Next Port of Call - Mazatlan

The second port of call was Mazatlan.  This time it was deep enough to pull right up to land and drop the bridge/ramp thing.  Nick and I were able to secure our bike trip somewhat last minute on board, and so we were excited to get up early that morning and try it.

We met our guide, Rudy, and jumped in the back of a truck to drive through the city to the other side where our hilly terrain lay.  (Side note: Our driver was the little old man who obviously had made an "American" tape for when he had tourists...we rocked out to Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer and the like in the back of the S-10 all the way!)  It was fun to drive through the city and see a bit of how real Mazatlan-ers live.  It was definitely more of a city than Cabo.

Once we arrived at a little shanty in the middle of nowhere on the other side of town, we were fitted with mountain bikes, helmets, and gloves and given a few bottles of water.  We followed our two guides up and down hills, through woods, and around bends.  We spotted cows and saw lots of the Mexican countryside as well as caught some great views of the city, beach, and ocean.  Nicholas and I enjoyed the biking more than we initially thought we would.  We definitely had a lot of fun and would be happy to try it again someday, somewhere.

When we returned back to our little shanty, we were given an apple, banana, Pepsi, and Mexican cracker/cookie thing...all in a giant ziplock bag with a napkin.  We took some time to relax and eat our snacks as we waited for our driver to come back and pick us up.  I found a hammock and jumped right in!  

Our driver came back and we piled in again and he proceeded to take us back to the ship.  A few members of our group wanted to be let off at a beach they knew of, so we took a different route and it again was interesting to see the city and how people really live.  Right before we got on the ship we bought a few souveniers in a little market close by.  Neither Nicholas or I like to haggle, but I think we did a pretty good job bargaining.  

We were very excited to get back to the ship and shower- we were filthy!  Most of the trails we biked on were dusty and/or muddy and we had sweated all day...so needless to say, we really needed those showers!  

This is perhaps the funniest part of the whole trip.  I was absolutely parched and we weren't sure where to find me a drink and so Nick decided while I was in the shower he would order me a drink via room service.  All they had was coffee, tea, and milk...so he ordered me one milk.  We were in a hurry to get ready for dinner and the milk never came.  Then, right as we were going out the door for dinner, and thus getting something to drink, room service came and brought us one tiny carton of milk (like you get in elementary school) on a big tray.  At that point it really wasn't worth in and I was dying laughing, but I opened the milk and chugged it before we went out to dinner.  Nick felt so bad and I thought it was so funny...one point for his efforts.  The worst part of the story is that we realized a couple days later that there was a fridge in our room that had drinks in it that I could have had if I was so parched!  Oh well!