Huatulco & Puerto Chiapas

There was a knock on the cabin door at what seemed like the middle of the night but it turned out to be 7.15am & it was our breakfast we ordered as we had an early start to the day.  As I sat up in bed and sipped my coffee I looked out the front porthole window and watched the colorful small bay come closer towards us until we docked alongside the pier in a small Mexican coastal town called Huatulco (pronounced wah-tool-co).  The bay was small but we were the only ship in town, mainly because the others had been caught up in a storm north of San Fran and our boat was the only one that made it through.  Apparently it was a rough trip for those who got on in Vancouver but thank god they made it otherwise we would have been stuck.

The hills were high and almost enclosed the small bay, with colourful buildings perched on the side.  The town was literally at the end of the pier so it wasn't far to walk to get into the action. Action is what we got as we were set upon once again by hungry Mexican's who thought it was pay day now that a big cruise ship had pulled into town.  We fought them off with a stick again until we got clear then decided what we wanted to do, or more to the point, who we wanted to do it with as we had already discussed we wanted to go over the hill to another small town called La Crucesita (means small cross).

We chose our taxi guide who would be able to take all 5 of us and give us an hours tour at the end, all for $10 each.  The same sort of tour from the ship would cost around $50 each.  He also gave us a running commentary on the economic state as well as a bit of history on the area.  He thought is was a safe area with very low crime rate.  Driving around it was very clean and well maintained & green.  He took us to the rich area with the gated estates & palatial homes, then on request he took us to the end of town with the poorest of the poor living in shanty shacks & exisiting on the streets but all seemed to have big smiles & they looked happy.

Over the hill at La Crucesita was a quiet town with the main shopping built around  a large green square with a 19th centuary church on one of the sides.  Inside it had a magnificently painted ceiling which looked amazing.  Taxi driver said it took 9 months to paint as it was a special paint & they could only paint at night.

We wandered around the shops for a bit, not much to buy but we did come across a market which had a few trinkets worthwhile.  We did see the most exquisite hand embroidered clothes & these little carved wooden animals they are famous for, just in this area, called alebrijes. Good luck pronouncing that one.  They are also well known for their black pottery.  I saw & bought a peice that took my eye but much to the regret of Malcolm, he didn't, thinking there would be some more at the next stop (there wasn't).

Almost the best part was waiting for the taxi driver at the designated spot which was at a bar that sold Coronas, 2 for $3 plus you get a large bowl of tortilla chips & salsa to go with it.  

Back to Huatulco, he dropped us off to wander at will.  By now the touters had settled down a bit so we could walk relativley unimpeded.  We did sit down at a beach front (really beach front as the chairs sunk into the sand) resturant to have lunch but Shirene got a migraine so didn't eat what she ordered, I think Mum didn't like hers, Jon just went back to the ship leaving just Malcolm & I to have a rather unremarkable lunch but in a very pretty place.

Huatulco was once a haven for pirates & saliors traveling from the Far East & now is a small port town for very few cruise boats, they would only get approx 9 in a season which is why their eyes must light up when one pulls into town.  It is on the western side of Mexico, on the Pacific coast of the Mexican state of Oaxaca (O - ha-car) & with its jagged coastline, 9 bays of pristine beaches & 30 deg crystal clear sea it was a perfect little port to set down for the day.

That night, back onboard ship, the captain warned us to get everything off the balcony as we would be passing a bay that was notorious for high winds.  We gaily went off for dinner then decided to watch the show we weren't going to watch & thought we had plenty of time to take the washing off the balcony before going to bed.  When inside the depths of the ship you don't notice what is happening outside, apart from the occasional roll you would think you were on land.  It wasn't until we left the theatre & saw all the doors to the outside deck were roped off, the flash of lightening & the howl of the wind did we think there may be a bit of a storm brewing.  By the time we got back to the cabin the wind was really howling through the outside doors and in our cabin it was so loud we could hardly hear the other talk.  Jon had gone back earlier so had rescued what washing was left on the line & it seemed the only casualty was a sock, the rest was strewen over the balcony or wrapped tight around our little makeshift line we had rigged up.  Shirene wasn't so lucky & lost a couple of pairs of knickers & some hankies, never to be seen again.  It was an incredible storm with frequent lightening strikes but it was the howling  of the wind  that really made it seem severe. Apparently it was 50 knots.

The next morning all was quiet & the missing sock was found lying in the gutter surrounded by water.  Yay, all was well.

