4/29–San Francisco

Parting is such sweet sorrow.  Yes indeed it is.  This has been a fantastic trip, made all the more so by the wonderful staff aboard the NCL Sun. We can’t say enough about everyone aboard, and we will miss them all dearly as we sadly say goodbye and leave our dear Carlos in the terminal as we collect our bags.  We are out fairly late, as we have nothing pressing to do – but once in the terminal, our bags are right there, and we make the 10 minute walk to the rental agency without a problem (been there, done that, it’s easy and almost ingrained now).

We take a page out of Ken and Cheryl’s playbook, and take pictures of our rental car where we can see lots of dings and dents that weren’t marked on the rental sheet.  Then, once in the car, we head out onto the Golden Gate bridge, our destination north to Bodega Bay – where they shot a lot of “The Birds” film. Cool!  The drive across the Golden Gate and into Marin county is quite painless at this time in the morning, as we drive up into the hills, then turn off the highway onto small 2 lane roads the wind through farmland, little towns and finally out onto the coast.

It’s a beautiful drive, and Bodega Bay turns out to be an adorable little town with gorgeous headlands…that we discover because even though we delayed our departure from the ship, we are still way, way too early for lunch.

So, we meander through the little streets and end up at the Bodega Bay headlands, where we drive past the “hole in the head” which is where Pacific Gas & Electric planned to build a nuclear power plant in the 60’s. Fortunately, the project was killed by activism – and hopefully the saner minds that figured out it isn’t the brightest idea to build a nuclear power plant on top of the San Andreas fault!  It is now just a depression in the ground at the top of the hill, and a pretty amazing story.

After passing the hole, we wind our way down to the end of the road where there is a beautiful view back into Bodega harbor – with a beach and ferry terminal.

On the other side of the headlands are the rocky outcroppings facing the Pacific.  It’s a blustery day, so the surf is really up, creating quite a lovely view down the coast.

Back down and around the harbor, we wind through the little fishing village and on to Lucas Wharf restaurant, right on the water.

I have no idea why I didn’t take pictures of the food – but I didn’t. Oh well.  I had an overly expensive crab cake dish – but it was phenomenal.  Ed had the famous clam chowder and the calamari – both incredibly good. 

After sating our appetites we struck out to make the big loop back to San Fran and our airport accommodations.  We follow the road along the coast north, finding ever increasingly beautiful vistas – the pounding Pacific and incredible beaches. We stopped at so many view points, snapping pix of the wildlife and the wild Pacific along the way.

After an hour or so of beautiful coastal scenery, we turned inland and went from the ocean to redwoods (no good pictures), so majestic towering above us on both sides of the road.  Then, the landscape changes yet again, and we are in the rolling vineyards around Santa Rosa.  Acres upon acres of undulating hillside vineyards. 

Back we go, headed toward San Fran. Again, across the Golden Gate, this time with pictures.

On through the city, down some parkway that wound through typical San Fran neighborhoods, those Victorian rowhouses,  and other retail and residential places until we finally hit the freeway and exit on old Bayshore road for the Bayshore hotel.  But as we exit the highway, we see a whole slew (a platoon actually) of riot geared police.  Hmmm…SWAT? What?  I though maybe President Obama was here, but no – it’s The Donald!  The convention is right down the road from us and there are police and protestors and the roads are closed.  Oy.

We make it to the hotel – but not the gas station to top off the rental car because it is past the barriers. But no worries, we’ll do that later.  We check in, and the problems begin.  Our room, while very nice, and not facing the road, does not have wifi access. The node outside our room is dead.  And we spend the next 2 hours fighting with the front desk, calling the tech support line (oh, and just to add insult to injury, one of the phones has been blocked, so you can’t call out but somehow you can all 911 – which I managed to do – and then apologized profusely for using up valuable emergency phone lines). The front desk staff was awful – beyond rude and totally unhelpful. They finally sent up their onsite tech guy – who was a doll. He totally understood the problem, and tried a few different solutions, none of which worked. Finally, he suggested we change rooms – which is what we had been saying from the start.  Argh.  But – we ended up with a better room – higher floor and facing the water – and wifi (well, sort of, but that’s another story!).  Our tech guy also brought us these little chocolates as a way of apology.  At least one person on staff was worthwhile.

