Cruising the Mexican Riviera

Those splendid Fall leaves are rapidly being blown off the trees; the days are getting shorter, and with the change to Standard Time this Sunday, nightfall will be around 5:00p: it’s time to leave the Autumn chill and gray of Seattle to cruise along the sunny West Coast of Mexico. The squirrels are hoarding away their acorns for the winter ahead, and I need to store up some Vitamin D from that Mexican sun. Oh. I forgot. The body doesn’t store up Vitamin D. Too late to cancel the trip now. But Vitamin D acquisition seemed a very good excuse a few weeks ago when I had to get out my credit card for the travel agent.

I was also faced at the time with an adjustment in my medicine or promising on my word of honor to increase my intake of leafy green vegetables for a trial period. Remembering that you can’t escape eating tons of lettuce at the buffets on a cruise, it was easy to opt for the buffets.



I am going to leave this blog on my computer at home which is programmed to post it as the cruise ship sails out of San Diego, just as the passengers are lining up at their appointed life boats on deck wearing their life jackets for the mandatory safety drill.


Those bulky life jackets are a good preview of the bloat many passengers will develop over the next few days from the nonstop eating most will do.


There’s Mount Rainier just outside the plane’s window as it climbs out of Seattle on its way to San Diego, California.


As the sun sets over San Diego, the Infinity should be slipping away from the dock.

Tomorrow is a full day at sea, lots of time to settle into my stateroom, then prowl about the 91,000 ton floating resort.



Should be getting a lot of exercise on this trip because my cabin is at the front of the ship and the restaurant is at the opposite end, a distance of more than the length of two football fields. As a consolation, the lounge is just above my cabin, three or four decks up.

The Infinity is headed for “The Mexican Riviera”, a string of seaside resorts along the Pacific Coast of Mexico: Cabo San Lucas, Acapulco, Huatulco. On the list, but not on this itinerary are also: Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta and Zihantanejo.



First port of call is Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, at the southern tip of the long Baja California peninsula. “Land’s End” it is sometimes called, and this lonely, barren gray rock formation there sure looks like it.



The ship anchors just off this natural arch “El Arco” in Spanish. It doesn’t dock here: passengers go ashore by tender.

One of the popular excursions here is to take a trip by small boat out to El Arco.



Cabo has a pleasant esplanade


where the tourist can hire a sport fishing boat to go to try to land a trophy marlin, shop for Mexican handicrafts, or sit under a thatched cabana and cool off with a cold Mexican beer.