Last stop Mexico

We have arrived in Cabo St Lucas. After a week of travelling we are quite weary and looking forward to boarding the Island Princess on Tuesday.

Our bus journey through the night from Puerta Vallarta last week (terrifying due to the fact that we were watching a disaster movie on the video screen), brought us to Matzalan bus station at about 2.3o in the morning. We decided to sit out the night there and nodded off in the seats in the lobby. In the morning a taxi took us to a moderately priced hotel on the beach-front and we had a pleasant day relaxing and swimming in the sea. The next day we took a bus to the ferry port with our heavy backpacks and I slipped and fell over on the uneven pavement when we got off (at the wrong stop). I hurt my toe and broke my glasses and we hobbled the 1km distance to the terminal to catch the ferry to La Paz. I have been hobbling ever since and keep having to superglue my glasses together.

The ferry trip introduced us to the high security, with marines, which surrounds the ports, and we had to put our luggage on the ground for sniffer dogs to examine. Our dog seemed to be quite interested in the food people had packed, so the message is; if you want to smuggle drugs into America, hide them in with some empanadas with fricoles because no-one checked the food packs. Our drug-free status secured we joined the general mexican passengers and had another uncomfortable night sitting up, having decided we couldn't really afford a cabin.

After more checking of our luggage from marines at La Paz, we joined a mini bus into the town where we spent the night in hostal style accomodation. In the morning we started our journey down the peninsular by bus and stopped for a couple of nights at Los Todos Santos. Here we gave ourselves a bit of luxury in a nice hotel as we felt we deserved a comfortable bed and enjoyed our stop very much. Los Santos is famous for being a hippy town in the 70's and the Hotel California, from the Eagles song, is still there, though a little more pretentious these days as a tourist attraction.

We arrived in Cabo St Lucas yesterday. Israel's mother, Miriam, had very kindly booked us 4 nights in the Santa Maria Elena hotel as her sister lives here. Yesterday we took a taxi straight there and peeled off our backpacks thankfully when we got to the room, (after a brief wrangle with the owner over the nightly rate). My mission now is to buy some new clothes to board the ship with. Everything I have is shabby and worn-out and can be thrown away. The town is full of markets and I am looking forward to SHOPPING!