I wanted to finish posting about the last days on the Astoria before moving on. Funny that while on the cruise ship, we kidded each other about norovirus or other afflictions that run rampant on board. While none visited us that I knew of, ironically, the current pandemic ran rampant shortly afterwards. After dropping us off, the Astoria headed south towards the Panama Canal and was heading towards London for the Spring/Summer cruise season. I was watching Astoria on the "where is my cruise ship" app, tracking it's daily motion across the Atlantic. It took 4 weeks to the day to reach London. I read somewhere that it actually loaded its first set of passengers for the "Northern Lights Tour" before the Corona Pandemic called a halt to all cruise ships and the passengers were forced to disembark. It was about then that the world changed. I flew to Chicago on a mostly-empty flight to a nearly deserted O'Hare airport, rode in an Uber where the driver insisted on windows down on a freezing day to keep my germs away from him. The IL governor's "shelter in place" order started 2 hours after my arrival - just in time to go to the store for groceries - glad I didn't need toilet paper or paper towels or bread as those shelves were bare! Anyway, back to the task at hand, perhaps towards "my" normal...
I left you in the last post as we were leaving Cabo San Lucas - likely my least favorite stop because of the crowds, commercialization and heavy tourist trade that made finding the small Mexican village all but impossible. But the next 3 stops of La Paz, Loreto and Santa Rosalia were my faves of the whole trip! Seems like all these towns have the requirement to have the same multi-colored sign to identify where you are visiting! Pretty enough, and fun enough to stand next to for a travel photo. The sign of Santa Rosalia included a locomotive that also highlighted its mining heritage at right. The La Paz sign at left was located in town, a good half-hour bus rise from the port. But once dropped off, my friend Susan and I explored the village. Many are similar - the standard visit consisted of seeing the local church, other spots and events of interest, and looking for food - universally excellent and tasty (and inexpensive!)
As mentioned above, every stop required a visit to the local
historical church or cathedral! In La Paz, it was a few block walk up from the sea where the bus dropped us off, but any effort is likely worth it! "Our Lady of Peace" has pretty amazing brickwork on the exterior - almost no mortar is visible! according to the plaque, after Hernando Cortez founded the location in 1535. Eusebio Kino, the famous Jesuit missionary who went on to establish 24 missions throughout Baja and Sonora, Mexico, visited and named the location "Our Lady Of Peace" in 1683. Forced to abandon it, the mission was reestablished in 1720 and the cornerstone of this church was laid 160 years ago in 1861. It is a beauty inside and out!Loreto was of special interest to me as Melinda and I visited it back on our whale watching trip nearly exactly 9 years before. I would refer you to that blog entry for images of that church... More on Loreto in a little bit...
One of the main attractions in Santa Rosalia was also a church, but with a slightly more recent background. It was supposedly designed by Gustave Eiffel, of Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty fame... The pre-fab church, mostly of panels mounted to girders, was shown at the 1889 exposition in Paris where the Eiffel Tower was also built. Supposedly built for erection in Africa, it was found abandoned in Brussels and obtained by the Bolero Mining Company in Santa Rosalia and reassembled there in 1897. Subsequent research attributes it to a competitor, so there is some controversy over the original design. The "Church of Santa Barbara's" construction consists of a lot of sturdy girder and steelwork, and similarities can be seen to the Paris tower even to the untrained eye. Its walls have also been moved outwards to expand the interior space, but much of the interior steel work is still visible.
Part of the draw for the entire cruise was the Loreto port of call. When we visited there 9 years earlier, we were enchanted by the beauty of the place! While only 430 air miles almost due south of Tucson, it is a formidable drive - over 900 miles down the peninsula, or south to Guaymas, catching the ferry to Santa Rosalia and continuing south - 550 miles plus ferry. I didn't know if I'd ever get back, so a return was one of the reasons for the cruise... So one of the spots to visit was a curio shop that we had visited and took an iconic shot under the "since 1744" sign. I visited it again - the sign was gone! I asked the woman inside, and though she spoke as little English as I spoke Spanish, figured out it was lost in a storm along the way... The comparison shot is at left, the upper shot taken 7 February, 2020, the lower in April of 2011...
