Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Puerto Vallarta is a big tourist destination unlike Manzanillo. Today we decided to get the items we needed at the Walmart that was right across the street from the ship, and then walk into the old section of town.
We arrived at 8 am and it was a big day for shopping for both passengers and crew. We headed over to Walmart to hopefully purchase more golf balls. No pelotas de golf found here. Unfortunate. We bought some coffee and a few other items and dropped them back off at the ship.
We headed out on our walk at about 10 am. About 4.5 miles to Old Town Vallarta. Walk was ok but like other parts of Mexico, keep your eyes on the sidewalk. Many holes and other traps to collect legs and other spare body parts. There was even a walkway next to a 15 ft drop into absolute muck. No safety rail, no sign, no nothing.
We arrived in the old section just in time for lunch. Lots of gringos here. Bald men with pony tails. That tells me a lot. Ship people are obvious here. They seem to share a similar look. Maybe its the goofy hat but I believe goes beyond that.
Lunch was very good. I had a steak burrito and Terri the nachos. I had a Bohemia Oscura beer and Terri some wine. We spent about an hour relaxing here and then visited some of the shops. The call for tequila tasting was everywhere.
This picture shows shops and cobblestone street. Nice area. Nice weather.
We spent an hour amongst the shops and started the walk back. All aboard was 4:30 and we arrived back about 3. A letter in our mailbox was the information we were expecting. An itinerary change. No Red Sea or Suez Canal. That meant no India, Oman, Dubai, Italy, Spain. Instead we would go around the southern tip of Africa. There is no other way. Not enough time to go into the Mediterranean from the west side. This was a huge disappointment and we would be visiting many of the same ports that we visited on our trip around Africa last year.
After dinner, we started cancelling all of the tours we had already booked. About 6 months of work. I know that some folks did not go on this cruise because of the potential of changes in the itinerary. To do that, trip insurance must be purchased. It is not cheap. It is over 10k but it does allow one to cancel for any reason.