Later, we managed to get gas (the protestors are gone, roads now open – but it was ugly while it lasted), beer and wine at the gas station and then chilled out in the room for a bit until it was time for dinner.

We had already scoped the food options, and chose the Elephant Bar – right next door to the hotel.  Great reviews and we can walk.  That’s a winner.  And it truly was – the atmosphere was lively, sitting at the bar with a view of the water and the entire restaurant, we could people watch and enjoy view all at once.  The food was fabulous.  Ed ordered a burger- which we dubbed the burger that ate SFO.  This thing was beyond monstrously  huge…

… I had the chicken lettuce wraps which were so fantastically good, I decided I would try to get or find the recipe to do at home.  It was that good.  And how hard could it be?  We hung out for a while, got to chatting with the guy next to us at the bar, who was a contractor for Electric companies, had been literally all over the world, and was heading to Richmond, VA for work. Small world.  Great evening trading stories with him and talking about life and travel in general.

Then back to the hotel so we could hit the hay and get up at the crack of dawn for our early morning flight back home.  Wow. Amazing how fast this trip went, but what a great ending to a wonderful 3+ weeks.

4/27–Los Angeles, CA

Back in the US of A. OK, so the USSR song is a little bit more lyric, but nonetheless, we are back in the states.  And all that entails – which is quite a bit for the crew of the ship.  The first challenge is immigration, which is – as usual for a ship coming back to the states for the first time all season – quite intense. Then there are the inspections and drills – and, well, it will be a long day for the folks aboard.

As for us passengers, it’s a pretty long day just trying to get off.  Immigration is a challenge of course – and the number of passengers departing today also presents a challenge – but thank heavens for Carlos.  When we are ready to go – and they have cleared the ship – he waltzes us right up to the front of the line to get us off the ship quickly.

Unfortunately, in the end, this doesn’t matter, because the Enterprise folks are not all buttoned up today. We can’t find the shuttle and waste at least 30 minutes waiting in the wrong place, before calling them again to ask when the shuttle will be here. They finally direct us to the meeting point – nowhere near where we are – and we manage to catch the next shuttle.  But only barely. And surprise!  We find out who has missed the ship.  It is Zen Cat, this lovely, free spirited woman who had made friends with me in the Windjammer bar one night.  She went on a private excursion, her husband did something else, and she didn’t make it back.  They managed to be communication with each other (and he said the ship treated him very well, took him to dinner, etc.), and he got her to Tijuana where she could cross with only her driver’s license.  So smart!  So he was leaving the ship, and picking her up at LAX to just drive up the coast to SFO.  Wow!  He was going to Enterprise with us to see if he could rent a car.

So, off we all go to the office, where the disorganization continued.  We all had reservations (except for our “missing wife” friend), yet, we all had to sit and wait for cars. We were at least an hour late for our reservation due to immigration, and still no cars?  There were all these bogus explanations, like the cars came back damaged and they just had to wait on their boss to approve them renting them out in the current condition….uh huh.  We ended up waiting there close to 45 minutes and finally they bring us a car – which btw was not damaged in the least.  Really?

So finally we are on the road – and even though we are only driving down the coast to Dana Point, it’s still pretty frustrating and not at all like Enterprise normal service.  But, we’re moving, so that’s all that matters. The drive is nice, we’re out of the city quickly, and moving through the hills and valleys of the Pacific Coast.  Lovely scenery of farmland up the hills and coastline to our West.  We arrive in Dana Point, a lovely little town that seems perfect to settle down in – but is probably way, way above the median home price.

