2nd Port - Mazatlan (Jan. 22, 2009)

Oooh, the post below this one was my 100th post! Yay for me!!! :-) Anyway, our 2nd stop was Mazatlan. We didn't have any excursions planned there. Jeff's dad and brother had a 4-wheeling excursion they went on. The rest of us just mostly walked the streets there and bought souvenirs (and jewelry for Jeff's mom and sisters... I'm not too big into jewelry). Jeff and I just tagged along and did some window shopping. Jeff bought one little souvenir, though.

Here we are coming in to dock (I think it's behind me and a little ways up where the ship docked at)


After we got off the ship, we rode on one of these ...


... to come here (it's a little blurry, but it says "Port of Mazatlan-Cruise Terminal" and below that it says "ENTRANCE")

Some worker or somebody stopped us and told us if we went to hear a presentation on timeshares for about an hour (at this really nice hotel), we would get our taxi rides for free that day, and married couples (Jeff and I) and single people over 30 (Jeff's sister, Lori) would get a $500 gift card for our next Carnival cruise if we went within 18 months. Yes, it's weird that Jeff's mom or younger sister didn't get one (don't ask me why!). We decided to take him up on the offer and we took a van to the hotel. On the way, I took a picture of Applebee's. Yes, they have Applebee's in Mexico!

We were outside of the hotel and this is a harbor I took a picture of

We did our window shopping after the presentation (which we didn't get any timeshares). While we were shopping, this little 'parade' of animals went by. They went one way, then a little bit later, came back going the other way. We saw ...

Giraffes

Tigers

Zebras

and Camels

Jeff and I went back to the ship a little sooner than the others. On our way back, we rode in this little taxi ...

... and then took the little vehicle trains (in the pictures near the top of this post) back to the ship. Mexican drivers are scary, especially in the little taxis. I heard that stop signs were optional in Mexico. In the taxi we rode, there was a 4 lane road (2 lanes going each way) and sometimes they would drive down the middle of the 2 lanes (when there are no other cars around, of course). And once they stopped about an inch behind a bus (it seemed like). It was a little scary for me and glad we got safely back to the ship.

Here's a picture from our balcony of the line getting back on the ship


And here's a pretty sunset picture of Mazatlan. You can also see the Cruise Terminal building in the distance.


The next post will be our favorite port... Cabo San Lucas!