This was a unique trip because it was the first time I have flown out of the country by myself. That is easily remedied, because I was asleep during the entire flight. I did talk to a nice guy and his kids who go down to Cabo every year for two weeks. They are into fishing and golf...chances are I won't see them on this particular trip =) I had a crappy salad at the San Diego airport, so chances are I was going to be hungry when I arrived in Mexico.
The cool thing is about flying into Cabo is that you know exactly where you are, because Baja California is thin and at times you can see both the Sea of Cortez and the Pacific Ocean. When we landed, and got off the plane, the weather was as picture perfect as you could expect. I went through customs, and have the "I know exactly what to say to the time share guys" down to a science. I passed through within minutes, and was onboard the shuttle within ten, even though he said it would be 20 "mexican minutes" which could be anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour. There was a big Dos Equis billboard advertising Spring Break that said "Expect the Unexpected". Isn't that always true? Especially in Mexico and being with Allan to boot? The ride took a little bit longer than what I remembered, but I spotted the Riu Santa Fe miles away and was instantly excited. I love getting compliments on my hotel from the other passenger shuttles, it validates all the research I have done, in this case the research was my prior trip! I tell you, it's been two years, the property is huge, and it was as if I never left. I knew the property like the back of my hand, which was important, since my room wasn't going to be ready for an hour. I didn't get a welcome drink, but that boded very well for not hurting later on that evening, because the first few "post travel" drinks hit you REALLY hard and you are inevitably tired, have a headache, and don't feel 100% for the rest of the night. I was, however, ECSTATIC about finally getting some decent food, including my favorite, the chips and pico de gallo. I always hate seeing the guy (or girl) in jeans and his luggage because that is the inevitability that your trip will end, or they just got there, and really need to get into shorts, and hit the pool. That was me. I desperately needed to get out of my jeans and get in the pool.
When my room became ready, like the idiot I am, the first thing I did was hit the gym. I have been working out a lot lately, and wasn't about to turn lazy now especially with the 1000's of calories in beer I was set to consume this week. So I felt good after a 45 minute work out, and still had 3 solid hours of pool time, and even an extra hour on the beach, which gave me a good amount of time to read the new book I bought, The Book of Basketball, by Bill Simmons. That's I guess what you do when you are by yourself at a pool in Mexico. The book was highly entertaining, and I was still fine not having a beer.
The nap, or siesta, I took after the pool was absolutely beautiful. I felt zero pressure to be anywhere, and the feeling was truly liberating. I woke up around 9, had dinner (note to self, the dinner is much better at 6, than at 9) and finally cracked open my first Dos Equis from the mini bar, and now my evening was ready to begin. The center bars were jammed packed, 2-3 deep, with mainly spring breakers, but I was able to squeeze my way in for a drink. I realized it was much easier to get a drink in the Sports Bar, and I needed to get started, so I ordered 2 beers, and some fake Canadian Club, and was finally starting to feel it. My moment of realization that I am in Mexico, was watching some guys playing hot hands with the girl bartender, and the loser had to do shots. Of course the bartender lost. It is NOT uncommon to see the bartender doing multiple shots with the guests. The theme for tonight, and the rest of the trip for that matter, was Canada. As in probably half the people or more staying at the hotel were from Canada. I got a good seat at the night club, perfect for people watching, met some interesting people, and after a drink, or 7, I finally stumbled back up to the room. I definitely understand where Sammy Hagar got the name for his bar from. No more watered down Canadian Club shots, I'll settle for the mixed shots. The last thing I remember was eating probably too many pringles and trail mix, and watching crappy spanish tv. But it is much better than the refrigerated sports bar food. I tell ya, after 10pm you better have a contingency!
Day 2
It was nice to sleep in with absolutely nowhere to be, and nobody waking me up. So guess what the first thing I did was. Well, first I went to the desk to make sure Allan would have no problems checking in tomorrow. But yes, I went to the gym. I saw different people in there every day, but never the same people on any given day. The view from the treadmill was definitely motivation to get done with the workout and get your ass to the pool and enjoy the amazing weather. So I did. I found a great spot by the "quiet" pool and I had a good hour or two of reading the Bill Simmons book before being interrupted by the stupid pool games, which today, was a belly flop contest. I guess I had the look down, that there was no way in hell you are getting me in the contest. I actually moved to the pool I was at yesterday, and it was very nice. I got in the water, got some color, and put a serious dent in my book. Yes I am cool. Again, yes nap, booze no, and I felt great and ready because it's St. Patricks Day! I wore green, and everyone else in green, was your new best friend. Everyone was Irish today, and although we had no Guiness, Jamesons, or Bushmills, there was no shortage of liquor and beer. We are at an all inclusive after all. I had numerous Duck Farts, before switching to straight tequila (not my idea) and another night that went from the night club, to doing the Cabo Wabo back to the room. That's when you are walkin a little funny..But I will give this disclaimer, there is a huge difference between me having a little buzz, and the people that are absolutely hammered, puking, and falling out of their hotel rooms (happened) and falling onto the lawn (happened lots of times). Most people say they have never seen me drunk, but it's mostly that I don't act like an idiot.
