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January 19, 2024

hfalk3

January 19, 2024

Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, Mexico


The Mariner arrived just before it had a chance to go 8 this morning. Arrived maybe too strong a word. The anchor was dropped just before it went 8. The “port” in Cabo San Lucas doesn’t have a cruise ship pier. So, you drop anchor about a mile off the coast and take a tender boat into the small port that can handle something the size of a tender. The Mariner has its own tenders.


Tenders really serve to purposes. Most of the time they are just life boats standing by. No, not large rubber dinghies, these are really small ships that had engines and hold from 25 to 70 people. And that poses the question of the day – What is the difference between a ship and a boat. Marine vessels intended for navigation of coastal and inland waters are generally called boats, while ocean-going vessels are generally called ships.


Seems so simple – Right? Well than consider this. Boats are also generally smaller than ships. What about "jumbo shrimp" or "tiny whales". Provided that both terms refer to living (or formerly living) animals, one would hardly expect a jumbo shrimp to be larger than, or, for that matter, anything other than much smaller than a tiny whale. Use of words that attribute size-- small and large, big and little, jumbo and tiny, as well as many others-- is context-relative: one can confidently assume that a small watermelon is much larger than a large grape.


Words are so strange. Some words imply size. Words such a boat and ship. The fact that perhaps not all boats are so small and not all ships so large that any ship could reasonably carry any boat is irrelevant. So is the fact that some boats are so large that trying to propel them only with oars might be no more effective than trying to propel a typical ship the same way. Categorically, boats are smaller than ships, in spite of the fact that the two categories overlap considerably.


A boat’s captain would probably not be offended to hear the boat referred to as a ship, while a ship's captain would be offended to hear the ship referred to as a boat. This may be true, but it's unlikely to be useful in determining which word to use in a given situation, since so few people have ready access to sufficient numbers of captains (of sufficient varieties of boats and ships) that they are willing to risk offending.





This is El Arco, a natural archway in the sea cliffs at the southern end of Baja California. It is a natural wonder and one of the major tourist sites in Cabo San Lucas.


Ah but is it Cabo San Lucas or just Cabo or Los Cabos? We all know “Cabo” is a resort city, there is no other reason for it being here or anywhere else, at the southern tip of Baja California. Cabo San Lucas (Saint Luke Cape), together with the slightly more famous San José del Cabo are collectively known as Los Cabo’s. Together they are a good size city with about 350,000 people.


Rated as one of Mexico's top tourist destinations, Cabo San Lucas is known for its beaches, scuba diving locations, Balnearios (spas), the sea arch El Arco de Cabo San Lucas, and marine life. The Los Cabos Corridor has become a heavily trafficked vacation destination for tourists, with numerous resorts and timeshares along the coast between Cabo San Lucas and San José del Cabo.


The waters around Cabo are home to marine wildlife including rays, sharks, mahi-mahi (dorado), and striped marlin. Hey even fifty years ago, went I was just a young thing, Cabo was known as the place top go marlin fishing. Cabo San Lucas has the highest-paying marlin tournament in the world, the Bisbee's Los Cabos Offshore. This tournament takes place every year in the month of October.


The shore excursion for today is called Salsa & Salsa. The tender leaves at 10:30, and the last tender to the ship leaves the dock at 15:30. It is probably a twenty-minute ride on the tender to the dock. Sounds interesting but obviously covers lunch time, so breakfast was called for.


We ate breakfast on the fantail. The fantail is the area (just outside Las Veranda in this case) of the upper deck (floor 11 here) of a ship nearest the stern. More specifically, a rounded afterdeck that overhangs the propeller and rudder. Yes the butt end of the ship. It was really nice, warm but so too much so, and we had a great view of El Archo from our seats.


Down to the Constellation Theater about 10. Yes, the Falk’s are generally early. They were handing out colored cards along with the numbered tour cards. It was a bit confusing, however had we watched Good Morning Mariner on the telly we would have known the colored cards were for people who don’t have a tour organized by Regent. We were tour 25.


