Acapulco

I got off the ship in Acapulco today. It was hot and humid as you'd expect though the beaches weren't all that pretty sadly.

After passing up a series of beach-side restaurants, we ended up at a place that one guy loosely translated as "pork and love." I assumed that it was a kosher deli, but was tragically mistaken. I very much love Mexican food, but this was my first chance to have authentic Mexican. The meal started with various hot sauces, pico di gallo with avocado, black beans, pickled carrots and zuchini, and obviously freshly made tortilla chips. They then brought plates filled with carnitas (for the Joffe's, I think that's Spanish for Kosher chicken), guacamole, fried pork fat chips (which I took one bite of to try, but that was my last bite). To eat this with, they brought out freshly fried corn and flour tortillas. Of course, a cerveza washed it all down. It kinda made me want to move to Mexico.

On our way back, we stopped at a grocery store. I bought a few different kinds of hot sauce. Each one was under a dollar. It made me want to fill a bag with all different kinds. I limited myself to 3. Meijer kind of ruins you on some of these trips because you see products that you remember seeing at the international food aisle of Meijer. In addition to the hot sauce, I bought Bridgett her birthday gift of pure vanilla from Mexico. Sadly, we can't bring alcohol on the ship so I couldn't accompany that with Mexican tequilla.

On both our way there and back, there was a constant swarm of taxi drivers, street peddlers, children, etc, offering us goods and services. Most of us just walked on by but the New Zealand guitar player, who's never been out of his country would always engage with them. Eventually, he learned, but still needed to say "no thank you." Except when he tried to say it in Spanish, it always sounded like Italian. "Non gratzie"