Day 3
Finally some company today! Allan was to arrive, so I woke up, got my work out in, and grabbed a spot by the pool while I was waiting for Allan. His phone wasn't working, so I saw I missed a call, and on a hunch I put my towel on and went to the lobby and there he was. Even though I went to the desk 5 times, made 10 calls, to make sure he would have no problems checking in, there he was, 45 minutes later, with no room key. No big deal. He got his welcome drinks, and I had a beer at the earliest point I had this whole trip. What was a big deal, is that they changed the rate on him. I tried and tried to make a reservation but they said repeatedly, that it would be fine, or they didn't seem to care at all. After a half hour on the phone with the corporate Riu office (the real hotel managers) we got Allan's key, dropped off his stuff, and hit the swim up bars, although we were on the dry side. We had the mandatory, first shot of tequila for the trip, El Jimador (allegedly), grabbed a bite to eat, and had a quick break before going out. I was SOOO ready to leave the hotel, I had been there for over 2 days straight. We took not much of a nap, if anything, had some drinks at the hotel, and left for Cabo Wabo. It really is a rude awakening going from free drinks, to $26 for 2 beers and 2 measured shots. And to top it off, someone charged a cover to get into the courtyard, and we never saw him again leading us to believe that he was just some dude there hustling. I forgot, before Cabo Wabo, we actually stopped at "Casino Royale", the complete opposite of the namesake movie. In fact, if not for the man in the tux out front, you wouldn't even know it was there, until he opens the unmarked door and lets you in. It's a sea of recognizable slot machines, with an automated blackjack, roulette, and poker table (the latter of which nobody was playing, much to my dismay) and the machines are in strange denominations and the words are in spanish. The good news...Tecate Lights are 2/$3, the best deal in downtown Cabo, and they are ice cold. Allan left $17 richer, I left about that much poorer, and we headed to Cabo...to where NOW, after our $26 worth of drinks, Allan was ready to call it a night. WHAT!? I have been couped up in the hotel for two days, spend a bunch of money getting downtown, and on drinks, and Allan wants to mail it in an hour into the first night, just as the band is about to come out? Well, I had been alone for 2 days, so I joined Allan and we headed back to the hotel, much to my disappointment. He was tired, I got it, and I said save your energy for tomorrow. We had some of the pizza we put in our fridge from earlier, and I decided to go back down, because I was so not ready to call it a night. So I am watching the cheesy show, Mama Mia I think, and I sit down at a table which turned out to belong to these two girls. I explain what happened to my friend, and their response was "That's BS, he is in Cabo, let's wake his ass up" So we got 4 tequila shots, 4 beers, pounded on the door, let ourselves in, and put some tequila under his nose, using it like smelling salts. It took about 5 minutes before he had his head on straight, drinks two shots of tequila, and maybe within the next five, we are in the nightclub, and he is literally the life of the party. What the hell happened! Anyways, we drank, and partied, and danced all night and our new friends from New Jersey were a lot of fun, and we made plans to meet up the next day.
