What’s the one thing you never see in a cruise ship commercial? You’re right – you never see rain! But that’s exactly what greeted us this morning when we awoke to see our ship anchored in the bay near Zihuatanejo.
We had purchased tickets for a tour of both cities along with a drive into the countryside to see how bricks and tile are made along with a stop at a tortilla factory before returning to Zihuatanejo for some shopping. So we dressed appropriately and after breakfast, went to the designated area to wait to go ashore on the tenders.
At that time, all but two tours had been cancelled and soon our tour joined the ranks of those that were ditched for the day. Time to resort to Plan B! Games!
We had brought along our mini-Mexican Train game and Barb had decks of cards so we decided today was the day to introduce pinochle to the group. We went to Lido Deck and garnered a table so we could keep track of the weather and also be near the coffee and tea while we played. We broke into teams and Burl, Nancy and Ron stomped the rest of us but it was fun to learn something new and I’m betting we’ll play again before the week is over.
Around noon the rain has lessened so we grabbed a bite to eat and decided to take the tender and explore Zihuatanejo.
Getting ready to board the tender
As I got ready to board the tender, a wave lurched both the gangway and the tender and one of my Birkenstocks (red leather Florida model) was pulled off my foot and hit the water. The good news is I still have my foot – the bad news is, I lost one of my favorite sandals. I didn’t want to take the time to go back to our cabin for a different pair of shoes - figured I could go barefoot and buy something in town.
We landed on shore and soon found out why the cruise ship was selling rain ponchos for only $3 – mine had a huge rip across the back where the hood met and back so now I got the pleasure of having rain run down my back. Where’s duct tape when you need it?
Burl took off to find some cheap shoes for me and for 150 pesos I soon had a lovely pair of beach shoes with black rubber bottoms and blue neoprene booties. Figured they were something I would actually wear again as opposed to some of the cheap sandals for sale!
We walked around a few street, tasted some tequila in a liquor store and finally decided what would make the afternoon perfect was a margarita. When all else fails, drink tequila!
- Sharing a Grande Margarita in Zihuatanejo
Since the rain wasn’t subsiding and the shopping was pretty pathetic, we opted to return to the ship. Of course we asked if anyone has fished my Birk out of the water but guess it’s still floating out there.