Tuesday 8th October

Another early start, another early room service breakfast & general quizz to see what they had forgotten this time (the orders were never right, they would forget at least one thing & sometimes double up on others).  We cruised into the narrow bay of Puerto Chiapas (Chee - app - ers), spun the huge boat on her axis so nose & tail narrowly missed each side, well at least thats what it looked like, and was docked by 7.45am.  Our plan today was similar to the day before which was to find a taxi for the day to take us on a 5-6 hr tour.  There is not much at this port, no town or restaurants, just a couple of buildings & a car park. The nearest main town was Tapachula, approx a 40 min drive away. The main building was shaped like a big pyramid made with a thatched roof.  We were greated by musician & dancers on the large docking pier & inside were more dancers in the sunken square floor  in the middle of building which had a high ceiling & shops all around which looked very tempting.

This port was more organised than we had thought it would be as the Americans seem to have taken over & had tour vans & taxis at the ready, all with regulated pricing  so you know you weren't going to get ripped off.  We chose one company that seemed ok & Jon negotiated from $45 to $40 p/h since there was 5 of us which filled up half the bus. The rest was made up of 4 Norwegians, a couple of Germans & an endogenous character, think she was female but very manly & as it turned out a complete pain in the arse.  She seemed to get in the way of everyone and was completly oblivious to it.  Like she/it would stand right in front of the attraction the guide was talking about with her big umbrella over her short shoulders, blocking the entire view from anyone else.

Anyway, we had a nice guide, he was a young Mexican student named Alan, studing Tourism at the local uni and spoke great English.  He was a ball of knowledge, covering subjects from political history, ecomony and ancient history going back beyond the Maya's as well as covering their rule.

The countryside was very lush, overgrown & green, lots of rain one would assume, with crops of Cocoa & mango trees & some fields of corn as well as bananas & soy.  Further away were two large volcanos that dominated the skyline.  It was at the foot hills of these volcanos that the coffee was grown. The country is prone to earthquakes, some really major like an 8.2 in recent times but there are small shakes most days according to him.

The first and most important stop, was to see the process of chocolate making, since this was the birth place of the worlds most important commodity.  We drove up a driveway surrounded by Cocoa trees just dripping with pods.  Lucky we were the first ones there so had the place to ourselves for awhile.  We were hearded under a thatched roof which had a row of seats, a table with archaic chocolate making implements & a big tabletop open BBQ with beans roasting on the top.  We had a little welcoming song from the old chocolate maker woman who looked about 100 in the shade.  She also looked a bit like a Maori & the traditions were simaler including flax basket weaving. She sung the song first in Aztec then Spanish.  Alan translated it for us, it was some sort of religious welcome.

Then our guide chose a chocolate King & Queen by asking questions & the first person to get it right won!  Well who else would win but Shirene & Malcolm?!  And a lovely couple they were too.  I'm not sure what other honour this came with except Jon volunteering the 'Queen' to step in when a volunteer was asked from the audience to pound some cocoa beans.  Our guide translated what the  demonstrator   was telling us about the process.  

First he belted a pod, opened it up to revel lots of beans, about the size of a broad bean, covered in a milky white substance.  We were each given a bean to suck but not to bite or chew.  It was an interesting flavour, not unpleasant neither was it strong. These are then washed (sometimes they aren't washed, to give a different flavour), dried then roasted over this big BBQ for 10 -15 mins, stirring all the time.

Next it's taken to a large, flat morter & pestle, the pestle being more like a rolling pin.  The husks are crushed off the bean then blown away with a couple of puffs to reveal the inside bean. At this point we were invited to eat the bean which had a bitter, raw chocolate taste to it.  Then it was crushed with the morter & pestle, (this is where the drama Queen.......oops sorry, meant Chocolate Queen, came into her own).  This made a thick paste to which the different flavours can then be added such as, cinnamon, peanuts, almonds or whatever. We then had a taste of the end product.  It was not like cadburys and wouldn't be to everyones taste but I quite like that raw, bitter flavour of the purest chocolate you can get, no additives or preservatives here. They also put a chunk in a jug with hot water, mixed it with a claw footed stick and poured it into these little painted pottery cups & handed it around.  It was the most delicious hot chocolate I have tried.  We of course consequently bought some chocolate & little cups to experience this at home & to help the local economy. 

