Huatulco and Cabo San Lucas Mexico

Huatulco and Cabo San Lucas

These were the last two ports on our cruise itinerary. It is interesting to note that one represents today what the other used to be 40+ years ago. 

Huatulco is a sleepy little seaside resort with a small but serviceable port set inside one of about 5 gorgeous little bays. 

There are a number of protected beaches and others that, although open to the public, are only accessible by water. 

The water is pristine and snorkeling here a good choice, if you're so inclined. I like snorkeling but I wasn't so inclined this trip, so I opted instead for a combo land and sea tour to get a taste of this pretty area. 

We were in port nearly all day and, since my 4-hour tour wasn't until 12:30, I though about going ashore early and walking around the shore area. The only problem was that it was HOT. And HUMID. And I was not feeling 100% to begin with, but I soldiered on and went ashore anyway. 

I began to wither almost immediately. The walk down the pier seemed like it was ten miles but it was only about 500 yards. "Good grief", I said to myself, "get your shit together Sherita".

So I kept going. I was glad I did. The little town at the shoreline was compact and engaging. There were, of course, the usual souvenir shops and restaurant owners hawking the merits of their menus, cool drinks, shade and free wifi. I declined all offers with a sad smile and trudged on. 

I soon found a small park with lots of big shade trees and benched scattered about. I plopped myself down on one and rested while I watched people walk by. After awhile I got up and headed back towards the ship. On my way back I found a beautiful little open-air church. I sat on one of the pews for a few minutes and enjoyed the quiet as well as the warm but soothing breeze coming off the ocean. 

Oh look! There's my ship!

Loved this cute giraffe I saw in front of a store. Sadly, he was too large to carry home.

I walked to the meeting point for the tour and presently we boarded a catamaran type of boat and set off on a 90 minute tour of the pretty bays. They had an open bar so I had a margarita and assumed it would help kill whatever toxins might be lurking in my bedraggled body. Probably not one of the better decisions I've ever made, in retrospect. 

The sea tour was very enjoyable and soon we returned to the marina and traded our boat for a bus. We headed out of town and up along a mountain road which gave us some lovely views of the harbor and bay. Our guide was a very exuberant man named Lalo and he seemed puzzled as to why most of us were tired and hot. We were a subdued bunch. 

Lalo took us to another nearby town called La Crucesita and had us stop at a really pretty church with stunning murals inside. The ceiling, especially, was gorgeous. It was a full body portrait of Guadelupe, one of Mexico's patron saints, I believe. Lalo had us walk up the side aisle, turn towards the center, face the alter, then turn around to face the church doors at the rear. Then he had us look up at the ceiling. Guadelupe looked down on us in such splendor! Lalo told us that the church was only about twenty years old and that it took the artist 40 weeks to paint the murals in the church. I was most impressed. 

Lalo then wanted to take us a few block's walk to a little museum but about a third of us had no desire to do so so he let us go back on the bus and wait. It was air conditioned in there and us weenies felt not one iota of guilt.

Can you see the man's face in these rocks?

A beautiful, unspoiled beach, accessible by water only.

Pretty church, with gorgeous murals inside.

The ceiling's mural

Soon enough everyone else returned and we started back to the ship. It was about this time that my stomach started hurting badly. It was that burning heartburn type of hurt. Gawd. I kept it together and managed to get back on the ship and to my stateroom where I dug through my little bag of emergency pharmacy mess and quickly chewed down some Tums. I soon felt better.  Needless to say, I skipped happy hour that day. Maybe it was the combination of an acidic margarita and the oppressive heat and humidity, I don't know. Whatever. I feel like made the best of it, feeling lousy or not. 

We enjoyed two sea days in between Huatulco and our next and last stop at Cabo San Lucas. 

Our time in Cabo was very limited - just a little over 4 hours. It was also a tender port which cut down on port time even more since the tendering process was a good twenty minutes each way. 

