Birthday Road Trip

Last year for my birthday, Chris’ gift to me was a trip to the South Pacific. In keeping with this established tradition, he decided that this year a road trip would be in order. It was a very good idea. We’ve been on the boat continuously since last November and, while I love the lifestyle, sometimes it is just plain nice to get away and do something else. Seeing a different landscape, spending a night in a hotel where the shower isn’t either in a closet-sized space or a long walk up the dock and CNN…in English…is on the TV 24/7, and having two days worth of meals you didn’t have to cook or clean up after is a pretty nice birthday present.

So…Tuesday morning our rental car arrived and we were off. On the way out of town we stopped at the Home Depot to pick up a few things for the boat. The “to do” list and the list of all the things that can make life more comfortable aboard is never far from our minds and having a car gave us the freedom to purchase extras that riding buses never does.

Back on the road, we drove into the desert and south to Todos Santos. I was really excited to see this little town as it is supposed to be a very cute, artsy place and home to the “Hotel California”. We arrived around noon and decided to begin with lunch at the Tequila Sunrise restaurant. The food was wonderful and I decided one of their signature drinks was definitely in order. It was very good and had a substantial amount of liquor so packed quite a punch. While we were enjoying a great meal, the owner brought everyone to attention and, along with an interesting story of his participation in numerous international drink competitions, he gave us all the recipe for a “perfect” Margarita. Chris & I have committed the correct ingredients and their amounts to memory and will try the drinks out on Patty & Hank when they arrive. Patty is, of course, our very own Margarita connoisseur. Last year she not only perfected the “boat” recipe but educated a number of bartenders on the correct ingredients to make a good Margarita (NO sweet and sour mix if you please).

Following lunch we began to wander around town checking out some of the beautiful buildings and artwork in town. The Hotel California was a bit disappointing but there were lots of other buildings that sported murals and extravagant artwork that more than made up for the somewhat mundane exterior of the H.C. I guess that finding out that the Eagles song wasn’t really a depiction of this establishment may have taken a bit of the shine off the building for me but, quite honestly, when you got up close and personal it looked a little tattered around the edges.

I was delighted to see some beautiful upscale trinkets and artwork for sale but, alas, Todos Santos has not escaped the tradition of salespersons that are aggressive and insistent. This is the one thing that truly distresses me when I want to “shop” in Mexico. For me, a lot of the shopping experience is about just being able to mosey around looking at things and when there is someone constantly harassing me to buy, buy, buy all I want to do is get away from them. One of the things that had piqued my interest and I wanted very much to purchase was a beautiful pitcher and drinking glass set that was blown glass and hand painted. There were quite a number of patterns to choose from but I couldn’t even concentrate enough to decide which I liked the best because the salesman was hovering and talking constantly. Granted, it was clear that he was trying to practice his English, but it was still very distracting. Instead of buying, I ended up walking out of the shop just to get away.

After seeing most of Todos Santos, and deciding to forego a night’s stay at the town’s centerpiece hotel, we continued driving south until we reached Cabo San Lucas. We checked into the hotel Patty, Hank & Allan stayed in last year. It is clean and comfortable and, best of all, not in the middle of the main glut of bars, strip clubs and noisy night clubs that make Cabo what it is. The next major project was to go get dinner. Sigh… We really wanted to sit by the water while we ate so we drove to the marina district and, wouldn’t you know, the Italian restaurant we wanted to go to was all the way on the other side. That meant we had to walk past all the other eating establishments to get there…each of which had at least one person out front to accost us with menus and attempts to coerce us into eating at their place of business. This is one of the things I really dislike about Cabo. When we had finally fought our way to the restaurant we wanted to patronize we were sorely disappointed. First of all, the wine was $10/glass (or $40 for a bottle of Merlot that normally sells for $10). Chris ordered the bottle but then explained to the waiter how disappointing it was that they were overcharging so badly for their wine. He wasn’t belligerent or angry about it, but the waiter took offense and was surly throughout the entire (mediocre) meal. We rarely punish wait staff with shorted tips here as they are usually the best part of eating out with their great attitudes but this guy was deserving of the 10% tip he received.

On the way back to the car we picked up a $7 bottle of Merlot at the market and spent a quiet evening watching TV and reading in our room. Ahhhh….

Wednesday morning, after a stop at Costco (whoo hoo!!), we were off again to continue the loop around the peninsula and back to La Paz. The scenery is stunningly different on the two sides of the Baja and especially so given the fact that it is only about 50-60 miles across. The Pacific side is all desert right down to the water but on the Sea side we drove through the Sierra La Laguna Mountains and were surprised to see many large areas with trees and vegetation…a clear indication that there is a lot of water from some source in this area. The water, also, was substantially different. The Pacific Ocean is a fairly consistent cobalt blue color right up to the beach whereas the Sea of Cortez sports a seemingly limitless variety of blues, greens and turquoises. Both are breathtaking.

Soon enough we were back in La Paz and it was time to unload all the groceries and goodies we had purchased and spend the next couple hours finding places to store things. We had invited our new friends, Skip & Cathy of “Traveler” over for wine at 6 and while we were gone Marni & Pete with “2 Pieces of Eight” had arrived so we were quickly back to our regular routine of socializing and entertaining.

It was most definitely a great way to celebrate a birthday.