Next stop was at the ancient Mayan Archaeological Izapa ruins site (E-zappa) which was just down the road.  This attraction is on private land although the Government pay for it's maintenance.  I can't remember how old these ruins are but the figure of 10,000 BC comes to mind and there is some dispute from the archaeological world what the purpose of it was.  One side thinks it was to do with religion & the other side thinks it was for studying astronomy. Whatever it was for, they are not doing any more excavations to find out more, just keeping it maintained for now. They were interesting ruins and you can climb all over them to your delight, none of this roped off stuff you get in Europe. 

There are several mounds, built from stones & shaped in a square & terraced upwards, bit like a pyramid, with stairs leading up from two sides.  Artefacts were scattered around, some stones had little roofs over them to protect the glyphs from the weather.  Just down the road, but we didn't see it, were more stone carvings, one depicting the Mayan Tree of life.  This shows the circle of life & was responsible for the world thinking it was going to end on 12/12/12. Now what they are saying was it was just the end of one of the cycles and we are now in the 5th & last cycle, due to end in 60 odd years.  What happens then is any domesday guesser.

Our guide spent quite some time explaining the life & rituals of the Mayans & the significance of this site, almost none of it was retained by me except the odd bits & peices.  One being how they used the cocoa beans as a currency and it cost 500 cocoa beans to buy a prostitue for the night.  I can't see the sense of using something that is grown in your back yard for currency.  Talk about money growing on trees! The value would surely only be to the people who couldn't grow them & they were growing as far as the eye could see. Admittedly I had heard the Aztecs used chocolate as currency & I always wondered how that would work. The other bit I remembered is how they were very advanced astronomers and to save their neck getting a crick in it while star gazing, they carved stone baths, filled it with water and studied the reflection.  Seems tedious to me, there would have to be no wind or clouds.  How they got to be so advanced is a mystery. 

On another note, it is still very hot but the heat is more like the Gold Coast in January/February, very humid & sticky but if you can stand out of the sun it is bearable. The persperation still trickles down your back & face & arms & it's around 30 - 32 deg but we are more use to this kinda heat.

Our last stop of the day was in Tapachula city.  It was very brief, one of our stick in the mud Germans just wanted to go back to the boat so we just got a taste of it.  He showed us an old whitewashed church then we were given 40 minutes of free time so M & J & I took off down the street to see what we could.  The streets were crowded, a protest was going on at city hall, something about teachers not being paid enough (seems this happens all over the world) and there was a market in the big square.  Apparently it's this chaotic every day of the week.  There were lots of street vendors selling things from coconut juice which they gave you in a plastic bag, tied a knot & stuck a straw thru (it was very yummy & ice cold) to tacos, cakes, cream horns, fried & honeyed coconut balls, pastries, corn cobs & bags of sweet things.  There are only so many hands to hold things & we did the best we could with what we had to work with & the small amount of time to work in but it was only a taste of the city, we would have liked to have spent more time in it.

The roads around the city were so bad.  There were big & I mean BIG potholes in the main streets, one was so large they piled up old tyres in it so nobody or vehicle would fall in! I kid you not.  Some men were working on a patch of road & hard labour it was, breaking up the road with a pick axe & shovel in the searing heat.  So we bumped & jumped our way, through the heavy traffic back to the boat. After another hour of purusing the little shops there, we were ready to sail away for the next port.

Another full day at sea today after yet another lightening storm last night before we pull into Costa Rica bright & early tomorrow. We are splitting into two and going on different tours so that will be interesting to compare at the end of the day.

Ariba Mexico

Life on board ship can be very busy.  Since Tuesday when we boarded, we have spent every day at sea except one & that was for just a few hours on shore at Carbo San Lucas.  How boring you may think but no, not at all.  We consult the daily programme, delivered the night before, work out what seminars and classes we will attend then work the food around that. Oh my god, the food is just overwhelming & so much of it.  Judging by a lot of the passenges they must live onboard for years at a time.  This has also affected their sense of shame as they seem to have lost that along with their sense of good dress.  I have previously written about life on board ship & it seems to be the same on this one so I won't repeat it all.  The characters are slightly different tho, both Jon & Malcolm have taken a dislike to the Zimbabwean cruise director who happens to be young & cute but as to his character I tend to be of the same opinion. He tries hard to prentend he likes people but for a fully focused customer job I don't think he is entirely suited.  The location guide however is a different kettle of fish and far better than the captains wife we had on the last cruise.  She is interesting & full of life & going to her lectures is always fun.