We make our way to the Shwack Beach Grill for what is said to be the best tacos around. And they do not disappoint.  We both have the fish tacos which are perfectly cooked and dressed and so very good.  Siting on the covered porch with a cool California coast breeze – we couldn’t ask for a better day.

After lunch, we walk around a bit, snapping a few pix here and there of the great street signs and the view of the marina…

 

…then we head back to San Pedro, stopping on the way at the mall to buy baby presents for Jaime who just had his first child…while he was with us and his wife and son are in the Philippines.  What a tough life!

Back in San Pedro, we pit stop at the San Pedro Brewing Company and have an entertaining conversation with a local – as well as some pretty good beer.

Finally it is time to head back, Enterprise this time works well, they load us into the van and we have a very personable driver with whom we spend our time discussing travel and life in general.

Back aboard, we prepare for our last sea day (amongst the contractors who are already working on the ship in preparation of dry dock) and disembarkation in SFO.

Can’t believe the trip is coming to a close.  Seems like only yesterday we were hopelessly lost in the hills of Valpo…..

4/25–Cabo San Lucas

A relaxing two days at sea pass delightfully.  What did we do? Who knows? We did go to a few lectures, watched some movies, maybe, wandered around, read, wrote a little of the blog, and hmmm…just sort of passed the time and the days.

So Monday brings us to Cabo, with an awful port time of 7a to 2p.  What can you do during that time? And with a tender to boot?  Not much – and we planned on doing just that – not much.

After a leisurely breakfast, we headed out on the tender, than walked the gauntlet of tour hawkers around the marina.  We ended up just sort of wandering around town, not doing much of anything but reminiscing about different places we’d been in the past:  The Giggling Marlin, Cabo Wabo (before we fully understood Sammy Hagar’s politics), etc. We get into a discussion with a girl who is selling tours in front of the Giggling Marlin. She’s a doll, has lived in the states, we talk about differences here, how it has changed, etc.  Nice little cultural exchange and then we move on to wander the streets some more.

We find a great sports bar with all the NFL teams represented and take a photo for our New England friends – and one for me too of course!

Then we make our way back to the marina and succumb to one of the hawkers pleas to come inside and sit down.  It’s only maybe 10:30, but what the heck. What else is there to do here in the early morning but drink?  So we do.  As we are sitting here enjoying the view, Cheryl and Ken (our NE friends) and their friends walk in, so we wave. The waiter takes it upon himself to add to our table and seat them with us.  Ok. Fun!  So, we hang out, they surf the web (as best as they can because the internet stinks) and a bucket of beer later, we’re ready to leave. We say goodbye to all, pay our tab at the bar and head back to the ship to find sustenance that isn’t overpriced nachos.

Sail away is gorgeous as always.  The rocks, the arch, it is just beautiful (especially because one of the wait staff had told us the arch had fallen. We were a bit skeptical,   and turns out we were right to be. The arch is still there in all it’s glory – see below – and we think he was talking about the arches in Puerta Vallarta that were destroyed in a hurricane.)

As we sail away, we hear word that we’ve left someone behind.  Oh bummer.  Not a port to be late – we’re heading the to States. Have no idea how the person will get back.  Wow.

Also later on, we find out that our friends Cheryl and Ken were harassed for our bill when they left the bar in Cabo. The waiter said we never paid and were trying to force them to pay for us. We couldn’t get the waiter’s attention, so we paid at the bar with the bartender guy.  Cheryl had seen us pay, so they refused to pay, but still.  What a pain. Although we did tell them that now they know how the Stevens can travel so much all over the world – stiffing checks in every port!  LOL.

4/22–Huatulco

We are finally going to visit Huatulco.  It’s taken years to get back here after one of the first cruises we took had to cancel the port due to a medical emergency.  One of our favorite “inside jokes” when someone is being dumb, or not listening, is to say “But what about Huatulco?”  Comes from sitting in the briefing where the Cruise Director of that long ago cruise explained we would not be going to Hualtulco because we had to divert to Puerta Vallerta for the emergency. He must have said it 3 times – and then somebody raises their hand and asks – yes – “what about Huatulco?”