The tour was called on time at 10:30. The group made its way down to deck 4 and the tender. It took awhile to get everyone on board. The tender was pretty much packed to the gills. It had generously gone 11 by the time the tender hit the dock. There was an afoul smell as we exited the tender. It was instantly obvious from the barking of the seal lions sunning on the deck what the small was – them.


Exiting we lined up and were lead through the gauntlet of tourist shops to the buses. It was then a twenty-five- or thirty-minute ride to a golf resort in the hills about Cabo. No, the name wasn’t recorded and trying to look it up on the map did no good they all looked the same. But it matters not. We did pass the Walmart on the way there!


The idea of the tour is to make Salsa and learn to do the Salsa. They began by offering bottom-less margaritas. Now the frozen type is pretty much what is in my wheel house. These weren’t frozen. They said it was a “traditional lime margarita.” It was GOOD.

It contains a shot of Tequila, a shot of Controy, which is an orange liqueur, the juice of half a lime. The rim of the glass is, of course, covered in salt. The first one was good, after the seventh one there isn’t any recollection of good or bad.


Apparently, there was six different salsas. Salsa, at the first word in the tour, refers, at least to Americans, specifically to Mexican table sauces, especially to the chunky tomato-and-chili-based pico de gallo, as well as to salsa verde. Salsa simply means any kind of sauce in Spanish. Salas is generally good. When some was ordered with an omelet at La Verda the other day, it seemed to refer to copped onions with a little bit of red tomato – Salsa it was not.


However, between margaritas, we made a Spicy Red Salsa, a Tangy Green Salsa (Salsa verde), Oaxacan Style Guacamole (more on that shortly), Pico de Gallo, Tropical Salsa and a Rompope dessert Salsa. The latter being served over vanilla ice cream. Yum.

Anyone that knows me, knows I don’t do avocado. Never touch the stuff with a ten or even twenty foot poll. However, put enough margarita in me, and anything can happen. At first I was, surly, repulsed by even the thought of eating this stuff. But then we made the Oaxacan style guacamole. Surprise, it was good. It was a simple salsa, one quarter cup of green salsa verde, that is probably redundant, one ripe, that maybe the key here, avocado, lime juice and salt all blended together in the molcajete until smooth. In my defense- I was five margaritas into the afternoon in the hot sun.


Oaxacan cuisine is a regional cuisine of Mexico, centered on the city of Oaxaca de Juárez, the capital of the eponymous state located in the mountains of southern Mexico. Oaxaca is one of Mexico's major gastronomic, historical, and gastro-historical centers whose cuisine is known internationally. Like the rest of Mexican cuisine, Oaxacan food is based on staples such as corn, beans and chile peppers, but there is a great variety of other ingredients and food preparations due to the influence of the state's varied geography and indigenous cultures. Corn and many beans were first cultivated in Oaxaca. Well known features of the cuisine include ingredients such as chocolate (often drunk in a hot preparation with spices and other flavorings), Oaxaca cheese, mezcal and grasshoppers (chapulines) with dishes such as tlayudas, Oaxacan style tamales and seven notable varieties of mole sauce. The cuisine has been praised and promoted by food experts such as Diana Kennedy and Rick Bayless and is part of the state's appeal for tourists.

Let’s see it is a poor mountainous region where the people serve local hearty foods. Sounds a lot like the Valtellina? Another justification for liking avocados, it is good food from a simple mountain people, just like those in Berbenno.


After they plied us with a sufficient number of margaritas, it was time to learn to do the Salsa. Salsa the dance, is a latin dance, associated the salsa music. It was made popular in the United States in New York City in the 1960s. Salsa is a mixture of Cuban dames, such as the mambo, pachanga, and the rumba, with a little swing and tap added in. So we danced!


After the dance lesson we reboarded the bus and headed to the port to catch the last tender. It is quite probable they either sent an additional tender or held the tender for us as we arrived after the 15:30 last tender call. The tender did manage to get us back to the ship before the 16:00 sailing time.


It was off to the Connoisseur Lounge for a cigar, followed by hors-d’oeuvres in the suite, just some spring rolls and cheese and crackers, then a game of cards, at which I lost miserably, back to the Connoisseur Lounge, to lick my wounds and have a cigar, then it was off to bed.


Buonanotte e ciao, Enrico














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