We sailed into the port of Carbo San Lucas on Friday 4th at 11am and it was beatuiful.  The sea was a deep blue, the bay curved around starting from the tall, white rock formations at the point, a bit like the 12 apostles in Victoria or the cliffs of Portugal then sweeping around with the sandy beaches and town built on the edge of the beach.  We anchored in the bay & lined up to take the tender into the main wharf where we were greeted by a band playing very Mexican music & dancers twirling around in their extremely colourful costums.  After we cleared the official part of the wharf we were descended upon by hawkers wanting to take us out in a boat, in a taxi or whatever they could sell us.  We beat them off with a stick and headed into a big building housing a market full of stalls selling cheap & trashy souvenirs & everything Mexican.  Out the other side took us back on the wharf where a big frame with a rope tied on was standing. Handing on the end of the rope was a yellowfin tuna with the catcher standing proudly beside her prize.  They then hung up a sail fish which looked equally impressive. We didn't get away however from the hawkers so we agreed to go with one to see Lands End and El Arco, or more commonly known as The Arch.  

Carbo San Lucas is right at the tip of the 1000 mile long Baja (pronounced Baha) peninsula which is that long thin peice of land you see on the pacific side of Mexico just under California.  Lands End is of course the very very tip of that peninsula where the sea of Cortez meets the Pacific Ocean.  It is know for it's great fishing which is what has made it popular & is now like a mini Acapulco.  The rich & famous come here to relax on the beaches, swim in the 30 deg ocean or frequent one of the many bars or resturantes.  Apparently Pink was in town when we were there but we didn't see her.  It wasn't quite like I thought it would be, like a town with narrow streets & a square with proper shops. Instead it was more like a beach resort, stalls more than shops and open air resturantes right on the beach or wharf side.  There was a lovely big air conditioned mall that had very high end exclusive shops, not the type we would shop in at all.

Anyway, so we went out on a glass bottom boat, just the 5 of us and Ruben who drove the boat.  He took us to a beach where everyone was swimming along with hundreds of colourful fish that we could see darting under the glass windows.  Then we went around the point & saw The Arch (very famous there) and other rock formations like Scooby Doo, the Witch, the drinking dragon, the pirates cave and other equally imaginative shapes you could think of.  Then we scooted back, passed our cruise ship which looked magnificant in the bay and he landed us on Medano Beach, the next beach along from the town.

We did the 'hot sand' dance up to the walkway and managed to get third degree burns on the base of our feet.  It was all a bit much as it was so hot & humid, not what we had got use to so we flopped into one of those inviting open air resturants, got a bucket of beer, 2 Margarita's for me and ordered platters of Mexican food.  It was a great meal & cheap at $15 p/h as well as the lively entertainment going on around us & not to mention the absolutly stunning, stunning views over the bay.  Picture postcard perfect can't describe it enough. It is truly beatuiful.

After that we had to make the long trek back to the wharf which was when we found the lovely Air conditioned mall. We were so hot & bothered it was difficult to recover. Eventually we had to leave the mall and make it past the stalls with the stall holders shouting out to entice us in to buy.  As if that ever works.  They do hassle you but at least they don't chase you up the street like in some countries.  

Jon had disappeared by now, doing his usual Dynamo invisible act & Malcolm had peeled off to buy some alchol leaving us 3 females to find our own way back.  It was all too hot so we sucummbed to another bar & sat down for some more cold drinks. We saw Malcolm bobbing along past the bar on the promenade so he came in for a drink too before we finally dragged our way back to the tenders where Jon was patiently waiting for us.  

After a swim in the warm pool on the top deck I felt revived enough to get dressed and go down for yet another 4 course dinner and watch the evening show before crawling into bed around 11.30pm.

The weather has got decidedly warmer and even in the middle of the night, standing out on the balcony, the wind is warm, humidty hangs in the air and the balmy evenings with the stars twinkling and the swish of the ocean as the boat cuts through the water is a very pleasant experience. 

We were going to San Francisco

We left the coast on time and in high excitement for the beginning of our trip. The flight was only 2.5 hours with a strong tail wind & arrived in Auckland to be greeted by a cold & blustery day. Mums plane was delayed by half an hour but as she had already checked all the way through all we had to do was go from domestic to international & straight through customs.  The flight was 12 hours long & if you take a phenugen it just flies by.

