Today is a shore day, we are in Huatulco, Mexico. Pronouncing the name of this place had been the hardest thing! Finally someone told us it's "wha-tool-ko." We were docked on the starboard side, which is ours, so we got to see the village. Lots of resorts here, and our guide for the day told us that in the off season, rooms go for about $200 a night. In the high season, they start at $1,000 a night!!

We had signed up for a white water rafting trip down the Carolita River, and had no idea what to expect. The only thing we knew was the rapids were only a class 1.5, so about as thrilling as us old ***** can take. LOL

We met up with our tour group and walked quite a ways to board our open air bus. It was toasty, let's just say. It was supposed to be a short ride but I'm guessing it took about 30 minutes.

We finally arrived at the river and got our life jackets and instructions on how to get in the raft and paddle. There were 7 of us in the raft, plus our guide, Roy. (None of us could pronounce his real name, so he said to call him Roy.)

We got in the water and found out it was very refreshing! Felt pretty good after being so hot. We hit some rapids right away and although it wasn't an adrenaline rush, it was fun. We couldn't bring our phones cause they would get wet, so no pictures. :((
The reason the phones would get wet was from the other rafters splashing each other with the paddles! The guides were especially good at this! I think there were 8 rafts altogether.

It was a beautiful day and we got to stop and play in the water for a while. There were some rapids that we could sit down in and the water was deep enough that you could ride with just your life jacket on without worrying about hitting any rocks. Rich and I both tried it and it was so much fun, not to mention how great the water felt! Pam was a chicken until she saw me do it, so she gave it a try too. She got carried downriver too far and one of the guides had to help her back to shore. I have to admit, that current was strong and it took all of my swimming abilities to get myself back to shore. Between the paddling and the swimming, I worked hard! Well, harder than I've worked the last 10 days anyway. :))

We were on the river for about 90 minutes, and then it was time to reboard our bus. The road out from the river was dirt and we were happy we were the first bus to leave, cause the rest were going to be eating our dust!

After getting back to the port, Rich and I decided to get some local lunch and found a place to have a Corona and some tacos. Their tacos ended up being fajitas, but they were good and we were really hungry by then since it was about 2:00. Pam and Mike went back to the ship since her stomach was still a little iffy. Lincoln & Linda (fellow rafters) were sitting right next to us at the restaurant--they each had two giant margaritas and when we saw them later on the ship, they weren't feeling any pain. LOL

As I said, it was a beautiful day, but hot, so we went back to our room and enjoyed the air conditioner. Pam and I got a kick out of watching people just stroll back to the ship even though the "all aboard" was for 4:30 and it was 4:29! I would guess about 100 people waited to the very last minute! We are at sea all day again tomorrow, so it's not like we could just hang around waiting, either! However, about 4:40, they all were on the ship and we started backing out of the port at 4:45, which was actually 15 minutes ahead of schedule. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but we have been the only ship in ALL of the ports we've been to, which has really been nice!

We went to dinner, then the theater for an impressionist singer/performer, Sean O'Shea. Rich and I thought he was okay, Pam really liked him. He did Louis Armstrong first but had a coughing spell, so that kinda ruined it. Then he did a drunk Dean Martin, spilling his martini everywhere...too much slapstick for my taste. He also did Tom Jones and Neil Diamond and was pretty good at their voices. He then left the stage and came back dressed as Elvis. He did a fairly good Elvis.

I was so sleepy after the heat and wine (with dinner), and was asleep by 8:30. Don't know what the Honnert's did, will find out tomorrow.