Today we are finally going to find out what about Huatulco!  While it is basically a large resort town with all sorts of different bays and watersports – we of course are being a bit more adventurous than riding banana boats, and heading up the coast to visit a couple of neat little fishing villages. 

The sail in and sunrise is stunning, watching the sky light up as we navigate into the bay past rocky outcroppings.  And while warm, it’s nothing like yesterday, so we spend a long time on the balcony watching the scenery glide by.

We dock and head out into the little town area following our map to the rental car agency. We get a little ways out and decide to cab it up to the place – a cabbie just happened to be coming by as we were beginning an uphill ascent, and we flagged him down.  Perfect timing.

We picked up the car, got directions (it’s painfully easy – there is only one road – makes it very nice for CPS!), and headed out of town – past the airport and into the wilds of Mexico.  Two lane road, running through the mountains, past all sorts of little shops and restaurants – totally local.  It’s really quite lovely and serene – except for the twists and turns of the road that is.

We turn off the highway heading toward Puerto Angel.  It’s a local fishing village, and we think maybe we can stop here for a bit.  The road winds down the mountain – and I mean winds – until we are at the ocean, still winding between buildings and plazas and little outcroppings looking over the water.

Passing through the main town, we don’t really see anything of interest. Plus it is early, so there is no sense stopping anywhere. We continue on along the coast road, and turn off to head to the beach – which turns out to be a little almost one lane road that ends – literally – at the beach.  We end up having to reverse all the way out, because the road is one car width with no where to turn around.  And the last thing we want to do is get stuck in the sand on the beach.

Onward we forge, following the little twisty coastal road, until we finally reach Zipolite.  This is a teeny artisan community that is described as a hippie hang out.  It is also the location of one of the few nude beaches in Mexico.  After circling the town, literally 4 roads that form a rectangle, we park and wander down the small little village streets and through the cobblestone alley that leads to the beach. This is adorable!

And the beach is gorgeous. Pristine, hardly anyone about, and a beautiful breeze that makes strolling around delightful.  We take in the scenery, then head to a palapa covered restaurant to cool our heels for the rest of the morning and early afternoon.

Sitting in the shade, watching beachgoers stroll by, we refresh ourselves with a couple of beers…

…then move onto lunch. I opt for one of the specials, which I thought was going to be seafood, but ends up chicken. Oh well, it was still good, like little taquitos.  Ed gets the pulpo – which is incredibly good.

 

We end up spending quite an enjoyable few hours here, eating, drinking and people watching.  Good choice.

Back on the road, we head back through Puerto Angel, and up to the highway, passing through the mountains and the scenery. We have decided it is much like the Blue Ridge Parkway….only with Tequila…

We arrive back into town without incident (well, if you don’t count the gasoline incident where we were thoroughly ripped off using USD.  Didn’t have enough pesos, and let’s just say the exchange rate was slightly more than highway robbery). We got into a conversation with the rental agent who, are you ready for this?, lived in the states and worked in Hendersonville – on a farm, harvesting.  Talk about a small world! They drove through Asheville on their way to work every day.  Amazing.  He would love to go back – but right now he’s got a very good job, wife and family in Huatulco, so, he’s trying to immigrate slowly, step by step and see what happens.  He was so sweet, and even sweeter, he drove us back to the marina (although we went to the wrong marina first, then we finally got turned back around to the correct cruise pier).

We wished our friend luck in the future, then headed back into the Santa Cruz pier area. Strictly tourist here.  Which is fine, but we were so glad we got out and away.  We didn’t want to go back to the ship right away, so we hang out at one of the bar/restaurants right on the beach – pay too much for beer and nachos – but spend an enjoyable hour or so watching the crew ride the banana boats – or fall off the banana boats as the case may be.

All in all, a very pleasant and lovely day.  So now we know about Huatulco.