We were lucky to land on a beautiful clear fine day so from the air we could see all of Frisco laid out beneath us in all her fine splendor. It was easy to find a transfer to the hotel, especially when our cunning "elderly" mother had ordered a wheelchair to take her from the plane all the way through customs and up to where the escalators were. We all trotted behind smirking behind our hands wondering if this was the same women we were all racing after, trying to keep up as we ran from domestic to international in Ak just a few short hours ago? Then when he got to the lifts to take us up to the 2nd floor where the buses went from, there was someone stuck in there and a great pandemonium ensured as guards and helpers where racing to free the trapped passenger so he wheeled us around and took us to the escalators.  At the bottom he asked if mum could walk & make it up there.  Oh yes, we said as she hopped up, grabbed her bags and beat us up to the top!

It was lucky she is so sprightly as for the next few days we dragged her around the city, walked for miles & tried to pack in as much as we could.  Once we had checked into our hotel, which was close to the action and very cheap & charming with it's interesting hall ways full of anitques, nooks & crannies, shared bathrooms, pull chain toilets, small but clean rooms, we went out to check out the neighbourhood. 

Fishermans Wharf was fair buzzing as it was Saturday afternoon and everyone was out & about. What struck us from almost the first moment was how many homeless people there are, lying around the streets or jumping out from behind some tree branches or just with their begging bowls out looking sad & grubby.  One night we gave a one legged man the rest of our fish & chips we couldn't eat and his little face lit up as he gratefully accepted our scraps.

The next day we went on the hop on hop off bus to see the city sights.  As we were walking down the street discussing how we didn't sleep a wink all night and how many fog horns did we hear Mum suddenly stops in her tracks & yells, "stop, stop, everyone" Well that got our attention so we stopped & looked at her waiting to see what the problem was.  "It's my birthday" she says.  Of course we hadn't forgotten, it was all planned around her birthday, but in our excitement it had temporary slipped our minds!  

First trip was over the Golden Gate Bridge which we got off the bus at the start and walked the whole 1.7 miles of it to the other side.  I thought we would never get there, it just went on & on & on. Fantastic views of the bay & back to the city tho.  From there the bus picked us up & took us over the hill to Sausalito where we stopped & shopped.  It's a lovely little village with great boutique shops, deli's & eating places and a fantastic Christmas shop.

Lunch Time

Back over the bridge and up over Nob hill, saw the Victorian painted ladies, Union Square with all the named shops like Macy's, Louis Vuitton, Chanel and much more. Then back down the waterfront where the Americas cup was held and still with all the flags & evidence of that great disaster for the poor Kiwis and which we won't talk about.

We had to race back to the hotel, get changed and race out again as we had booked for dinner for 6pm and we didn't want to be late. 

We celebrated Mums 80th birthday by dining at the famous Boudin restaurant, well know for it's amazing sourdough bread, had their signature dishes of clam chowder in a bread bowl along with other yummy dishes, while overlooking all the happenings on pier 45 on Fishermans wharf.   A very memorable experience.

Just on Pier 45, there are a heap of restaurants around there as well as an antique penny arcade. It has loads of old machines dating back at least 70 - 80 yrs and are still in working order. It's like stepping into a time machine as you wander around the arcade and see the fortune telling gypsies, the laughing sailor, shootout in the OK Carroll, punch & Judy, bashing the pop up moles with a hammer and heaps of others I forget to list.

The next day was booked for Alcatraz.  We were extremely lucky with our timings as it turned out as we were one of the last ones to get across to see it.  The very next day was the Government shut down and all the national parks & monuments were closed indefinitely until they sorted their political difference out.  It was a short, comfortable boat ride out to the rock and once there we were issued with headphones and could do a self guided tour of the prison spoken by former prisoners, guards and people who lived there or had grown up on Alcatraz with their families.  The word Alcatraz means sea birds, although I'm not sure in what language! 

After we got back we wandered down to pier 39 where there are lots of shops, restaurants, a very ornate merry go round as well as the local very noisy & smelly sea lion colony.  There are several platforms on the wharf where the sea lions can haul up their blubbery bodies from the sea and vigorously defend their small patch from other intruders before stretching out to have a little kip in the sun if they were so lucky to have it shining.