Day 4
Wow is it Day 4 already? I tell ya, just a few days ago you were jeans and suitcase guy, and now you are fully immersed in vacation mode, shorts, flip flops, and laughing at all the people in their long pants, wheeling around suitcases, but not laughing too hard, because that will be you in a few short days! But of course, I started the day in typical fashion, at the gym, before joining Allan for our first swim up bar session. Now the key at the swim up bar, is to order 4 drinks everytime. No matter how many people you are ordering for, 1 or 4, you order four drinks. Since you are tipping each time, it saves you time, and you don't burn through your tip money so fast. So we went from beer, to miami vice, back to beer, to mango margaritas, all topped off with an extra shot. We ran into Alex and Stephanie by the pool and they joined us for the 4 drinks at a time thing, and I think everyone got super hammered and after a few hours started fading, starting with Allan who never came back with the chips and pico de gallo. I was the last man standing, I got the long awaited chips and pico, and went up to the room where Allan was firmly passed out. I took a short nap, we were both supposed to go to the steak house with our new friends, but Allan never made it out of bed. The steak house was a very nice, fun experience, and the food was decent. Allan missed out. And I gave him a pass on going out tonight, because he was up late last night, and I wanted him fresh for tomorrow. I went with the girls to El Squid Roe, after having some drinks at the hotel, and we probably stayed there for a couple of hours. SUPER fun, then we went to the Pink Kitty, another club (not a strip club lol) and we danced, had some drinks, and probably heard the same 6 songs over and over...and over. It was now about 3am and they were going to wait in this long ass line to go to the walk up counter of Burger King, which is when I thought of a much better idea. For $10 you get a cab right back to the hotel, for $15 he will take you to a taqueria, wait for you to get your food, and then take you back to the hotel. Can you say no brainer? So we go to this taqueria, order just about everything on the menu, and now, food in hand, Allan is quite pleased to see us. So after one of the most satisfying meals of all time, we call it a night.
Day 5
It was time to mix things up a little bit, so me and Allan decided to rent some jet skiis. We were not going to drink ahead of time, but since it was going to take an hour before we could go out, the beer drinking commenced. We played some frisbee on the beach while we were waiting, and Allan actually made an errant throw, and knocked someones sunglasses off. Good time to get on the jet skiis, for 45 minutes of the most fun you can have, and an almost whole roll of the most amazing pictures you can take, jet skiing right in front of El Arco. I saw seals while I was tooling around, in addition to a boat filming a documentary about sharks for the Discovery Channel. I made sure not to fall off my sled. The time really went by too fast, but we still had a few good hours of swim up bar time, which, remember...4 drinks at a time. I did forget to mention, the drinks are about half the size you are accustomed to, and a lot of people bring their own cup which are much bigger than the little ones the resort provides you with. We met this HILLARIOUS canadian guy named Shawn, who called cigarettes "jets" said he was trying to get his "zing" and his "zoom" on, and he succeeded in splashing the wedding coordinator, and offended everyone in the wedding party which unfortunately happened to be right below the swim up bar. Oh well, lesson learned for the happy couple. Do not get married in front of the swim up bar.
Me and Allan had an early dinner at the Asian restaurant, which is surprisingly good, and after a day of drinking and jet skiing, food tastes even better. Our dinner was slightly diminished by a guy causing an absolute scene at the front because he didn't have his reservation slip and they refused to seat him. After 20 minutes, they finally do seat him (they should have just done that from the beginning) and he was still complaining. If you are reading this, you are an idiot. You were loud, and you almost ruined everyone's dinner. Nah, the food was toooo good. So, it was siesta time, and when we were ready to go out, we drank fast, and furious at the show bar. I had 3 shots in a VERY short period of time. Allan had about 6 in an equally short amount of time. This is about where my vacation turned...I was heading to the front desk to drop off a letter and I saw a girl, surrounded by three guys and her foot was bleeding pretty bad and she was crying. I went into a great amount of detail about this event in my review on tripadvisor, so I won't be redundant, but all I can say is how greatly it disturbed me that not a single hotel employee was tending to the situation, and nobody seemed to care even though it happened about 50 feet from the front desk. It just reinforced the fact, you are only as good as the money you bring down there, no matter how cool or respectful you are. I hope I am wrong. Anyways, I went back to the bar, didn't mention anything to Allan, we had a couple more drinks and we left to town, my night painted completely differently. We watched the band at Cabo Wabo for a few, and we were in the Courtyard talking to some girl from Mexico City, and she gave Allan a shot of tequila. This was lights out for Allan. We went into the Pink Kitty, I went into the bathroom, and Allan vanished in a cloud of smoke. I already knew what happened, so I went back to the courtyard bar, saw some other people staying at our hotel, had a beer, and walked over to the Marina. I saw the sign for Caliente Casino calling my name, and let me just say, it wasn't so caliente. The poker table was off, I bout 100 pesos in gambling money, actually got my first Mexican bonus game, and cashed out at 100 pesos. I got in a cab, who drove me through Pepe's tacos (decent, not the best taqueria I went to), and there were some guys that from our hotel there that I shared a cab with, talked hockey with, and ended up paying $4 instead of $15 to get back to the hotel. So I got tacos, and I actually saved money. I am sure as I did every night, I got online and set my fantasy basketball roster. This was the playoffs you know!
