Jan 23rd - Manzanillo, Mexico

We have arrived on land again.  The sun was shining as we woke up…. as the day was dawning, on a Mexican Monday morning…. Is this the way to Manzanillo?

Our plan was to see the town, get some Wi-Fi access to check in on things and then visit the beach. We started the day on the boardwalk (known as the Malecon) which has these wonderful art sculptures.

The sculptures each represent a different sign of the zodiac

Here’s Mark’s Gemini one. Pam was happy as hers was purple.

Then, just behind this, is the famous Manzanillo sign plus this wonderful gazebo. There are various fountains, one of which has classical music played out alongside it and the jets of water “dance” to the music.

One of our better pics! We are not in it.

This town is a complete contrast to the last one. You can see the poverty but at the same time we found it very charming with its colourful houses and murals. Many of the others passengers preferred Huatulco and we were very much in the minority in liking this one more.

The is colour everywhere.

But also poverty. This is not the only one of its type.

Their buses are a bit different to ours

I think the reason we liked this more, other than the colour/murals, was that we felt we were in authentic Mexico. No-one was badgering us to buy goods and people were friendly. Also, prices seemed reasonable and when converted into US dollars they seemed reasonable too.

Also in town is a food market full of the locals. We popped in and again found it very charming. Mark was banned from buying pistachios or anything like that.

Market entrance

Busy and beautiful inside

Do you recall that Mark is useless at remembering people? In town, he spotted someone he recognised from the ship and thought they were one of the young guests onboard but it turned out to be one of the “Headliners” dancers. He then got really excited and said “Aha, I definitely know that woman. It’s the pianist”. Pamela instantly replied “Yes it is and I know you have a thing for her”. We will leave this topic.

We had a few failed attempts at finding Wi-Fi (no free locations or any bars with available seats that had it) but were successful at picking up bottled water, ice creams and replacement sports/ankle socks for Mark.

We gave up on the Wi-Fi and, with the help of a local policewoman, got a cheap taxi ride to the nearest sandy beach about 20 mins walk away. It was certainly run down, and no chance of Wi-Fi, but it had a very sandy beach and warm water but there was too much rubbish strewn around and certainly no fishes swimming in these waters! On the beachfront was a restaurant that was teeming with cats - Mark always had a soft spot for cats. Also, sitting in there, having a beer, were five crew members from the ship’s galley. We had a brief chat as we sat at a nearby table, and it was great to see them enjoying themselves, but we thought it was important to let them have their own space and not pepper them with too many questions. After a few minutes, Paul & Sandra, also from the ship, suddenly appeared. We had eaten dinner with them, and 4 others, on night 1 of the cruise and these 6 people are probably the ones Mark chats to the most. They had walked here from town and we all had some drinks and shared some mixed seafood and salad with tortillas together. During this time of relaxing and chatting we suddenly saw one of the cats chasing a giant, bright green, Iguana from the beach around the side of the restaurant. The iguana was about the same size as the cat and moved just as fast so we didn’t capture any photos but definitely not something we expected to see.

We knew there was an Iguana Sanctuary at the far end of town but had decided not to see it but we still got to see one. Maybe it’s a sanctuary for iguanas injured by cats!

Our beachfront cafe - the iguana and cats are hiding.

We strolled back into town and got more drinks and wi-fi and caught up on emails and things with the family and then it was time to get back on the ship.

Back to the boat. No, not the little white thing. The one in the distance.

We were hungry so went to the Meridian for dinner at 6pm and skipped the sail away party on deck. We joined a table for 6 and again we had not sat with any of the 4 before - a couple and 2 solo travellers. All very friendly and some recently retired including yet another person on their very 1st cruise doing the whole trip. We have lost count of how many there are now but I reckon we are in double figures when we were positive there would be zero - how wrong we were.

The food tonight was not that great. We both had the veal which was tasteless and the vegetables were sparse and were cooked but barely so. It was the first meal we were disappointed with but the company made up for it. We could have had something else but couldn’t be bothered as we had eaten it and need to reduce intake not increase it.

Afterwards we went to the theatre show. Manzanillo is a changeover stop so we now have new performers and lecturers plus apparently an extra singer for the house band “Pulse” plus more crew including engineers - the other passengers tell you all this stuff. A little aside, a group of 4 young men (one looking like a bee gee) have appeared so one of the new acts will be a band for sure. Anyway, tonight’s show was Nikki Bennett - a vocalist and apparently a star of the stage. We walked out, along with about 40 others, early on as we were all getting headaches. She had a very strong (and good) voice but coupled with the sound system it was deafening. It would have worked in a large concert hall but not a small venue like this. I am sure our daughter Katherine would have been horrified at how the sound levels had been setup. The band were not deafened as they all had headsets but we were not as lucky. Must have been disheartening for her to see the walk-outs. Pam reckoned they should just have taken away her microphone.

We finished the day with the 9:45 general knowledge quiz in the spinnaker bar with our quiz partners who had been on a 6-7 hour tour around the area. Nothing stops Chris from quizzes but we would have been shattered - in fact we were yawning from our day. If we would only had known that it is illegal to have more than one drink in front of you in a bar in Hawaii then we could have almost snatched victory. Never mind, the day was a victory to us.