New Year's Day in Ensenada

Overall our day was fun but Ensenada, Mexico was my least favorite activity of the cruise. In my opinion, there were good parts and not-so-great parts and I will share both.

We awoke Wednesday morning January 1, 2014 to find our ship already docked at Ensenada, Mexico. Our side of the ship was against the dock. Right out our stateroom window we could see where we would be visiting that day. My first impressions reminded me of scenes from movies and were not favorable.  We could see the expanse of the town in the distance. There was not a tree in sight and it looked terribly hot and sun bleached, like a desert shoot-it-out scene from an old western movie. In the dock area near the ship was a lot of security fencing and guards with rifles patrolling back and forth. It reminded me of the high security around the nuclear weapons that you see in James Bond movies. We actually debated not getting off but realized it was another new experience and, after all, we had never been to Mexico.

We did debark, via gangway this time, not via tender boat as at Catalina, and passed through security. Vendors were taking pictures and wanting to sell them to you. I actually posed with a parrot perched on my shoulder, which was kinda cool, but we did not buy the photo. We took a 10-12 minute bus ride into the town. We tried to browse the shops there and what an awful experience! If you even glanced at something the shopkeeper was in your face about giving you a good deal.  If you tried to walk by without entering they blocked your way to direct you into their store. Little kids were around you begging for money in exchange for Chiclets. One attractive scene, however, was a very brightly colored entrance to a motel that I thought deserved a photo.

This made me think of the movie Fools Rush In in which the husband comes home to find
his Mexican wife's family has repainted the entire interior of his formerly neutral beige home. 

We met up with John and Marita and Dave and Janet for guacamole and drinks at a bar called Papas&Beers. The guacamole was freshly made at your table as you watched. It was delicious. The company was great. The weather was pleasantly sunny with a gentle breeze, much better than I had anticipated when looking out from our stateroom window earlier in the day. The entertainment was to watch a Papas&Beer employee perform a ritual on each person who volunteered, or possible even paid for the "pleasure". Tequila and beer was poured in the person's mouth and down his throat, his mouth covered and his jaw clamped in place, his head jostled back and forth vigorously, and then he was turned upside down and shaken. The crowd cheered and laughed and applauded this spectacle. Even though I thought the act a bit inane, I was impressed with how even the stoutest of men could be inverted by one of these employees who really had a grasp of the concept of center of gravity and moment arms. I never did participate in these type of college spring break shenanigans, even in my younger days. I thought they were pointless then and still do now. Voicing this opinion when you are young labels you as a "stick-in-the-mud". Repeating this opinion at my age dubs me a "fuddy-duddy". I wonder... is "stick-in-the-mud" to "fuddy-duddy" is a naturally recurring bio-cycle?

Walking back to the bus, Marita offered me a Chiclet she'd bought from a little kid at some point. "No!" I barked in irritation, nearly biting her head off. She retorted, "I was just going to give it to you; I wasn't trying to sell it to you..." I guess I was a bit worn down. Our route back to the bus passed through a very quaint courtyard area. I was drawn to the architectural features of the wrought iron railings. Frank and I posed for a quick shot with a rather bemusing caballero who was holding a beer and a serape.

I thought this staircase looked like it could have been right out of
the Cartwright's ranch house of the Ponderosa of Bonanza.

We're three cabelleros, three gay cabelleros, they say we are birds of a feather.
We're happy amigos, no matter where he goes, the one, two, and three goes.
We're always together.

I was fascinated by a street artist creating beautiful paintings with cans of spray paint. He put on quite a show since he dried the layers quickly with a blow torch and would even, very daringly and dangerously, light the paint on fire as it was sprayed from the aerosol can. I snapped a quick picture of his work in progress. The solar-system-like picture emerged from applications of spray paint, with some dabbing with cloth, and some random cans used as round templates.

A cross between an abstract and a space painting, the artist's creation is unique.

After we were all back on the ship we had lunch and played a round of miniature golf on the topmost deck. We did not keep score religiously and did not take ourselves seriously; we just had a good time. It is kind of revealing that I enjoyed sedate miniature golf more than youthful kegging.

En guarde!    Touché!    Foiled again?    Fore!    Whatever...

We passed some time before dinner in the Candlelight Lounge. In keeping with its name this lounge had candelabras scattered about. We had a rousing round of a game called Farkle which is played with six dice and some relatively simple scoring rules. It has a fun twist in that under certain conditions you can add the points the player before you makes to your score for that turn. A person can come from behind and win.

Farkle scoring is not complicated. The six dice game is very portable and travel friendly

After dinner, in the evening, we went to a "Love and Marriage" show patterned after The Newlywed Game except that the three selected couples had been married a few days, about thirty years, or over fifty years. One of the questions was to fill in the blank, "The ugliest part of my wife is _________". The oldest husband filled in the blank with, "You don't survive 52 years by being stupid!". We stayed for another game show patterned after Family Feud. The funny part about that game was the names the teams chose for themsleves. They were the Griswold's (the family from the Chevy Chase movie Vacation) vs. the Obamas (all white team members). We also did a small amount of dancing and had a cocktail in one of the lounges later in the evening. Frank and I posed for a picture at one of the ship's backdrops as an idealized reminder of Mexico.

Olé!

The next day would be our day at sea, with no shore excursions. Frank and I had signed up for a Behind the Fun tour of the ship and were looking forward to that experience and learning about the inner workings of running a cruise ship.