Voyage with flying colours: An adventure in Mexico

Mexico is so bright, bold and exuberant, it's bound to lift spirits.

San Diego is ablaze with colour. As our cruise ship, the MS Koningsdam, sails away to head south of the border, the setting sun tints the city pink, peach and purple.

Up on deck, watching the USA grow ever smaller from the stern, the excitement is palpable. For many passengers (including me), this is our first post-pandemic trip. Music washes over us from the loudspeakers. The playlist includes Joe Jackson's Steppin' Out and one of his lines strikes a chord. We are tired of all the darkness in our lives...

Luckily, we're bound for a country so bright and bold, so exuberant and colourful that it's guaranteed to lift spirits. The Koningsdam will slide back into San Diego in seven days' time, after ticking off a trio of ports strung out along what's known as the Mexican Riviera.

First stop: Cabo San Lucas. This buzzy resort destination sits on the toe of the Baja California Peninsula but for my shore excursion I've chosen a day trip to Todos Santos, an oasis town an hour's drive north. The drawcard is lunch at the Hotel California - widely spruiked as the place that inspired the Eagles' hit song, which isn't the case.

Yet the town, once an 18th-century mission, exudes so much charm that I'm still glad to see it. We tick off architectural gems such as the Teatro Manuel Marquez de Leon, a movie theatre trimmed in a shade of apricot that matches nearby bougainvillea.

I also explore Oystera - a grand re-creation of a ruin. Inside the light-filled atrium is an oyster bar where almeja chocolata - chocolate clams - are displayed on ice.

While heading back to the ship, we spy whales breaching offshore through our bus windows. There's time for a wander around Cabo - I dodge locals offering iguana photo ops and watch the sports-fishing and recreational boats returning to the marina where seals are also nosing around - before tendering back to the ship.

Next stop: Mazatlan. I skip town to explore three villages in the Sierra Madre ranges. In Malpica, I stuff my face with a coyota - a flaky sugar-stuffed pastry named after a female coyote. In colourful Concordia, I wish I'd brought along a few pesos to buy tacos dorados de camaron (crisp tacos with prawns) from a food cart popular with local police. But the snacks might have ruined my sit-down lunch - beef, beans, rice and more - in the tiny jungle hideaway of Copala.

Final stop: Puerto Vallarta. This becomes my favourite port of call. I've signed up for the Hidden Beaches by Speedboat with Horseback Ride excursion that starts with a thrilling inflatable speedboat jaunt across Bahia de Banderas (Bay of Flags) to the beachside village of Yelapa. After plodding through town on our steeds while accompanied by several hounds, we splash through a river before dismounting and heading to Horsetail Falls (the unremarkable cascade could easily be deleted from the schedule).

Things pick up again when we splash off the speedboat for a snorkel before reaching a beach that feels truly hidden (perhaps it's the absence of iguana touts). Post-lunch, we bounce back across the bay as nearby humpback whales put on a spectacular display. I'm grinning from ear to ear, feeling like the luckiest person alive to see this unannounced show.

Our ship is docked near the northern end of Playa de Oro - Golden Beach - and there's still hours to go before it departs. So I set off along the gilded sands, eventually taking a nearby road and, before I know it, I've wandered 6.5 kilometres into the city's aptly named Zona Romantica, packed with tiny galleries, cafes and boutiques. There's one spot here I have my heart set on finding. Casa Kimberly is the legendary love nest created by actor Richard Burton so that Elizabeth Taylor could discreetly visit him as he filmed The Night of the Iguana (both were married to other people at the time).

In one, I fashion flamboyant flowers that would make Frida Kahlo proud from tissue paper and pipe-cleaners. Then I select templates for papel picado (paper banners featuring decorative cut-outs). I choose a Day of the Dead skull and a heart-focused design, alternating the shapes as I glue them along a piece of string. The result reminds me so much of the pretty banners fluttering over Todos Santos that I slide my creation between the pages of a magazine so I can safely bring a bit of Mexico home with me.

Katrina Lobley was a guest of Holland America Line.