Cruise Part Three

Our third and final stop on our cruise was Ensenada, Mexico. I was really worried about this leg of the trip because I hadn't gotten a passport and the cruise line said that a birth certificate and drivers license was enough but I was still stressed. I had also heard that Ensenada was ghetto and nasty so that worried me a little bit too. We got off the boat and really didn't have any plans and didn't know what to do so we kept walking back and forth in the terminal. The only thing we could think of was riding four wheelers so we signed up. They took us to their shop and we headed to the sand dunes. We drove past some pretty ghetto neighborhoods and some really nice looking neighborhoods and ended up in the dunes. Sam rode around for about 10 mins and said the dunes were wimpy and he could ride a four wheeler anytime so we headed to the main shopping area of Ensenada. We forgot to make one turn and went a little out of the way which made me nervous but finally ended up right where we wanted to be.

We parked the four wheeler and did some shopping. Sam loves bargaining with people so he had a lot of fun shopping for once in his life. We got sunglasses for $5 and some other souvenirs. We decided our best plan was to return the four wheeler and go back to the boat for lunch. I had told Sam no matter what I was not eating in Mexico, I had made that mistake once before and tried to eat chicken tacos in Tijuana and it grossed me out for life.

After our buffet lunch we just walked back to the shopping area to get the more souvenirs. In retrospect we wouldn't have rode the four wheeler because as Sam said "I can ride a four wheeler whenever I want," and we really just needed someone to tell us that the shopping was within walking distance. We got lots of cool stuff because most of the tourists had gone back to the boat and the vendors where getting desperate to get rid of their stuff. We found out that the best bargaining is the vendors on the sidewalk because most of the shops don't negotiate.

We stood in a really long line to get back on the boat and watched drunk teenagers, whose parents where no where to be found, make fools of themselves.

Dinner was good that night and I got the absolute best dessert, pavlova, yummy yummy meringue that is crisp on the outside and soft in the center with strawberries on top.

We watched our last show and then decided to go to The Quest. We totally didn't know what we were getting ourselves into but we wanted to watch. The Quest is a game with groups of 5-6 people and each group has a card with their team number on it. The host calls out for something and calls for a male team leader or a female team to bring or do what he said and the first team get like 3 points and every team after that for 30 seconds gets 1 point and then there is a winner. We weren't going to play but this nice Asian family with two daughters that were late teens early twenties were sitting next to us and asked us to join their group because their dad was too embarrassed or laid back to be a male team leader. The game started fine and Sam was a real trooper but when things got to be too much or too nasty he said no way. This sweet Asian family turned out to be quite wild, amazing what alcohol does to people. By the end of the game the mom had taken off her bra and panties and the dad was wearing them over his clothing as they tried to dress him as a woman with high heels and everything. We didn't win the game but it was probably the craziest night on the boat. Unfortunately it was too dark to take pictures.

After all this we went to the midnight chocolate buffet with high hopes. They had watermelons that were cut with amazing designs like boats, fish and flowers. The desserts where okay but they were out of chocolate covered strawberries but they time we got to the front of the line!

Our towel design for the evening was a dog:

Next stop: Los Angeles/Customs and getting to see my kids