I had a short tour planned but quickly cancelled it when I found out that a fellow cruising friend was on another ship and would be in port at the same time. We messaged each other and planned to meet up at a restaurant on the marina. Sadly, his ship came in later than ours and by the time we met at the restaurant we had only about half an hour to spend visiting over drinks. Still, it was well worth it. It was fun to see him again and share cruising stories!

I will be stopping in Cabo in early 2017 when I go on my World cruise so I will rebook that tour for then. Good decision!

My first early morning view coming into Cabo.

Fishing boats heading out for a day fishing for marlin.

Condo row - beachfront.

The marina.

More cool storefront characters.

My view from the restaurant.

Tostadas!

Margaritas!

Me and my friend Glenn!

Coffee Plantation and Antigua in Guatemala

A Coffee Plantation and Antigua in Guatemala 

At some point on my cruise through Central America I had wanted to tour a coffee plantation. Guatemala's visit offered a combination all-day coffee plantation tour and city tour of Antigua.  Both were a 90 minute drive from port. 

I enjoy coffee. I'm not a crazy coffee-head - you won't likely ever find me in the long drive-through line at Starbucks or ordering "triple venti soy no foam" lattes ANYWHERE, but I like a good cuppa joe in the morning. But, I am always interested in how things are made and learning about how a little bean turns into a nice cup of coffee so on this warm day in the volcanic mountains high in Guatemala I found myself on a bus with 50 other passengers bound for coffee-land. 

The ride up to the plantation was 

really pretty. The roadside vistas were free from litter and at every turn the peaks of several large volcanoes grew closer and larger in size.

sugar cane fields

The plantation itself is called Filadelfia Coffee and Resort. They market their coffee under the name R. Dalton. Sadly, they use fungicides on their beans during growing seasons so there would be no bringing home of this coffee. Our household tries very hard to keep organic. 

Anyway, I learned all about how the beans were first discovered in Ethiopia and that Arabica beans are considered to be among the best, and how this plantation grafts their Arabica seedlings with  another inferior yet stronger root base plant so that the plants will flourish and not be killed by nematodes. Yikes. Coffee growing is complicated!

When it is time to harvest only the red beans are picked. Even then, when they are all dumped into a big basin filled with water (part of wet processing method), only the ones that sink to the bottom are kept for "premium" processing.

Then they are dried and go through a number of other selective processing. Some beans are sent out to coffee companies (like Starbucks) and they then do their own roasting but others are roasted here at the plantation and then packaged for sale, both locally and for export. 

It was fun to learn the process. We got to pick some red beans, squeeze the actual green coffee beans from within these and taste them at this early stage. I've got some photos I will upload later in an updated post. 

They hosted a nice lunch for us and we had a little time to relax, sip a cup of coffee and enjoy a delicious coffee mousse for dessert.

After the coffee tour we bid goodbye to our guide and made our way down the mountain a little to Antigua. It's a beautiful little city laid out as many others with lots of cobblestone streets in a large grid with a central plaza in the middle of the city. The city government building borders one side and the local

Cathedral another. Open market stalls selling crafts and street vendors hounded us mercilessly. I got really weary of saying "no, gracias" to these women and men offering their wares.

Pretty flowers at the Jade market

Antigua's government house

The Cathedral

Little girl taking a rest from selling her wares.

Everyone is involved in marketing and selling

We returned to the bus and relaxed in the cool air of the bus for our ride back to the ship. Along the way it began to thunder and lightning outside and the rain came down in droves! It almost lulled me to sleep. 

Our Day in Nicaragua

Our day in Nicaragua 

Our scheduled stop in Nicaragua was at Corinto, a small seaside town. The closest inland city was colonial Leon. I joined in a private tour with 8 others from my cruise critic group for an all day tour provided by Julio Tours. 

The man himself, Julio, met us at the ship and soon we were settled in to his air conditioned mini bus. The drive to Leon was about an hour long so on the way Julio told us some things about his life and his country. 

In 1978 he was fourteen years old and living with his mother and eleven siblings near Leon. It was the beginning of September and he was doing what lots of boys his age did - out wandering around the city and it's outskirts.  