The cruise was a big thing for the Sea of Cortez stops. Rarely do 450 potential visitors flush with cash drop out of the sky, and at every stop there were mariachi bands playing as we disembarked from the Astoria. Many of the towns had dancing troupes displaying traditional dances and songs, many with quite elaborate costumes, including some native tribal dances too. At left is a shot of some of the traditional dancing exhibition in Loreto's town square. And at right is a closeup shot of one of the dancers waiting to perform in Santa Rosalia...
The food on ship was uniformly very good! There were two options for dining - a sit-down restaurant with full staff delivering multi-course meals, and a "grill" with buffet dining for a couple hours for 3 meals served a day. Unlike the big ships you hear about, no 24 hour buffet lines or wide variety of food, but a good choice! I'm a bit of a picky eater, yet, both options had a couple choices for entree and enough sides that one could always be satisfied. Also, alcoholic drinks were complimentary during meals, as well as a wide choice of appetizers, salads, cheeses and deserts. I ate at the sit-down place twice - designed to be a leisurely meal with friends and conversation, I wasn't that chatty with the few I knew aboard ship, and since they both served the same main entrees, was happy with the buffet-style grill. Plus, I always got to see the lovely visage of Ukrainian Yevheniia, shown at left, serving me my 3 squares a day! I had minor issues - the scrambled eggs for breakfast were uniformly runny, and it was sometimes difficult to get the attention of one of the attendants seeing to drinks for breakfast, but overall I'd give the onboard ship a 9 out of 10 for grub! It was skewed a bit towards England, I believe - "blood sausage" made the breakfast choices a few times, but really, the food was great! And the presentation was fine too - they offered "fruit carving" as an activity once and the creations were displayed for several days, shown at right...
But when the time came to leave the ship, and I DID leave at every port-of-call, the chance to sample the local "Mexican food" was too big an attraction! My favorite trio of cities didn't disappoint! In a lovely 2nd story "hole-in-the-wall" with a spectacular view of the Malacon in La Paz, I had a trio of carne Asada burritos that were spectacular! Dressed up in bean sauce and salsa fresca (alternately called "salsa Bandera" for the red/green/white bands of the Mexican flag, or pico de gallo - translating to "rooster sauce"), they were delish! With them, the menu of "La Choperia" is shown. The "three burritos" was $80 pesos, about $4.50!A couple days later in Santa Rosalia, in a little street side place where we sat under a tarp, I had a trio of shredded pork tacos, with a platter of various condiments to choose from.The woman behind the grill was both turning out the tortillas, and filling them as the orders came in - can't get any fresher! The chef is shown in the photo inset - again, with a soda was about $5...
I think my overall fave stop was Loreto, not only because of my previous experience there 9 years earlier, but because it is such a lovely little town. The main thoroughfare along the town square has nicely groomed arches formed by vegetation with shops on both sides. It has a town square where we watched groups singing and dancing. I remember the same happening when we visited in 2011. And nearing the dock, our Astoria was nicely framed in an arch. There were also some nice statues along the shore that may make future posts...The last stop in Guaymas was unimpressive. I'd visited the area in the 90s, visiting the tourist-themed stop San Carlos several times. Guaymas is a working-class city, seemingly not catering to tourists and lacking amenities. We took a taxi to San Carlos - I couldn't convince myself that I remembered much about it after being away for 25+ years!
But I LOVED the cruise! I like looking out over the water as we were underway. I liked watching the southern star Canopus climb higher as we reached our southernmost port of Mazatlan... But cruising is getting to be a bit dangerous - 5000+ people stacked shoulder to shoulder as dangerous viruses roam the earth! I don't think that it will ever match the popularity it has seen recently. I loved our little Astoria - both the venue (Sea of Cortez) and the ship's capacity seemed about right for each other... I would do it again in a heartbeat, but the Astoria is likely on its way out, and who knows with the current lock down if it will ever happen again.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment