Mazatlan...it doesn't look like the pictures...

Oh Mazatlan, what can we even say to you? My Dad decided to book an excursion not through the cruise ship over to stone island. Looked great in the pictures....hmmm....

We get off the boat to go meet our "tour guide" Pepe. He tells us to hang tight because he is trying to recruit some more people to come with us. Sounds shady. So he hooks us up with a free city tour from his friends. My Dad quickly made sure that this was not a timeshare presentation...which it wasn't. So we hopped in the "air conditioned vans". Now, apparently in Mexico they have a different idea of air conditioning. Apparently a small 2 person truck with 2x4's for seats and a canopy equals air conditioning. Cool, us Gildea's can go with the flow.
So here we are, driving around with our hair blowing in the wind (or air conditioning, tomatoe, tomato) through the streets of Mazatlan crying because we are laughing so hard when all the sudden our driver starts blasting music from the truck. Not just any music, the best of 90's techno. Folks if you don't know what I am talking about go ahead and google the following playlist, seriously priceless. Actually, if you could play them as you are reading this I think it will really set the mood:
-"What is Love" by Haddoway
-"Scatman" by Paul Scat
-"I'm too Sexy" by Right Said Fred
Like I said, priceless. Anyways...back to the air conditioned vans. So here we are driving around the city and we pull up to a shady looking dock. We hop on the catamaran where we hang for about an hour and we are off. About 3 hours into the excursion we are on the boat ride, here we are, one happy family sailing around the open sea. Well, I use the term open quite loosely because when it was all said and done the island we went to was about 1/4 from our cruise ship. I assume it's called Stone Island because you could literally through a stone to it, however this is just speculation. We could have swam there in about 20 minutes max.

Still laughing, we arrive at Stone Island to be loaded onto a tractor with about 20 2x4s attached to take us to the beach. We get there and its actually beautiful, things are looking up. Minus the fact that these 2 Mexicans are trying to get us to take pictures with the Iguana and this giant snake. Hello, when I say no I mean no. There was a language barrier obviously so finally i yelled at them and told them that if they brought it by me I was going to have them killed (I really hate snakes ok). That they understood, they walked away telling me I ruined their day and swearing at me in Spanish. Go ahead, I couldn't care less.

The excursion came with 2 activies included. Naturally, we were all interested in the water weenie until we saw the boat taking us. Yeah, a fishing boat. But I will tell you, it was powerful enough, and I don't think I have ever laughed that hard. Especially when my mom fell off and called us a bunch of jerks and was punching us and in doing so she knocked herself off again...anyone ever heard of karma? Yes, lifejackets were manditory...thank you for asking (I think I should become a photographer)

I am not really into animals, but while waiting for my water weanie ride we played with the sea creatures.
I use the term "we" pretty loosly. After several minor anxiety tack, 20 tries and my skin blotching we got this picture. Thank you.

Yes, lunch was included with the excursion and Father decided to get the band over to sing "La Cucaracha" I could be biased but I dare say its the best rendition ever played. I can't be sure but I think the swinging bass had something to do with it.

Last but not least we had to cash in on our last excursion and go horseback riding. Now, maybe it's just me but here I am waiting to ride the horse and I am imagining me in my swimsuit, basking in the sun, me and Sanchez the horse riding into the ocean. I know, very Bo Derek. Well it wasn't. First off we had to wear these ridiculous helmets and hop onto these nasty nasty horses that reeked and scared me (remember, I don't like animals). And once on them, we find out that "Wo" and the "Clicking Sounds" don't apply here. No, no they only know Spanish commands. Convenient seeing as how none of us speak Spanish. So off we go, alone with the horses. There was no ocean, there was no galloping (unless it did when it got spanked by the leader...scary). However, there was the most boring ride around the scariest part of town with horses that were malnourished who wouldn't stop eating people's plants. Mom's horse kept getting spanked, mine had a superiority complex and Nat's horse wouldn't stop ramming her into bushes and barbed wire. Have you ever been on one of those carousels outside of K-Mart? It was exactly like that...but scarier...like a lot scarier...At the end of the day we left there $300 poorer but I guarantee every single one of us would do it again. We have never laughed that hard. So you know what Mazatlan, it's ok if it didn't look like the pictures...