The thing about traveling on such a luxurious ship is that being on the ship is—in many ways—more exciting than being ashore, especially if it’s your first time traveling by such a ridiculous mode. That said, our dolphin excursion yesterday was nearly perfect (apart from our ethical wranglings). Since that adventure occurred in the afternoon, it allowed us time to pamper ourselves aboard the ship before departing for land. However, for our second port of call, Mazatlán, we chose to do an all-day tour of the city, which required meeting in the expansive Princess Theatre by 8:00 in the morning (if I’m remembering correctly; it felt early and we had to set an alarm, which I don’t generally like to do when I’m on vacation) in order to get everyone organized to board the correct bus once ashore, so there was no time to enjoy the spa or take it easy by indulging in brunchtime cocktails.
But we still wanted to at least have breakfast, so I seem to recall arriving at the Skagway dining hall sometime during the 7:00 hour to quickly enjoy some coffee, fruit, syrupy figs, and French toast. (The ever reliable Skagway was ever delightful as ever.) We did manage to enjoy a little conversation with two ladies from China who were sat next to us. They both told us that they now live in Pennsylvania and New York and that they enjoyed a hiking excursion the previous day. We also gabbed a bit about weather patterns in our respective cities and talk about Prince, or course, who invariably always comes up when you tell someone you’re from Minneapolis.
As I said, there wasn’t much time to dawdle in the morning, so we arrived timely in the Princess Theatre to start the day’s excursion. It was immediately at this moment where I started to worry a bit that our day was going to be a bit, er, off. There were hordes and hordes of people lining up outside the theatre to be stamped, labeled, and cataloged (we had to wear color- and number-coded stickers which efficiently informed staff where we were going and what group we needed to join). While it was a very slick operation and we got where we were going pretty quickly (I don’t know how else the Princess staff would manage this), there’s just something about big group activities like this that just doesn’t sit well with me.
And the teeming hordes of people didn’t let up from there. Once we stepped off the ship, there were more endless lines of people queueing up to board one of many countless coach buses. By the time we got on the correct bus, it was crowded with more wretched masses, the lady sitting in front of me reclining her seat all the way back so that I could, if I so desired, inhale follicles of hair. (Why she needed to fall asleep right away again after presumably having just gotten up is beyond me.) Matt smartly suggested we head to different seats, which we promptly did, sitting next to other strangers who at least had an understanding of personal bubbles.
But as our excursion continued, things continued to just feel ickier and ickier. I think part of the problem is we misunderstood what we signed up for. I had envisioned that we’d be taken into town by bus and then we’d have hours and hours to spend in town just lollygagging and exploring. Unfortunately, this excursion was a rigidly guided bus tour, our knowledgeable tour guide—as nice as she was—imparting facts and figures about Mazatlán, Mexico, its 33 states, and the sites we were seeing. But we were trapped on this overcrowded bus, a bunch of privileged white people staring at the brown people toiling away in the fields, as it were. It just felt, well, icky. All this said, the tour guide told us that the main economy of Mazatlán was tourism, with agriculture and fish and shrimp following next. So it was because of us tourists that the folks we were seeing had a job. But even still, it all still just felt, well, icky. Welcome to planet Earth, I guess. This is how we do things.
On the ride to our first stop (traffic patterns of a type I hadn’t ever seen, cars recklessly stopping and going, so many motorcycles weaving in and around and about, a chaotic pattern of barely recognizable order), we rode past a fish and shrimp market (popup canopies lined down the street under which stood tables and tables topped with crates filled with huge, huge shrimp and juicy, juicy tuna), a florería (a flower market brimming with blazing colors, a gentleman coming aboard with a flower arrangement in the shape of a poodle), and the Monumento a la continuidad de la vida (a metal monument of a pod of life-size dolphins emerging out of a flat dais, giant mammals jumping out of the sea, forming graceful arcs against the bright, blue, clear sky), before eventually arriving and getting out of the bus at El clavadista (literally, “the diver”), where we zigzagged through a gaggle of street vendors aggressively forcing jewelry and sombreros in our faces. All of this to bizarrely witness a mini show where some fit men dove off an impressive cliff several yards high and into the sea and who then came to us asking for tips. It all seemed so strange, and I was just somewhat taken aback that we signed up for this tour and that we live on a planet where people sign up for a tour like this.
With barely a minute to spare to quickly take a selfie, the gorgeous seafront in the background, it was time to board the coach and carry on to the next stop. The bus took us along Paseo del centenario, a winding road that traced the rocky coastline. While we were afforded views of more statues and monuments standing tall and elegant against the deep blue sea and clear blue sky and also were afforded a view of Isla el creston (a majestic island rising imposingly out of the sea off the southern coast, the highest point in the city atop which stands the highest lighthouse above sea level built on natural terrain), the views were all from the confines of a cramped coach bus that didn’t allow us quality time with anything that passed us by.
