In early January, Rich and I flew to San Diego to do some training. We boarded the Holland America Line ship the Koningsdam. We proceeded to travel around the Baja peninsula of Mexico. We had never been on Holland America Line before….and absolutely loved it! By far our favorite cruise line. We have been on those mega ships….not our cup of tea now that we don’t have younger kids. We also weren’t a good fit for the river boat scene, where there was not much to do on the ships. We loved the versatility of being on a smaller ship, but still have lots to choose from in dining options and entertainment. We had never been to the west coast of Mexico, either, and it was a nice change from the touristy spots on the east coast. Not to say that Cabo isn’t touristy, it is. However, La Paz and Loreto were not – especially in January. How is this a work trip, you ask? Well, since Rich and I are travel advisors, we were on a new cruise line to us, a new area to us, and we actually had travel advisor classes on board. We had over 16 hours of training on the days at sea in the classroom, learning about marketing and sales. We had about 50 people in our class, so got to meet some really great folks. Lots of “where have you traveled?” and “How did you book a client who wanted this…” kind of conversations. During our three days in port, we were mostly doing water things. We took a glass bottom boat in Cabo San Lucas around the last pieces of land of the Baja peninsula called Land’s End, where “El Arco” or the Arch, a 200 foot granite rock formation sticks up out of the water. We went snorkeling with sea lions out in the Sea of Cortez. That was pretty crazy. First of all, it was not warm. Second of all, we were out in the open water swimming with sea lions. It was crazy! We saw a lot of pelicans, blue-footed boobies (you’ll know when you see the photos below which ones they are), and colorful crabs. We also saw some whales, even though we were not on a whale watching tour. Think of dogs hanging around the grill at a barbecue…in our stops, we saw sealions begging at the side of fishing boats. We had a wonderful time. We came back to San Diego a week later and got to catch an away game with Tim’s girl’s basketball team. We also got to spend a day with Tim at the San Diego Zoo. (in my defense, they recently got panda bears and I wanted to see them!) That will be a separate post. Here are some photos from our trip to the Baja peninsula of Mexico!