Last night at shore

As promised, here is more. We just now got back from dinner in town. Since it is our last night here in port, we figured we'd enjoy some more local cuisine and a few cervesas. I had cheese quesadillas with guacamole and tortilla chips (nothing else was lard/pork/beef/chicken - free). For my entry today, I'm thinking its best to start with yesterday's adventure to bring you all up to speed. Keep in mind all the names have been changed not only to protect the innocence of the people, but just for the heck of it. So here goes....


Saturday morning, 3:30 am, the alarm went off. :( The BF, Jeboleth, got me to the shuttle drop off point where we waited for over 30 min because the shuttle people were running late. But eventually it did show up. Once inside the van, I crawled into my seat. My co-worker, Maddhatter, said that he was speaking to me for a moment, answered our boss, K-Dude, and turned back to me only to find me sleeping already. Yes, I was asleep in the van less than 2 min after getting into the van.


We got to the airport on time, through security with no problems and to our gate on time. Our flight was 3.5 hours long, of which I was awake for about 15 minutes.... yes, I zonked out again, missed the breakfast snacks and drinks. But it was a good sleep. Our next flight was from Houston to Mexico, that was much shorter and seemed rather quick. When we were descending to the airport, Guadalajara appeared huge, in fact it looked more like the suburbs of San Diego than a small town in Mexico. Our trip through customs was quick, our luggage all arrived intact and we found our colleagues waiting for us in the terminal within minutes of coming out of customs.


Our next task, to get from there to Mananillo for the ship! We rode with the two colleagues in a small van, with all our luggage, for 4 hours.... It actually wasn't so bad as I thought it might be. I tried my best to take pictures but the van driver was a bit on the speed demon side, so I'll have to look through all the images an determine if any are decent. We saw several volcanoes, some still smoking, an airplane with no wings used as a souvenir gift shop, a man tying up his horse at the local bar, a salt flat that extended for miles beyond view, a dray lake bed we drove over on an elevated road, a canyon with gorges so deep that you couldn't see the bottoms, and just some of the most amazing rocks ever. By the time dusk was settling in and we still had about 1 hour to drive, the sky was beyond amazing, colours of blues, purples and dark greys. It was so beautiful!! I wanted to stop for a picture, but I knew that wasn't possible. One very funny thing about driving to Manz from Guad was that there were frequently signs directing you back to Guad, and we joked that it was like Wizard of Oz where the signs said, "I'd turn back if I were You." hehehe

Our arrival into town was very good too. We went to the ship first, checked in and dropped the bulk of our luggage into the main lab. Then we trekked off to the hotel, Hotel Colonial, and found our rooms. It is was a very nice hotel, clean, AC, and a little restaurant in the lobby. After ditching my little bag, meeting my soon to be co-workers Mookie and Strawberry Shortcake (hey these people picked their own names..) I then headed down to the lobby for a much needed margarita. I had 1 sip out of the drink and it felt like I had taken a shot. Holy crap! Can we say tequila? It was a good night though, lots of science folks chatting, talking about art, travel to Europe, the US elections, and life in general. I skipped off to bed in a happy but tired mood 3 flights up to my room. After a bit of conversation with Strawberry Shortcake, I fell asleep and slept soundly, until 8:15 when she woke me up to tell me we had to be at the ship by 9am.... Doh!!!!


9am, on the ship! Made it. We found our staterooms and plopped our bags down to go work on setting up the labs. Now, I have been out on this ship 2x before. Both times I've been in the cabins below the main deck, basically at or below the waterline. This time, I've been promoted. I'm on the upper deck, all the way to the top just under the main bridge. I'm not sure I'm going to like this, since it has more motion with waves since its further away from the center of balance. We'll have to see.

We all managed to get our things for the labs unpacked, the samplers set up and my room unpacked. I even made my bunk up nice and cozy. I met my stateroom mate, Ms K, too. Unfortunately during this process I also had a migraine attack and had to succumb to a bit of dark rest. But it is gone now and I'm feeling just fine.

We also had a shopping expedition today for Styrofoam cups, bleach, coffee mugs and vanilla. Mexican vanilla is the best stuff ever! I also found some Mora gum, but not any Mora cookies or candies, damn. Love that stuff too. Manzanillo has turned into a huge tourist town and have a beautiful pier area for the large vacation cruise ships that dock here (not kidding). They even have a water/light display on the pier that reminds me of Longwood Gardens where the water dances to music. I took some video and pics of it as we were walking back to the ship. There were tons, and I mean tons, of people at the display.

It is now late, and I am exhausted from all the busy activities from yesterday and today. I'm sure the rest of the gang is tired too. We'll probably be sleeping when the ship leaves, so when I wake up tomorrow I doubt I'll see land, and I won't see it again until November 30th. I hope everyone is well back home, I'm okay here. No sunburn either! Although I lost about 1/2 of my sunscreen from the airplane air pressure or something. Luckily it was double bagged, but all my shampoo bottles and stuff was finely coated in a lovely coconut mist...

Okay, really, I'm wrapping up for the evening. I know there is more to think of, and I'm sure I've forgotten stuff, like the crazy fast flying birds perched on the hotel railings, but my tired brain is begging for my pillow and some solid sleep that doesn't have me propped up against a van seat or airplane seat.

Buenos noches y hasta manana!!