So, before I forget too much more about my trip to Cabo, I'm going to get it out here. More will come out as I get the pictures up with captioning. It's Nils's Magical Cabo Adventure. We showed up bright and early at the airport for the only Frontier flight of the day to Cabo. It's my first international flight! Unfortunately, Jamie, one of the interns, couldn't make it on the plane that day due to flying on a buddy pass. But the rest of the flight went well, other than an aborted landing attempt at the small airport. The airport is an hour outside of Cabo, making Denver's city-to-airport distance look pretty reasonable. The shuttle zipped along the road past huge resorts and hillsides carved apart to make way for multi-million dollar mansions.
We arrived in Cabo proper and climbed into the Pedregal neighborhood where we had rented a villa. The whole area was just ridiculous with mansion upon mansion piled onto the hills. The roads were super steep and made of stone, dashing our ideas of walking down to the beach. We finally pulled up to Villa Andaluz. The house of course, was just ridiculously amazing.
The villa is divided onto four tiers going up the steep slope of the hillside. The bottom 3 tiers are divided by a grand staircase complete with a fountain on the landing. Each bedroom had its own bathroom and all but two had their own patios. The first tier had a bedroom and the garage. Aksel, the senior intern, and I shared one of the two rooms on the second tier. The third tier was the shared living area with the pool, large patio, hot tub, kitchen, living room, and waterfall. Of course, the villa has a waterfall just off the the living room.
The fourth tier had three bedrooms on it, including the master bedroom complete with its own hot tub and outdoor firepit. Pretty swank.
The main patio also had an outdoor bar with a gigantic barbecue. There were plenty of cushy deck chairs facing across the infinity pool out to the blue Pacific. The villa faced south off the end of the Baja peninsula, meaning that we were essentially staring across ocean all the way to Antarctica. It also meant that the sun rode its course through the clear skies from left to right, making for some ideal sunbathing. The weather was ridiculously perfect with nice breezes to keep things cool. Most people spent their time reading outside and watching the titanic cruise ships speed by bound for points north.
It was a rough life, especially given that our 'concierge' Jorge and his pal Benjamin kept us well plied with ceviche, guacamole, amazing meals, and very good margaritas. I think every margarita I've had up until now has been made wrong.
That first night we just sat around drinking in the surroundings (and tequila) and getting situated before heading down into town for a team meal. The place we went was no doubt a tourist joint, but that didn't stop it from having some really good carnitas and some really interesting decorations. After dinner it was back to the villa for some hottubbing before heading to bed.
It's been a long time since I've been able to fall asleep to the sound of ocean surf. The temperature was so perfect and the breeze so delightful, we slept with the big sliding glass doors open. That would turn out to be a mistake. Mosquitoes by the dozens found me and spent the evening covering my shoulders with bites, alternating with whining in my ear. I got up pretty early the next day and did some reading in the morning cool.
The next day was pretty chill and spent primarily gorging ourselves on food, reading, playing pool, and dozing. Jamie came in that day on another flight, so he joined us at the villa. We were supposed to go out on a sailboat tour that evening, but due to some miscommunication, that ended up getting deferred until Sunday evening. Some people went to town for dinner and dancing and got mobbed by the Chiclet kids, but I opted to continue to devour my book.
It's been so long since I've gotten to just sit and read. As a kid I used to go through a book every two days. Now I took this opportunity to go through the third book in the Soldier's Son trilogy by Robin Hobb. It was great. I miss reading like that, with no responsibilities and no obligations.
The next day, I got a massage. Very nice. I also got stung on the inside of my lip. Not so nice. A bee had gotten into my soda, and when I felt something strange and unexpected in my mouthful of pop, I hesitated rather than spewing the whole thing. Zap! That side of my upper lip swelled up pretty well, but other than that it wasn't too bad.
That evening we went down to the marina and tottled around past all the peddlers and restaurateurs with their promises of cheap jewelry and all day happy hours. We converged on the dock where we met up with the sailboat. We had the boat all to ourselves and we had a blast. The crew served us mai tais and margs and took us along the beach and through the bay winding past booze cruises and parasailers.
We saw the famous arch at the end of the peninsula and a particularly odoriferous seal colony. We started to head out into the Pacific, but the chop was pretty good and several people got sprayed through the mesh at the front of the boat. The craft was catamaran style boat with two pontoon type affairs on the edges and a main cabin in the middle.
We turned around and got in a more favorable alignment with the wind heading into the Sea of Cortez. Once we crossed the mouth of the harbor, we turned around and headed back towards the Pacific. This is when we talked the interns into a challenge. Everyone had a little challenge walking straight on the boat, so we got them standing out on the mesh at the front of the boat. Whoever went down first lost. Oh, and they had to keep their beers too.
The captain played along and headed us into progressively nastier waves. I was standing behind them taking pictures and got pretty well sprayed. It was pretty awesome. Jamie ended up succumbing to the marine barrage first, and I guess that means he has to do dishes now. But he already did ... so maybe he does more dishes now.
After that they served us dinner with some simply incredible tortillas. We turned around and headed back towards the marina into a glorious sunset. We got back onto solid ground, but some of the girls were only now regaining their appetite after trips into the bowels of the boat heightened their sea sickness. We headed out in search of food. We grabbed a table or two at a restaurant and grabbed some grub and drinks. I had a yen for ice cream and received a dish of rather mammarian looking ice cream. You can see that I responded with utmost maturity.
After that we went to a crazy tourist bar with the double pun name of Squid Roe. It was pretty wild and we got a bucket of Dos Equis. We were all subsequently groped, and I mean groped, by a persistent, whistle-blowing woman peddling jello shots. Then some people got up and danced in the Substitute Pimp box. But not me. No, I save my dancing for cages. So it's a good thing that we went to the Zoo night club next, because they had a cage. I danced in the cage. I received money for dancing in the cage. Do not hate me because I am awesome.
We returned to the villa for a bit more hot tubbing. Most everyone had gone to bed. I was heading down when Jamie, who was sleeping on the living room couch noticed that there was water pouring from the ceiling near the gigantic TV. I'm not well-versed on Mexican traditions, but I think water pouring from the ceiling is probably not okay.
We covered up the electronics, but not before Jamie slipped on the wet stone floor and tore off one of the doors of the cabinet. We got buckets in place and let David know. We figured it was some spill over from the upstairs hot tub that had over the course of the day found its way into the living room. I stayed up and watched it to make sure it didn't get any worse and stopped. Thankfully, it did and by 2 I felt secure in going to bed. The next morning it had all but stopped with just some drips remaining.
The next day David, John, Jun, and Aksel got up insanely early and went fishing. The rest of us held a vigil for them by eating more food, reading and basking in the sun. We even went to extra lengths by riding in the back of Jorge's pickup truck down the steep streets to town and did some shopping for gifts and tchochkes. We are dedicated. They got back later that day, minus their breakfasts but plus some tuna and dorado. Jorge and Benjamin came back and made some mole to go with the fish that John grilled up. I've never been a seafood eater, but this fish tasted awesome, probably because it had been swimming earlier that morning. That's not the fish in the picture. Rather that's some fajitas, but you know, it's good food.
The next morning it was time to leave. We piled in the shuttle and made our way back to the States. It was a grand time. Thanks, David and John! Hopefully, I'll have some pictures with captions up soon.
Toot! Toot! That's the sound of my horn, if you were wondering. I am now a published photographer! I put select pictures of mine up on stock.xchng. It's a juried free stock photography site. A long while ago, a guy from a Christian publisher asked if he could use one of my photos for the cover of a book: The Courage to be Protestant by David F. Wells. I said sure, and the guy promised me a couple complementary copies in return. I had largely forgotten about it, until a package arrived today with the books. The photo on the cover is one I took in Seattle at the park surrounding the Space Needle. My little photograph has made good! As a bonus, they even spelled my name right in the credits.