Day 6
This was one of my favorite days. Me and Allan got up around 11, and got in a cab and headed straight to "The Office". The last time I was in Cabo, I missed out because it was too busy, so we ended up in Mango Deck which was just fine. We waited for a table close to the water, and let me say, you are paying for great ambiance, and decent food. I swear, some of the taqueria tacos I got were comperable, and these were 175 pesos. The best part was the amazing people watching and the proximity to one of the most beautiful and swimmable beaches in all of Cabo, Playa Medano. There are some great bars on the beach, but you can also go to this store, by your beer, and just sit in the really soft sand. We bought 6 bottles of Corona in a bucket, for $12, and it came with a hat, and some pictures with the Corona girls. I played some football, enjoyed the beautiful water, and we took a half hour walk on the beach back to our hotel. We hit the center swim up bar for about an hour, played some football, and headed back up to the room. Me and Allan both passed out immediately..and I was the only one to wake up for our 930 dinner reservations at the Mexican restaurant which I haven't tried before. It's a bit ironic, having to make reservations at the Mexican restaurant, in Mexico, but you would be surprised how much gringo food you end up eating here. About 5 minutes after I got here, Allan appears out of the blue, and joins me for a dinner of steak for me, and fajitas for him. We showered up and got ready to end his portion of the trip on a great note. We had (not as many) drinks at the bar, but still plenty, and went straight to El Squid Roe. We had so much fun that night, I have video and pictures on my facebook page. I don't care how pretentious you are, or what your misconceptions are, you will have fun there, if not for the sheer spectacle of it all. We were probably there til about 3am, and the thoughts that run through your head are that, even after you go home, this place will be going off, only the faces will be different. You are just one of those passing faces, in a place that the weather is so great, it doesn't need a roof. One final taqueria stop, this one was particularly good, and back to the hotel. I was celebrating my fantasy basketball playoff win, and getting ready for a matchup with Big Daddy, and Week 1 of the hockey playoffs, which should have been a Bye. That's another story.
Day 7
I woke up to grab a bite with Allan, hit the gym, and was gonna hang out with him for a bit before he left. Time got away from us a little bit, I went to get my camera, and he was gone, as quickly as he appeared, in that same cloud of smoke. His shuttle was leaving so this time wasn't his fault. We had a great time and I was very appreciative of Allan hittin Cabo with me for the second time. Next up for us is maybe the cruise in January, which comes back here, and to Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlan, but I do owe him a trip to Hawaii. Alas, I still had a night left, and although it was lame duck day, I was going to put off packing as long as I could. I got in a cab, headed to the mall, and planned on spending all my last pesos on souvenirs for both myself, and my friends. I had a so so lunch at Johnny Rockets (should have eaten at Sr. Greenburgs) and succeeded in spending all my pesos, save for cab fare back to the hotel. I did get about an hour or two pf pool time in, and I had dinner at 6, which I found out is the BEST time to eat. The food is amazingly fresh and everything is hot when it first opens. I spent a decent amount of time doing some preliminary packing, had a decent nap (6-9 is PRIMO nap time), and then I made my 930 reservation to the Asian restaurant, with designs to eat lightly. It was short, sweet, and I changed for one last night. I grabbed my traditional bottle of Dos Equis, and went down to the madness one last time. I was going to be jeans and suitcase guy tomorrow, but tonight I am not. I sat at the bar and ran into two girls from Minnesota that I met on a taxi a couple nights prior. I spent an hour or so talking and drinking with them, and they had planned to go out one last night, and even though I hadn't planned to, I figured, screw it, it's my last night on vacation and off we went to El Squid Roe. I thought I saw that place for the last time but I couldn't have been more wrong! We were there what felt like all night, which was great! I thanked them for a very fun night, and we headed back to the hotel. NOW it's pass out time, and my vacation was coming to a conclusion.
Day 8, last day in Cabo
I got up early enough to finish packing, but not early enough to get any pool time. Where is Ronnie when I need her to get my ass out of bed! I did get a bite to eat, and the chips and pico de gallo I love so much, boarded the shuttle, and the Riu Santa Fe became a dot in the rearview mirror. It was a different trip, and one that made me look at things here a little bit differently, but maybe, hopefully, I am wrong. I will certainly give it another chance or three, but I think Cancun is on the horizon. I really hope the Riu responds to my inquiry! Otherwise the trip was near perfect. It was a long ass day of travel. Shuttle pick up at one, and I was home at 1am. YIKES! Needless to say, lots of sleep, some reading, a nice conversation with some fellow travelers on the way to Portland, and I was back in the cold, and rainy Pacific Northwest. I had late night dinner at Shari's with my dad, and tomorrow, it was back to reality. Mexico...voy a regresar...
