We awoke at 7am as the ship was docking and got lovely views of the port town.
We did not have a shore excursion planned but knew what we wanted to do. The day did not get off to the best start due to Pam’s phone - she had somehow set it up so that it thought it was Sunday 22nd not Saturday 21st and we believed her three mobile contract included Mexico for free but it didn’t and we were £10 worse off until we noticed it - rookie error.
We caught a taxi for 5USD into the next town (La Crucecita). We didn’t have Mexican pesos yet so paid in dollars until we got to a cash machine. One of the big downside of cruising, especially in smaller ports and some countries, is that passenger tourists are targeted as easy pickings for price variation and this port was a good example of it. Some items had prices in pesos but the Mexicans would try to sell at USD with rates which are awful - many of the passengers only had US dollars so just paid and accepted it. Other stalls and shops have no prices shown but will quote one price for locals and another for tourists - it is just something you have to acknowledge but occurs more on “cruise ship days” apparently. The other big downside in this port are people trying to steer you into shops and pretending to be part of some tourist guild and trying to help you. Unlike Montego Bay, they can be deterred here by a firm “no thank you” but the constant “pestering” of the shop workers can be draining if, like us, you are not used to it. Still they have to make a living I suppose.
That was more or less the only negative so let us describe the wonders of our day. Once in La Crucecita we found this lovely bar for drinks and free wi-fi to sort out some money transfer issues and check-in on things. They were too friendly and helpful and Mark’s breakfast request of Mollette - open breakfast baguette like a pizza sub apparently not that we know as we got an Omelette delivered instead because the lady was trying to help the poor Englishman. It looked nice so we went with it anyway.
We then picked up Pesos from an ATM and viewed this very pretty town and it’s market area.
We picked up some light weight dresses for Pam and a replacement sun hat - how it got ripped is anyone’s guess. Mark picked up replacement beach shoes as he hates his current ones plus new swim shorts as his current medium sized ones are too snug (wonder how that happened)!
We also needed water - again you were not allowed things off the ship and there were sniffer dogs looking for people that broke the rules and brought food off. After buying water (to which Mark added crisps and must be stopped from making these purchases), we finished viewing the town and came across lots of our fellow cruise passengers who had paid for a shore excursion to be taken to the town for a few hours. They had a commentary on the way over but we felt we had the better deal. We caught another taxi back for 35pesos which he had to charge and is £1.47 compared to $5 on the way up which is £4 - see, I told you they like US fares.
Once back in the port of Huatulco there was a Saturday market so we walked the stalls and listened to the music being played. There were lots of locals around and it was a lovely atmosphere.
We wanted to call our eldest daughter, Katherine, who we kept missing, so tried to find a local bar with food, drink and wi-fi. We fell for one of the people beckoning us in with menus in English and free wi-fi. Complete rip off and we got out as soon as possible.
By now we had been out in 31c heat for about 5hrs and had tried to stay in the shade and had drank lots. Pam wanted to rest back on the ship for a bit and get away from the sellers so we went back to the ship and Mark grabbed his beach gear and went back out again to this area near the ship.
It was lovely with lots of little fishes (whitebait size) swimming around you plus bigger fishes too (they were flat and the size of your hand). Mark loved it.
We sailed away at 5:30 in gorgeous weather to an on deck sail away party and watched marvellous scenery glide past.
Then off to dinner in the main restaurant again (new table companions again so no duplicates yet). Everyone regaled each other with their day's adventures - a common excursion seemed to be a Catamaran trip with an open bar leading to lots of Tequila drinking (not for us - we managed 1 rum between 2 in Jamaica so that would have finished us!).
Early night for us after that. Mark’s step count for the last 24 hrs was 24,000 steps which is well above his 8-10k average.
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