser, we all felt it was safe enough to go into town, but not to go any further on any excursions. Ha! Once in town we heard about a quided trip up into the hills to a day market and we were in!

The street vendors in town hit you as soon as you leave the safety of the building which was loaded with stuff to buy too. We learned we had to be aggressive in saying NO! to these people or they would keep at you.....we later realized this was good training for dealing with the day market people! They were worse then a pushy Mother-in-law! They literally were grabbing at you and circling you with the lure of free tequilla shooters to get you to go into their make shift tents, I finally felt it was time to bring out the Not-So-Soft-Side of me! lol With 'the look' accompanied with only one NO THANK YOU! we came to a peaceful understanding! lol We only spent our money in the shops with the polite people on the street. We were all struck with the poverty these people lived in during the raod trips up and down the hills....The average income there was $5.00 A WEEK! They rely heavily on the kindness of tourists....every street corner had an elderly woman clutching a small baby asking for money.....and of course we were all bleeding hearts when it came to some one pimping their Grandma and their baby to beg for change.....it was a good day for those Grandmother's while we were in town.

The place were they set this street market up was high in the hills where the cliff formations created a nature small fountain like spray of water when the ocean rushed in, this was supposed to be the main draw of this place.....they built a round, white clay building with windows and seating all around and since they didn't have any plumbing that far up you had to pay 50 cents to use the washroom, this will forever crack me up! Not only did you have to pay 50 cents to pee you were rationed just 15 sheets of toilet paper and they even had an armed police man outside the door for what .......Pee crashers???? lmaooooo I still break out in a case of the giggles when I think about this! After shopping we hit the bar had a few beers and pee'd for free! lol

On the little bus that took us to the market we met a really nice couple that were native Californian's. (we ended up having them join our table for dinner back on the ship, and we clubbed together too.... the Husband thought we were all nuts, but he laughed along with us!) They were celebrating Her birthday and that is when I remembered that it was MY BIRTHDAY! Silly Me! We all went to lunch at a place called Mango Mango where we were given free Margarita's.....I think the more booze they gave away the more money I think they thought they would get from you in shopping! lol This is where our second shot at notoriety came into play........Yes we danced on the bar, we formed a conga line and made other patrons dance along with us and my Sister-in-law earned her first string of beads! lol

To be continued