At that time the Samosas were ruling the country. It was an oppressive society and there were uprisings throughout the land and a growing guerrilla force that hid out and trained up in the mountains and jungles. 

One night Julio and three of his friends were rounded up

By the Samosas and taken to jail, accused of being guerrillas. The boys vehemently denied this but to no avail. They were held for three months, until early December. During this time they were beaten, starved and for days on end placed in wooden coffins with nothing but a little

air box from which to breathe. 

Once a day, a guard would open the little box door, peer inside, slap their face and pour a few drops of water into their mouth for nourishment. There was no bathing, no toileting, no talking, no eating. One of Julio's friends died. 

In early December they were released and sent back to their homes.  Julio's life had forever changed. On Christmas Day of that same month, in the predawn hours, there came a quiet knock at his door and Julio left his home, joined his two remaining friends and went with another group of young men and a guide, into the mountains to join the guerrilla forces.  Julio hated the Samosas and everything they stood for by now and wished to fight for independence and a better future for his country. He became a Sandinista. 

The years passed - he was sent to Russia for nearly a year for special training. He found the cold winters nearly unbearable but he persisted and eventually rose in ranks in his army. 

By the 1990's he had married and had a young son. Being in the army all of these years he had no other skills, and he could have stayed but his son became very ill and he needed money for special medicine for him, so he took advantage of the army's offer of paying soldiers $1,000 to retire. He used that money to buy the medicine to save his son. 

If anything, Julio is smart and resourceful. He went to Leon and found a job at a bank as a security guard. Soon, the owner of the bank noticed Julio and offered him a job as a bellboy at his hotel. Julio accepted and worked there until 2005. He made more money there because of the tips. He also drove guests places from time to time, when called upon by the owner of the hotel. 

One day the owner of the hotel asked Julio if he could take a few guests on a three or four day tour of the country. Julio agreed. The guests were so impressed with Julio and his knowledge of the country and his good English that they told him he should have his own touring company. 

And so Julio Tours was born. 

Nicaragua is still a very poor country. 45% of the people have no job and live on government handouts but at an incredibly low poverty level. The economy is bad, yet the crime rate is low. The country is over 90% Catholic. There are 5 million people in Nicaragua. About one million live in the capital city of Managua; 200,000 live in Leon. In Leon there are five universities, four of which are free. Many of the young generation are encouraged to leave and so this is what is happening. They are a proud and friendly country but in contrast to Costa Rica, their opportunities seem vastly less available. 

Julio walked us through the more non-touristy places of Leon - we rambled in and out of small bazaar-like markets, viewing fresh fruits, beans, corn, meats and fishes.  The market vendors stared at our small group as if we were creatures from another planet. I was both bemused and sobered. What do they think of us? 

We walked back streets and caught long glimpses of current life in Leon. Barber shops, restaurants, a few hotels, cars and buses mingling with bicycle taxis and horses drawing wagons laden with small pieces of lumber piled precariously high. 

Julio guided us to a restaurant set off the street inside a lovely and peaceful courtyard. Ice cold

beers were passed around along with bottles of cold water. Soon, plates filled with rice and beans and tortillas, along with chicken fajitas, were placed in front of us and we all dug in, hot, tired and hungry from our morning walk. 

After lunch we continued on through the city, visiting the central plaza and coming back into contact with street vendors selling souvenirs. We passed by churches and visited two small museums. Eventually it was time to get back in the van for our return trip to the ship. 

I was deeply moved by Julio's story. Everything else I've seen and heard since then has paled in comparison to what I heard from this man called Julio in Nicaragua.

Pictures of a local open market:

One of Julio's friends at the barber shop.

Leon's central cathedral.

School girls.  Kids go to school 4 hours a day - 1/2 in the mornings, 1/2 in the afternoons, as there are not enough schools to house all the kids at once.

People lined up waiting for a noon meal at a town food kitchen

Julio and an iguana at the market

Our ship's captain Noel O'Driscoll and me!