Today we're on the Town, Country and Tequila tour. Our guide Angel was funny and informative on the history and politics of the town. He showed us the upper middle class residences. They were nice houses around the golf course. (Actually there were some really nice golf courses in Cabo too. We drove by many of them on the way out to zip lining.) We then left the city into the small village which reminded me of Inner Mongolia. Very poor and neglected. It's weird to be on a large bus going through the area. I guess the local were used to seeing tour buses going by to the Hacienda Dona Engracia. The Hacienda is a tequila distillery that still has the old tools that's no longer used but kept for show. They use machinery and pressure cookers to bake the base of the Blue Agave Cactus. We had the opportunity to taste a piece of cooked cactus before it's processed for it's juices and distilled into tequila. It's a double distilling process since the first process produces ethanol, menthol, and something else that'll kill you. The second process eleminates these items. The three grades they produces are blanco, reposado, and anejo. Blanco is white and kept the shortest, reposado is stored at least a year, and anejo is kept in oak barrel for at least 3 years thus the most expensive. Tequila make from pure Blue Agave Cactus will not give you the hangover headache like the other fake tequilas. The anejo was really really good. Hernan, our dinner waiter also introduced to us the Don Julio brand of tequila. I'll have to check it out. (I think I need to stop visiting wine/liquor farms and vineyards.) They also had the coffee flavored tequila, that was the best! We came home with a couple of bottles to give away. Very sad...:-( the give away part...
We had some tacos and burritos on site for lunch. It was pretty good. Mom complained about the beef in the tacos but I didn't taste anything. Probably because I drowned it in salsa (which probably had Mexican water in it.) The good news is that I didn't get sick. (Did I mention they started with the crazy hand wiping thing when we returned on the ship in Puerto Vallarta? Turns out there were over 80 people that's gotten sick since Cabo. Yeah, can you say Norovirus? They did a good job sanitizing everything on the ship. The buffet came to a screeching halt when they had to serve you everything. The line just slowed down, a lot.)
We were then shuttled off to some shopping area for jewelry. Yea, not interested. Over $400 for silver plated crap. I don't think so.
We finally ended on the boardwalk where the beach and shops were after we visited the Lady of Guadalupe Cathedral. This turned out to be an extra long tour and we finally returned to the ship around 3 P.M.
I got mom to shop with me around the store front in the pier. She saw some hand woven leather sandals she like and they wanted $25 and then down to $20, using my acquired bargaining skills from China, I got them for $17. woohooo!!! We hit some other stands and looks like that was the lowest price we'd get. Then she went and got dad to get a pair. They wanted more for the men's and the lowest I wanted them was for $20 but dad gave in at $22. That was no fun. They thought $22 was reasonable, it's not the reasonable part, it's a game I like to play. Trust me, bargaining is hard work! Oh well... on to the ship.
After we boarded, the skies got dark and the thunderstorms came in. There were some close lightenings and loud thunders going around. We sailed into the storm and it went on to the middle of the night.
Here are some photos from Puerto Vallarta.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Chang.GraceC/PuertoVallarta
We had some tacos and burritos on site for lunch. It was pretty good. Mom complained about the beef in the tacos but I didn't taste anything. Probably because I drowned it in salsa (which probably had Mexican water in it.) The good news is that I didn't get sick. (Did I mention they started with the crazy hand wiping thing when we returned on the ship in Puerto Vallarta? Turns out there were over 80 people that's gotten sick since Cabo. Yeah, can you say Norovirus? They did a good job sanitizing everything on the ship. The buffet came to a screeching halt when they had to serve you everything. The line just slowed down, a lot.)
We were then shuttled off to some shopping area for jewelry. Yea, not interested. Over $400 for silver plated crap. I don't think so.
We finally ended on the boardwalk where the beach and shops were after we visited the Lady of Guadalupe Cathedral. This turned out to be an extra long tour and we finally returned to the ship around 3 P.M.
I got mom to shop with me around the store front in the pier. She saw some hand woven leather sandals she like and they wanted $25 and then down to $20, using my acquired bargaining skills from China, I got them for $17. woohooo!!! We hit some other stands and looks like that was the lowest price we'd get. Then she went and got dad to get a pair. They wanted more for the men's and the lowest I wanted them was for $20 but dad gave in at $22. That was no fun. They thought $22 was reasonable, it's not the reasonable part, it's a game I like to play. Trust me, bargaining is hard work! Oh well... on to the ship.
After we boarded, the skies got dark and the thunderstorms came in. There were some close lightenings and loud thunders going around. We sailed into the storm and it went on to the middle of the night.
Here are some photos from Puerto Vallarta.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Chang.GraceC/PuertoVallarta
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