Trip to Mexico

Last week I had the fortune of traveling to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. My friend Jennifer had her wedding there, and it turned out she was getting married the same week I turned 30, so I thought those were two excellent reasons to take a beach vacation!

I left on Sunday, the 23rd, which was my birthday (and also happened to be Easter Sunday). I traveled there with my friends Jessica and Maddie. We had prepaid transportation from the airport to the resort, and we were warned to be sure that we go with the right people, or we would lose our money. Well, the warning was certainly for good reason! As soon as you leave security in the airport, you are bombarded by people trying to get you to come with them. It's all about timeshares, and they are trying to con you into it, basically. It was so confusing and not a great first impression of Los Cabos. Some of these men were outright lying, telling us we were going with the wrong people. Corruption! Anyway, we found our transportation. When we got to our resort, Villa del Arco, we checked into our gorgeous suite. It had a big great room and kitchen, washer and dryer, bedroom with king size bed and jacuzzi tub, and another bedroom with 2 queen size beds and another little kitchenette (which can be a separate hotel room). It was absolutely beautiful with a balcony and view of the bay and the town of Cabo San Lucas. There were five of us girls who stayed in that suite together. We met up with Jennifer and Chris and their families and went to a restaurant at the resort on an outdoor deck. They were having happy hour 2 for 1 cocktails, which is a pretty common deal down there. I had the most yummy Bahama Mamas. We ordered dinner, and then when the waiter brought around a dessert platter and I wasn't sure if I was going to get anything or not, someone said I had to get something because it was my birthday. The waiter said he would surprise me! So a few minutes later he came back with a beautiful plate with a little chocolate dessert and some fancily arranged fruit and "Happy Birthday" written on the plate in chocolate. Then he proceeded to make me a drink. It had a lot of different kinds of alcohol, and I think some coffee, but I couldn't really taste it! First he melted sugar around the rim of the glass, then he put some alcohol in a silver pourer and lit it on fire, so there were blue flames. He proceeded to pour the blue flaming alcohol back and forth between two silver pourers. Then he poured it into the glass and topped it with whipped cream and a cherry. Quite a production!! I felt very special. It was cool. The drink was way too strong for me to drink though! Woo! My birthday evening ended with me, Jennifer, Jessica, and Maddie relaxing in one of the outdoor hot tubs.

The first full day, Monday, we spent the day by the pool and on the beach. Late in the afternoon, Jess, Maddie, and I took a quick bus ride from the resort to WalMart (unfortunately no other grocery stores close by) to get some groceries so we could have some breakfasts and lunches in the room instead of going out for every meal. The bus was hilarious, because it was a white school bus with the destinations written in paint on the window. The seats inside were all facing the middle, and it was quite a jostling ride! In the evening we went to the neighboring/sister resort Villa de Palmar, where the wedding was going to be and where Jen's and Chris' families were staying. They were having a Mexican Fiesta night there. A ticket included a giant yummy Mexican buffet, open bar, and entertainment.

Tuesday started off by the pool and beach too. In the afternoon, Jessica, Maddie and I walked along the beach into town to check it out. We figured out where the real spring break crowd was! There were some bars and other resorts along the beach which were clearly party central. Our resort was pretty relaxed, even though there were a lot of people there. That evening a group of us had happy hour at the restaurant/pirate ship in the middle of the pool area of our resort, and then went out to Cabo Wabo in town. Apparently Sammy Hagar who used to be a lead singer of Van Halen owns or owned this bar. It was a pretty cool place, but I was so tired for some reason! We called it a night pretty early. Most of us were early to bed and early to rise on this trip, which was fine by me!

Wednesday morning we spent a little bit of time on the beach, and then a group of about 20 of us went out to a canyon to do some zip lines and rappelling. That was a great time! I wasn't really afraid at all with the zip lines. There were 7 or 8 of them that went back and forth across a canyon. Then we got to rappel down a 180 foot cliff if we wanted. A few people in the group couldn't bring themselves to do it, but I did it! I was surprised how little fear I had, and the worst part was getting hooked up to the rope and letting yourself off the platform off the top of the cliff to hang in mid air. Once I actually started rappelling down the cliff, I was having a great time and wasn't nervous at all! At the end of that we got to go eat some quesadillas and try some tequila. I really don't like tequila, but I tried some almond tequila there, and it was surprisingly good. That day I developed a nasty rash on my chest and upper back. I guess it was a sun/heat rash. I sort of burned a little that day too, because we didn't have all our stuff with us, so I didn't reapply sunscreen as much as I would have liked.

