10 Night Cruise on the Radiance of the Seas Part IV

Our next day, we docked at Mazatlan, and as you can see, it was a gorgeous day, with temps again around 80F at mid day, with bright sunshine and blue skies.

We were beginning to notice, there was no humidity to speak of there which is surprising to me, as I would have thought prevailing winds coming from the ocean would have made it very humid. Nope, none at all.

(Click on any picture to 'embiggen')

On this day, we took a trip to La Noria, Mexico, to a Tequila factory that makes Los Osuna. Now, to set things right, fermented Blue Agave can not be called Tequila here, as by Mexican law, Tequila can only be produced in the state of Jalisco, and we were in Sinaloa. So, if you click on the picture at left, it's not really called Tequila, but "100% Agave Azul" or, 100% Blue Agave.

We saw fields of agave plants, the ovens that they cook the big pineapple like parts of them, the machines that mash them, ferment and distill them into this wonderful alcoholic beverage that I enjoy so.

At right, are the in-ground ovens that we saw, with the stainless steel tops. They're more or less pressure cookers, and when done, the large pineapple looking things at the base of the blue agave plant is mushy, and sweet. When they extract the liquid from that, it makes Tequila (again, after fermentation and distillation).

The place was absolutely beautiful, with Blue Agave plants as far as the eye could see, and I wasted no time getting a picture of me and my friend Mike in front of one of these large plants.

The part that makes the Tequila, is actually just at the base of those large leaf like things.

Quite honestly, the plants look like Aloe Vera plants on steroids! *L*

After looking around a bit, they had a tiny straw market there that we poked around in, then we tried some of their delicious Los Osuna Agave Azul.

Well, I'll have to say it's probably one of the best Tequila's I've ever had, extremely smooth and delicious. I ended up buying 2 bottles to take home,

one for me, and one for my friend Dave who also loves good Tequila. After many, many shots of this nectar, I remembered to take a picture of my friend Mike, hoisting his... oh, 13th or 14th shot. (hey, I only had around 11... so I behaved!)

(then again, I brought 2 shots on our tour bus "to go", so I was no angel either)

The good news was, everyone had a great time, I wasn't driving and no headache or hangover happened. Back near the ship, we did poke in and out of a few stores just to see what kind of trinkets they had, and I bought myself and Mike a Los Osuna shirt.

All in all, a wonderful day!