Further down past pier 45 is Ghirardelli Square where there use to be a chocolate factory but now turned into a shopping mall.  There still is a couple of shops that sell the Ghirardelli chocolate and give out free samples.  If you walk in one door, get your free sample then walk out the other door, you can walk back in the front door again and get another sample!  I did this several times and at both shops & can assure you the chocolate is divine.  The sample of the day was a square of dark chocolate with a spiced pumpkin filling.  We sat down and had hot chocolate drinks in the cafe then wandered around the old machinery that was still working and showed the chocolate making process from roasting the beans in the ovens to the finished bath of creamy liquid chocolate that we just wanted to jump into.

We wanted to catch the famous cable car and bought a ticket each which was $6 but the wait was over 45 minutes long and after waiting a short while we gave up & went to the chocolate factory instead.  Hopefully the ticket will last until we get back as we still haven't done it yet.

That night we did the evening tour on the bus to see all the lights and the city coming alive.  We found we got up too early for the city, it is a late waking city indeed.  Walk around at 6.30am looking for breakfast is a fruitless task.  No-one is around except the street sweepers and nothing is open so don't bother to get up before 7am.  Getting back to the evening, the lights looked great, we went down one of the steepest streets then saw the North bridge (older & longer sister to the Golden Gate) lite up with LED lights which looked amazing.  It wasn't warm on the top open deck of the bus so we slowly froze to death as we light gazed and took ages to warm up when we finally got off and scurried back to the hotel.

Tuesday Morning we used the last of our 48 hr bus ticket & caught the bus to the ferry building which is the other end of The Embarcadero near pier 1. It's a beautiful building with a lovely big white clock tower.  In one of the earthquakes it was picked up and spun to one side so now istead of being perfectly square on to Market Street it is slightly skew whiff.  On certain days of the week they have a Farmers Market, Tuesday happens to be one of them which is why we chose this day to go.  It was not as large as we thought so certainly nothing to worry about if you missed it but interesting just the same with the different sorts and beautiful colours of veges.  Inside the building is lots of deli type shops selling anything from the mushroom shop that had every type of mushroom you could possibly think of to bakeries, olive oils, cheeses, pork products and coffee.  There is a large Kitchen shop there that sold a fantastic array of kitchen implements, BBQ's, sauces,crockery, nick knacks of every shape & form enough to keep you pottering for hours, which it did. 

We caught an old fashioned street car which is similar to a trolley but more like a bus attached to the overhead electrified lines.  It looked like something from the 50's and was standing room only.  A girl as mad as a cut snake kept Jon, Shirene & Malcolm entertained at one end with her life story she was telling anyone who cared to listen.  Apparently she was the blue sheep of the family.  She never made it to the desirable status of black sheep which must have played on her ever since.

The street car took us back to Pier 35, which is where the cruise ship docked and just down the road from our hotel.  We went back to the hotel to pick up our bags and trundled them back to the wharf where I was expected a big wait to check in. Along the way Jon stopped to buy two very large bottles of wine and put them in our black carry bag which also held the ipad.  Just as we got there the straps had had enough of the weight & gave up, dropping the bag onto the footpath.  John managed to save the wine but it was not until later that I found the ipad was not so lucky.  One corner must have hit the ground as that had broken away & cracked the side of the screen.  Lucky it didn't crack across the screen & it still works so things could have been worse.

Check in was no drama as there were no queues, just a bunch of escapees from an old folks home directing everyone where to go.  One rather large old man sat on a chair with his thumb pointing in the direction of where to walk.  Interesting staff.

We sailed out of San Francisco to a most amazing sunset, with the sun setting behind the Golden Gate Bridge and illuminating the sky with a blaze of red & gold. As we sailed under the bridge it was highlighted by the rays of the sun and one of the most fantastic sights I have seen. It will remain as one of the highlights of this trip.

Our cabin is great.  It's the largest one I've seen and being in the front, we have a porthole above a large wrap around desk where we can sit & write our diaries while looking out the window at the front of the ship then there is a glass door leading out to the deck on the starboard side of the ship.  Just as you come in the front door there is a large area with 3 wardrobes on one side and a huge bathroom complete with shower over the bath & an additional walk in shower on the other side.  For some reason a curtain can be drawn to divide this section from the rest of the cabin.  There is a pull out sofa bed and a king size bed with drawers underneath and several other cuboards & drawers around as well as a small fridge.  We have so much storage that we can't even fill them all up and I keep losing things as I can't remember which cupboard or drawer I've put it in.

Every night we get a different animal towel folded on the bed.  So far we have had a swan, octupus, dog, elephant & turtle.