Cabo San Lucas

Mary Jo and I just got back from a winter trip to Cabo San Lucas on the southern tip of Baha California.  What a pleasant break from the winter cold and rain it turned out to be!  We traveled with a rather large group of our daughter's in-laws and friends (around 32 people all told).  Their family has made this a periodic winter treat, and were kind enough to ask us along this time.  We all stayed at one of those all inclusive hotels where you can eat and drink whatever and whenever without facing a new charge.  You can just put you wallet away for the week and lay back to enjoy your self.  It was our first experience with this type of payment, I liked it a lot!  This photo is from the balcony on our room. 

The hotel felt a little being on a rather large cruise ship, one anchored in the bay instead of traveling around the oceans.  We were a few miles from town, so it was an excursion to go anywhere, so mostly I didn't.  It seemed to be enough to eat, read, chat with folks, sit in the shade, nap, and party a bit at night.  My daughter, wife and myself did take an excursion one day on an "outback adventure."  This adventure included camel rides!

The camels seemed to be in excellent condition (I suppose, except with absolutely no experience with camels I might have been very far off with my judgment).  The camels were definitely difficult and uncomfortable to ride.  They had these high-tech metal saddles, which might have been good for the camels, but weren't all that great for us.  My daughter said that the ride is a lot like one of those mechanical bulls that you can attempt to ride in cowboy night clubs.  I have never attempted that, but it seems to be about what I would expect - with the exception that the "hump" seemed to be kind of floppy so that sometimes you lean to one side, thinking you will fall ten feet to the ground to the left - then it flops the other way and it feels like you are going to fall off to the right side instead.  Not really my idea of an ideal way to travel. 

During our adventure we were treated to a nice, easy and short walk through the desert with the guide pointing out the medicinal plants - particularly those that have aphrodisiac properties.  There seems to be quite a large number of desert plants with that property.  We then went to a shade structure by the ocean and were served a very nice, authentic seeming home cooked meal.  Along with the meal we "had" to sample various types of locally made tequila.  They were all good, and there were a lot of samples.  By the time we were finished with dinner it appeared that at least one of the women in our tour group must have rubbed up against some of those desert plants.  She was snuggling with the guide all the way back to her hotel.  I wonder how the rest of her evening went?

A bunch of our group went fishing one day.  The caught a few fish, but not a big harvest.  It was just as well, because it turned out that it would cost $20 a person to have the fish cooked and served for dinner - and dinner was free otherwise.  So the fish went the way that most probably do down there, the boat skipper and help got them.  I didn't go fishing out of laziness and couldn't see a good reason to pay for riding around in a boat for a few hours.  I have lots of boat time under my belt and didn't need to pay for that.  Some of the men-folk also went golfing, but that was during the time that we went on our outback adventure.  Since I can't hit a golf ball, much less get it into one of those tiny holes in the ground,  there wasn't much point in me going with them. 

It was a fun and very relaxing week. I am not sure if I will want to repeat it again, but it was a fun thing to try out.  The weather was perfect and there were lots of nice people from the land of ice and snow to visit with besides the ready made group that we traveled with.