The rash got really bad the next day, and I had to spend the whole day under an umbrella by the pool. It was weird because this had never happened to me before. I was so extremely itchy that I was willing to pay 260 pesos (about $25 USD) for a 4 oz tube of hydracortisone at the resort store! What a ripoff, but whatever! After a day of putting that stuff on and staying out of the sun, the rash improved a lot. Thursday night we went on a sunset cruise for the wedding rehearsal dinner. It was pretty fun. Of course, once again an open bar was included. I am not a big drinker, and I didn't fully take advantage of this like some other people!! Juan Carlos, one of the boat crew, was quite the flirt, and he got ME of all people up dancing with him at one point! I was worried I would be seasick on the boat, and some people were, but the only time I felt sick was when I was on the lower level when we were eating dinner. I went back on the top deck and it only took a few minutes and I felt good again. After the cruise, Jen, Chris, Ray & Jori (Chris' friends) and I went for some scrumptious gelato at Senor Sweets, while some of the others went back to Cabo Wabo.

Friday was the wedding day! In the morning Jennifer and her bridesmaids were at the resort spa getting pedicures and relaxing in the spa pools, so I decided to walk to town and do some shopping. I went back to the resort and ate lunch in the hotel room, had a shower, and then went to Jen's room to get ready for the wedding with her and the bridesmaids. Jen looked so beautiful!! All of us girls got to ride in a trolley from our hotel to the other one where the wedding was going to be with the photographer snapping pics the whole time. The wedding was on the beach in the late afternoon. During the processional, when Maddie was walking down, a random horse with a saddle but no rider came running toward Maddie and then started heading for the aisle until one of the other guests got up and redirected the horse! I don't know what happened with the horse after that, but it was pretty funny! The ceremony was very short with a Mexican judge officiating in Spanish, and Chris' friend Ray reading the English translation. None of the attendants stood up with Jen & Chris. After the ceremony were pictures on the beach, and then we headed to the restaurant by the pool where part of the pool deck was set up just for the reception. It was by a small pool and overlooked the beach. It looked really beautiful, and by this point it was sunset. I was the guestbook attendant, and I took pictures of all the guests and each individual or family or couple signed their own page of the guestbook. Jen and Chris will get prints of the pictures I took and people's pictures will go on the page they wrote on. I thought that was a cool idea, and I think I got nice pictures of everyone. There were only about 40 people at the wedding, so it wasn't a huge job! The dinner was a big buffet with some Mexican foods and some "American" foods. There was way more food than we needed, and it was really good. In addition to the wedding cake, there was a dessert table with various options, including donuts, which Jen loves. I thought that was a nice touch! They had a DJ, and we danced and danced. We were dancing machines. It was so much fun!

The next day was Saturday, our last full day in Cabo. Jen and Chris left on their honeymoon to Cancun, so we said goodbye to them. Then Jess, Maddie, and I headed to the marina for our snorkeling tour. We were on a catamaran boat which took us out to Santa Maria Bay which was further east along the south coast of the Baja California peninsula a little ways. There were lots of people snorkeling in this bay, which was a bit of a drawback, but it was still fun. It was my first time snorkeling. There weren't as many varieties of fish as other places where people I know have snorkeled, but it was still really cool, and we were really close to the fish. Jessica and I had bought an underwater camera to share and had just finished off the film and were about to go back to our boat, when a guy swam by with a swirl of fish following him. It was incredible!! It turns out, he was feeding them cooked rice, so that's why they were all swarming around him. He gave some rice to Jessica so she could feed them too. It was so sad that our film was full, because there were so many fish around us!! When we got back to the boat, they gave us lunch and once again, there was an open bar. I was so freezing. The ocean water was surprisingly cold, and it took me quite a while to warm up! We boated back to Cabo San Lucas, and then Jessica, Maddie, and I spent time walking around, shopping, went for gelato at Senor Sweets, and then went for a scrumptious burrito.

Sunday we flew home. My suitcase didn't even make it to LA. I went to pick it up at customs there, and it wasn't anywhere to be seen. That was a bit of a downer, but I didn't get worked up about it. It's not the first time that my luggage has not arrived with me! I ended up getting it the next day.

So, now I have been back home about a week. I am trying to will my tan to stick, which is probably not a very effective strategy. :) I had such a good time in Mexico, eating lots of guacamole and chips, drinking pina coladas, relaxing by the pool and the beach, and enjoying time with some friends. A resort vacation is not my usual vacation, but I have to say that I really enjoyed staying in beautiful accomodations, and I loved being in sunny, summery weather! It was a very different from my vacation a year ago to Hong Kong, where it was all about exploring a very different city and culture. This was mainly just a relaxing type of vacation, and I guess it doesn't hurt to do that every now and then too!