Baja California: Holland America line's exploration into the Sea of Cortez

We opted for a six-hour excursion to the town of Todos Santos, about 60 miles southwest of La Paz. The town sits on a low mesa in the western foothills of the Sierra de la Laguna mountains, where Pacific breezes and sunshine produce ideal winter weather. Orchards of mango and avocado trees are everywhere, and the town's colonial architecture and small-town ambiance are refreshing. We wandered through brick streets lined with craft shops and stalls, joining the group for lunch at Los Adobes, a covered, outdoor restaurant. Todos Santos, with a population of around 5,000, has a few small hotels, including the Hotel California, a renovated, colonial-style building. While the lyrics seem to indicate this is the place, rumors that this is the "Hotel California" from the hit song by the Eagles have been debunked over the years. Still, it's fun to imagine that it might be true.

That evening, we sailed northward toward a series of islands, Los Islotes and Isla del Espiritu Santo, before retracing our previous route along the southeastern coast of Baja. At 10:30 p.m. we succumbed to the Ryndam's "dessert extravaganza," in which temptation always wins. Chocolate mousse, truffles, chocolate-covered strawberries, and other goodies drew passengers like helpless children to sugarcoated dreams. Thursday morning at 7 a.m. found us anchored in the bay off Cabo, our last port-of-call, on the fifth day of the cruise. Like Key West at the end of Florida's U.S. Highway One, Cabo is a resort town at the end of Mexico's Highway One. The town, and the so-called "corridor" between it and San Jose del Cabo 20 miles north, has evolved over the years from remote sport-fishing hideaway to major tourist and time-share mecca, with all the attendant traffic congestion and hawkers. The terrain is nevertheless spectacular here, where the mountains and desert meet the sea in a series of unusual rock formations, including Los Arcos, a natural rock monument where excursion and fishing boats pass by sunning sea lions and tiny, picturesque beaches.

We opted for a whale-watching and snorkeling expedition aboard a "pirate ship," whose colorful captain, flawlessly groomed with a black beard and dressed for the role in black swashbuckling apparel, gave us an informative, if jarringly biased, history of the area, and ordered his men to wage mock warfare on a shoreside time-share complex. It was great fun, especially since the fake cannon fire from the fake ship echoed with resounding realism off the time-share canyon configuration.

Cabo's other redeeming qualities include excellent shopping and plenty of good restaurants and cafes, although getting there often required running a gauntlet of cheap jewelry vendors dangling merchandise at us and asking "How much you pay?" This was a different world from the more sedate and low-key towns of Loreto and Todos Santos we had left behind, but we were nevertheless laden down with new Mexican crafts to add a bit of color and fun to our bathrooms and kitchen at home as we rushed back for the Ryndam's 4 p.m. departure.