We were additionally cheated of quality time when we arrived at the stop that I was most looking forward to, the center of town, to explore the Catedral basilica de la inmaculada concepción. We had a mere 40 minutes to use the bathroom, explore the cathedral, and—just for fun—try to get our passports stamped at the post office. After finding the building we thought was the post office (after doing some research, it was actually the city hall), I spoke in broken Spanish with a local to find the bathrooms (I caught enough to hear him say azul to help me locate a blue platform leading to los ba?os), and then right in the courtyard of the the city hall building, we stood in a line for a window labeled pasaporte. What could go wrong? Surely this is the line for the post office where we can get our passports stamped!
After waiting a solid five minutes or so, we eventually saddled up to the window, where I said, “Queremos unas estampillas para nuestros pasaportes,” while handing the women our passports. (If you speak better Spanish than I, you’ll already be chuckling about how I messed up. Read the stray tips and observations below to find out what I should have said.) The lady took our passports, which were now being held behind her glass window, and she typed into the computer for a bit while repeating my full name. “Si,” I responded. Then she proceeded to say that it was going to cost some money (I caught enough to hear her say some number and the word pesos). “¿Cuánto cuesta?” I asked, and she repeated the number. Out of desperation, I then just gestured a stamping motion with my hand while making a “chk-chk” sound. Confused, she disappeared from the window and spoke with her colleagues. Meanwhile, Matt and I were so perplexed what was happening and started to become worried that our passports weren’t retrievable at this point. Eventually the lady returned, and I was able to figure out enough in Spanish that we needed to go three blocks in a different direction to find a building con tres leones. (I think.)
While I was feeling defeated and embarrassed in the moment, I knew that this whole exchange would make a great story to tell. (And indeed it has!) I also somewhat enjoy experiences like this, as it helps me to feel empathy for others in the United States who may be in similar situations where there is no common language. It really is agonizing and embarrassing to not be able to express with ease what you need.
Moving on, we had mere minutes to explore what I thought was going to be where we’d spend most of our time on the whole excursion, the basilica cathedral. Completed in 1899, it’s not a terribly old structure, but it’s gorgeous nonetheless. Outwardly, three dramatically tall pointed trefoil arches frame an inset facade of white and grey rectangular stones arranged in a stair step pattern, and the arches were flanked by twin canary yellow bell towers rising tall and mighty above the city atop which soared golden spires. The inside of the cathedral revealed a much more Baroque style compared to its architecture on the outside: an elegant black-and-white checkerboard floor; elegant stone columns standing resolute like rows of soldiers, all supporting arches intersecting each other at right angles to support elegant vaults adorned with more grey and black stones in a stair step pattern. At the far end of the cathedral in the sanctuary stood a tall shrine for the virgin Mary, a recreation of the famous Our Lady of Guadalupe housed within a grand stone canopy rising high towards the ceiling with twin spires that flanked an impressive dome.
Time was running so short, however, so we quickly zoomed past the usual statues of Jesus looking bored (he always looks bored, for some reason) and boarded the cramped coach to make our way to our last stop, the Golden Zone, a sliver of land squeezed against the shoreline, packed with tourists and hotels and shops selling various chintzy souvenirs. We also were allowed a brief moment to check out the shoreline itself, changing quickly into swim trunks, but the waters weren’t the usual bright, clear, blue waters of the sea I remember from, say, the beaches of Puerto Rico, but instead dark and dank and brown, the smell of dead fish permeating the air and inhibiting any ability to enjoy anything about anything whatsoever.
We soon had a dinner show to go to over the lunch hour, so we headed to Hotel Playa Mazatlán in the Golden Zone where I experienced the worst two hours of my life. First we all lined up to a buffet to enjoy a so-called “Mexican dinner”—so-called because somehow we were in Mexico and the dinner they prepared was the blandest and most tasteless Mexican food I had ever had. And this is saying something, because I grew up in (and still live in) the Midwest where real, authentic Mexican food was (and sometimes still is) hard to come by. But honestly, the tacos served at my high school’s cafeteria were more flavorful than the slop they served us at Hotel Playa Mazatlán. But it was clear that they made Mexican food for gringos (and overcorrected, I must say), as one of the tourists with us asked the cooks, “Is it spicy?” (they couldn’t be bothered to learn the word picante) to which the polite servers shook their heads with a smile that might’ve been a tad sarcastic. The menu itself was also strange: along with the usual beans and rice and enchiladas, they also served us some kind of iceberg lettuce salad? And a noodle salad? And roasted chicken? It was so strange, and I wish I could have seen a photo of my face as I made my way through the line.
