2014 - Day 16 - Third USA Trip - Mexico, Old Farts and Tequila!

*Note:  please do not read if easily offended.  I am not racist by any means however events of the night might sound as if I was.  These paragraphs are a translation of my key words as kept in my diary when I travel*

Oh my God.  What have we done?  We have landed ourselves in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with the top 2 percent of the world’s rudest people!  It’s not just that they are old and cranky, they are unashamedly rude!   They will literally be walking past us, stop, and stare point blankly at what we are doing or what we are eating.    They will bark orders at us in the lifts as though we are the house keepers and have no hesitation in pushing at us, pushing past us, or running over our toes with their walkers.

Amid the countless levels of discomfort with these people, my new personal favourite today, is getting in a lift with these people.  That is….if they let you.   We have no choice but to ride with them, as there is limited lifts on the ship and there is always someone in them. If, and I say IF we manage to not get trampled in the stampede of walkers when the lift dings, we get to enjoy the experience of a lifetime once inside.  I thought the Tower of Terror lift at Disneyland was scary.  It pales in comparison.

Once we are trapped in the lift with the socially challenged, we are first aware of the overpowering aroma of bad breath.  I am not sure whether it could be because their Polident has reached its expiry date, or because they have placed some left over shrimp in their dentures for a late night snack, but the smell is thick and horrendous.  Mixed in with the wafts of Eau De Mothballs I question as to how these people cannot smell themselves.  It has come to the point where I have had to cover my nose whilst in the lift for fear of vomiting.  Of course, behind this glorious stench, comes the air shattering introduction to their body odour.  It takes every ounce of restraint to stop myself from asking when they had taken their last bath or shower. My lungs are screaming given that I am needing to hold my breath, and as I take a quick intake to stop them from bursting I find that more than one of them has dropped their guts, or filled their pants.  Or both! On more than one occasion I am positive that I have lost consciousness however have been able to maintain my upright position given that apparently once you are 153 years old, your sense of mathematical common sense becomes null and void.  The amount of persons that they believe can fit into a lift exceeds that which is possible for its square area.  And this doesn’t include their walkers!  On the positive side of things, IF there was a situation where we weren’t playing sardines and I suffered a broken hip as a result of collapsing in the lift, this would not be a problem given that it’s in the Top 5 most common ailments on this ship (coming second/third to being trampled-at-the-buffet and death) and it is well equipped to cope with this.  In fact I am sure there are rooms on this floating dinghy that house prosthetic limbs, dentures, hearing aids, and pine coffins.

Today we did get to go ashore to Cabo San Lucas which is in Mexico.  It is at the end of the Baha Peninsula is was a lovely looking place.  We could only spend a couple of hours there for two reasons.  We would only be in port for 5 or so hours, and it was so bloody hot.  And I mean HOT!!  Locals are in your face on the pier trying to force you to buy tickets to go on tour in their leaky boats and are trying to sell you “genuine” wares which of course is a load of fiddlesticks.  However Cabo itself was a lovely place and I was very glad to say that I had finally been across the border (albeit by boat) into Mexico.  I had finally visited another country!

Our stress levels have quadrupled rather than halved since being on the boat.  The massages at the spa whilst glorious are ridiculously expensive.  If we could have a dozen of them a day we could probably cope, but this is not feasible.  We have to resort to the next best thing – alcohol.  As most of you know I do not drink with my medication however I feel the need to throw caution to the wind (and there is plenty of THAT on this boat).  We are attending our first show on the ship tonight and decide to order a ridiculously expensive Margarita to cope with getting through the event given our surrounding and unfortunate company.  I failed to mask my surprise when the Margarita virtually came in a bucket (it was huge) and I felt pangs of concern.  Not because of what it would do with my medication, but due to what I would be capable of given that much alcohol.  I was hoping that there wasn’t a pole on the stage as I might feel the need to use it after a few sips of this cocktail.  I dig in and say goodbye to my inhibitions.

The show that we were to see was simply called “The Piano Man”.  Given that Billy Joel has this nickname we felt that this might simply be a man playing piano and singing the songs of Billy Joel.   We hoped to lose ourselves in the tribute of one of our favourites and forget the rudeness of the people around us for a short while.  Given the relaxation that the Margarita blessed us with I was looking forward to this break from reality. 

The show started with an amazing bang with some sort of gay boy band launching themselves onto the stage.  They pranced around like drunken gazelles singing a line each at a time in what I can only describe as a strangled mess.  They were quickly joined on stage by a group of dancers and two lady vocalists.  I desperately struggled to determine whether they were in fact ladies, or, lady-boys.  One of them, a dark skinned lady with a seriously strange shaped body, seriously looked in pain as she sang with an exaggerated emotion.  The other managed to hold every third note but looked wistfully in the distance with her every word rather than connect with her audience.  The bad sounding gayboy band continued to frolic unashamedly around the stage and I spontaneously burst into a round of uncontrollable giggles.  Anyone who knows me well will be able to picture me trying to stifle these giggles which in turn made them worse tenfold.

I attempted to distract myself by guzzling my bucket of Margarita and even attempted origami with my straw however my giggling turned to loud guffaws and I was unable to control the belly laughs that embarrassingly erupted from within. It was obvious that the dancers were lip syncing although one dancer, a pretty lass of Asian decent was a full three or four words behind the rest and I felt like I was watching a really badly dubbed movie.  One of the male dancers, a stocky looking blond, was very clearly out of sync with the choreography and nearly took off the head off the dark skinned woman/lady-boy (I still hadn’t worked it out) when doing some sort of flip across the stage.  I wished I had my daily guide on me as I wasn’t aware that this was meant to be a comedy show so just wanted to check, although the stony faced crowd around me indicated that it was meant to be serious.  Oh ok….so it wants a comedy.  The Bear, who had ordered a second bucket of Margarita, just seemed amused that I could not contain my laughing.  I just hoped that my snorts got lost in the very loud music and squawking and in fact tried to time it with the pushing/baring down as written on the dark-skinned-ladyboy woman’s pained face.

Badly-synced-Asian was joined on the stage by uncoordinated-Indian-princess and the ugly-blonde-and-black-haired-step-sisters (actually I think they were twins) and with the constipated-looking-dark-skinned-ladyboy/woman (I STILL hadn’t worked it out) and wistful-now-known-as-Julie-Andrews-lady-vocalist, I made a mental promise to myself and the theatre full of old farts that I would NEVER drink alcohol again before attending any show.  Well that is unless it was actually a comedy where I would not be the one person in 500 that was laughing uncontrollably rather than be disgusted at the poor performance.

Leaving the theatre I found myself stumbling up the aisle.  I initially thought this was the after effects of alcohol; however I was relieved to find that it was as a result of entering rough seas.  Fortunately for me though, given that I had consumed more than my usual intake of alcohol, I was not anywhere as nearly as scared of the rocking of the boat as I would have been stone cold sober.   Sticking our heads out on the balcony once returning to our stateroom it was obvious that the ocean was angry.  Rather than the great black abyss that we would usually be met with, we saw white caps as far as the eye could see (which for me seriously, wasn’t that far!) and I found myself wondering how Rose would have stayed afloat on her timber door in cold northern waters should she have experienced these sea conditions following the downing of the Titanic.  Ahhhhhhh never mind.  That is a thought for another day…..when I would actually be worried.  Sleep beckoned!