As we sat down to eat, they also brought us margaritas that were also gringoized: so overly sweet and syrupy it made my teeth hurt. And then if things couldn’t get any worse, we were sat next to this nuts old lady from California who was talking about mediums, psychics, and channeling energy to speak to spirits. (“Oh my god. I’m in hell,” I whispered under my breath. “You realize none of that is actually real,” I wanted to comment, but I just smiled and nodded and let her carry on with her delusions.)
And then began the show. It was fine enough. I really wanted to like it, as It seemed to be pretty traditional Mexican songs and dances: men dancing forcefully with heavy boots that shook the stage to excited rhythms; a solo male singer singing a traditional Mexican tune with fiery passion; female dancers flitting about the stage lightly and elegantly in colorful, flowery dresses that flowed and floated through the air. But then there were a few moments that required audience participation (I just hate audience participation), that led eventually two unfortunate souls getting up on stage, yelling “Arriba!” and drinking some tequila. All this considered, I continued to feel guilty and insecure about the whole day, us gringos being carted around so that we may watch the brown people put on a show for us while we ate food that they certainly would never eat. It just all felt inauthentic and plasticized.
Soon the show was over, and we had to wait for what felt like way too long for the coach to depart to bring us back to the ship, Matt and I deciding to just sit on a bench outside on the driveway leading to the hotel. Eventually, we did board the horrid coach, and we got to view some more incredible views of the sea from the coastline. But by this point we both just wanted to excursion to be over, so it was difficult to pay attention to our tour guide tell us about the observatorio, the Mexican Revolution, the lighthouse, and the Bay of Mazatlán, all while the coach winded slowly and precariously along the cliffside road.
We, of course, eventually did make it back to the ship, and we were feeling a little deflated by our day. So we spent some quality time in the spa to recover (my gosh, did we ever love that spa), and then we retired back to our cabin and enjoyed some cocktails on our lovely balcony, taking in the incredible views of gorgeous Mexican sunset, blazing oranges and shimmering golds igniting the sky in a vibrant celebration of color. It was then that I realized (and as I remarked at the outset of this post) that I don’t think cruises are a good way to explore and experience foreign countries… at least not in the way I prefer to adventure through distant lands, throwing myself right in the thick of it, using the wrong verbs, spending hours and days in a single city or on a single island. Rather, cruises are a great way to pamper yourself, enjoy a floating resort on the sea, and truly relax on vacation. Feel free to go on all the excursions you want, but don’t feel obligated to sign up for all the excursion days available to you. Stay on the ship, if you want, and don’t feel guilty about hanging back. If you do sign up for excursions, then choose options that are truly adventurous like swimming with dolphins, or—as you’ll find out on my next post—ziplining. Steer clear of the guided bus tours, for sure.
As the evening carried on and as the ship began to depart for open waters, Matt and I once again checked in with the LGBT meetup group in the Take Five lounge. We got to see Sammy and Kevin again, and we spoke of the heat in California. The meetup group really was an lovely highlight of our time on the ship, and I’m grateful we went as often as we did.
We closed out our evening by enjoying dinner at the Skagway Dining Hall, and we had the most adorable waiter, Ramon: a short, stout, round man, fancily dressed and ever so charming, and who had the most enchanting accent (I think he was from Peru or Mexico, if I’m remembering rightly). As we would order, he would enthusiastically exclaim, “Jyeeeeeeeesss,” with a melodic flourish, a glissando from low to high in pitch, like some kind of stereotype out of a Simpsons episode. And then he’d furthermore gush, “Jyour welcome!” when we would thank him when he brought us our drinks or our plates.
It was Italian night at the Skagway, but it was the first time Matt and I both felt a little underwhelmed by the food. All I recall from the evening was the lasagna I ordered (I’m sorry, I didn’t take very good notes to help me remember), and the lasagna was dry and flavorless. I’m sure the same adjectives would describe everything else I don’t remember. What I do remember, though, is our dear water, Ramon, and his alluring accent and charismatic personality.
And so, just like that, our second day on land came to a close. And while we were both very underwhelmed by the day (Matt would later confess that he felt “bad juju” right away in the morning when we were boarding the buses), I’m grateful that we now know to avoid guided tours on future cruises and stick to the more adventurous excursions. And, indeed, adventure we certainly did have on our third day on land!
Stray tips and observations:
- It was handy to know even just a little Spanish while in Mazetlán, as the locals generally knew as much English as I did Spanish. But also, it’s just plain polite to try a little bit, and you’ll generally make a more favorable impression.
- When we were at the city hall, the mistake I made was requesting estampillas, which is the word for postage stamp. We think the woman behind the glass thought we wanted to mail our passports to the US. What I should’ve said (I believe) was either sello de pasaporte or “¿Puede sellar nuestros pasaportes?”
- As the ship pulled out of port, folks on land waved goodbye using the flashlights on their phones, as the sun was setting fast. It was a super cute little moment, and I returned the wave in the same fasion.