Josh & Elise’s Cabo Blogo

We woke up a little after 7 a.m. on Thursday, walked down to the beach and caught a water taxi to the parasailing boat. Elise volunteered me to parasail first seeing as how we were both new to parasailing and she wanted me to be the guinea pig. We both signed waivers, given our instructions and I was strapped in and was soon soaring high above the beaches of Cabo. The air was so calm, quiet and soothing. The only uncomfortable aspect of this parasailing outing for me was the harness. It made my hips and lower back hurt after a few minutes of being in the air.

After 15 minutes or so I was winched back down to the boat and then it was Elise’s turn. Midway through her ride the water taxi drove up along side our boat and four more people boarded our boat. This all while Elise is high up in the sky.

After parasailing we walked back to our room and ate leftover breakfast tacos and papaya with lime juice. After eating and resting for an hour or so we walked over to Rose and waited for the MotoSol shuttle to pick us up for our ATV tour of the Baja.

The shuttle picked us up on time and fifteen of us rode up to just outside San Jose to MotoSol ATV rentals. Again we had to sign waivers and put up a credit card for a deposit should something happen to one of the ATVs.

We were then given our helmets, goggles and bandanas. After the mandatory lesson in ATV operation, we were soon off and hitting the trail. Our guide let us ride around in on a training course for ten minutes before we headed deep into the desert. I thought it would be really cool to practice my donuts and launch myself off of the 4-wheeler. I did quite a number on my right knee, elbow and palm. Other than my minor injuries, we had a great time touring the desert on ATVs. The tour was a little longer than we would have liked and coming home with muddy boogers is always fun.

We were shuttled back to Cabo San Lucas and dropped off at our hotel. We went upstairs and took long showers to get all of the dust, mud and blood off of ourselves. After showering and getting dressed we called El Chilar in San Jose and made a 7:30 dinner reservation. In the meantime Elise wanted to take me back into town so I could get the metal-sculpted dorado that I had been eyeing all week. All of the dust from the ATV tour did wonders for my cold so I didn’t really feel much like heading out into the hot sun to shop at the flea markets.

Six thirty came around and we went downstairs and asked the concierge how best to get to El Chilar. We walked a few blocks down the street and caught the bus to San Jose for $40 pesos. We rode far into San Jose and never really recognized any of the street names in relation to our map. We asked the couple sitting behind us if they would look at our map and tell us where we were. We passed our stop a while back. We exited the bus at the next stop, ran across the highway, walked half a mile and caught the next bus heading south. This time we made sure to show the bus driver where we needed to be.

After walking a couple few city blocks I stopped and asked a couple guys if they knew where El Chilar was. Luckily I did or we would have kept on walking east and would have never found the restaurant.

Los Cabos is interesting in that you can be walking through the dumpiest neighborhood and then you walk upon an upscale restaurant, nightclub or office building,

We walked into the restaurant and were greeted by the staff and Monica. Monica is the sister of Hildelise who we befriended the week before last in Las Vegas at the oxygen bar. It was because of Hildelise’s recommendation that we found ourselves lost in San Jose eating at El Chilar.

Monica was a great hostess. Her and her husband, Armando own and run the restaurant. Although we didn’t meet Armando, he is a fantastic chef who changes El Chilar’s menu once a month. We also met Ulises, part owner/chef.

To start Elise had the fruit bead and tapioca gazpacho with chile habanero oil. I had the seared scallops carpaccio with garlic sauce. Both apps were great. Elise didn’t like the tapioca in her gazpacho. I thought it added a nice texture. The melon balls made the soup fun, fresh and inspired me to make a melon-based gazpacho soon.

My scallops were excellent as well. They were seared and sliced thin with an accompaniment of fried tortilla strips, garlic and balsamic vinegar.

For our main courses, Elise had the grilled flank steak with a chipotle-based pumpkin seed sauce and polenta and baby squash. I had the duck enchiladas in a creamy and sweet white mole and cilantro and roasted coconut rice. We agreed that our entrees weren’t as good at the appetizers but the meals were still good.

Monica treated us to a couple Mexican flag house margaritas and a slice of signature El Chilar mousse cake. She thanked us for making the special trip into San Jose and then called a cab for us so we wouldn’t get lost again.

The cab dropped us off at the bus stop and our bus to Cabo San Lucas picked us up shortly after. My cold had gotten the best of me and I fell asleep sitting up all the way back to Cabo. Elise nudged me awake as we got into town. The bus dropped us off closer to town which meant we had to walk 20 minutes back to our hotel. It was one of those depressing walks where you know your vacation is over and you have to wake up at 5 a.m. the next morning to catch a flight back to reality.

At 5 a.m. the alarm clock sang its lovely and upbeat Mexican music. It wasn’t hard for your humble narrator to rise from bed as I hadn’t slept much the night before as I was anticipating the day’s fishing trip. My stomach also hurt from the fajita buffet on the Sunset Cruise the night before.

I quickly showered, shaved and got dressed. I woke Elise up so she could get ready while I walked to the ATM as we had spent our last pesos the night before.

I walked back to the room to find that Elise wasn’t ready yet. I walked back downstairs and waited for our taxi. Our taxi pulled up a few minutes after 6 a.m. I asked the driver to wait so I could run up and get mi esposa. Elise was already on her way down the stairs when I left the taxi.

We hopped in the taxi and drove next door to the Rose to pick up two other couples who were going fishing.

The ride to the marina was tough because 1) I was extremely exhausted (too much sun, not enough sleep, I’ve been looking forward to this fishing trip for months and I’m still fighting off a cold) and 2) my stomach was killing me. We arrived at the marina on time and stood in line next to the docks to check in. I walked over to our driver who was standing at the check in line and asked if there was a bathroom that I could use. He pointed to his left and told me to walk around the corner. He said, “Go ahead, you have plenty of time.”

I walked around the corner and found the bathrooms but both the men’s and women’s were padlocked. My stomach was gurgling and brewing with anticipation. I stopped at coffee stand and asked the vendor where the bathrooms were located. He said they were further down the marina. A local overheard me and told me to follow him. I followed the local for a couple hundred yards and he pointed me to the banos.

I only mention this because I rarely have gastro-intestinal “issues”. I was not going to be on a Mexican fishing boat for eight hours with gut rot. I rushed into the bathroom to find another person, uh, taking care of business. I found the stall furthest from the other guy and I, uh, took care of business.

I’m usually very Seinfeldian in that I will usually hold off on taking care of business until I can make it home. This wasn’t one of those occasions. The fajita buffet and all of the excitement had taken its toll on my large intestine. It wasn’t the prettiest of sights and sounds but it had to be done and my entire body shivered with heavenly relief. I could now enjoy the rest of our chartered fishing adventure with no more stomach issues.

As most people do when they finish up their business, it was time to do the final “paperwork”. I looked at the toilet paper dispenser to find that there was no more paper. Panic set in but I eventually had to laugh. I sat there for a while and contemplated my next step. I laughed some more and thought, “This is just perfect.”

I thought about doing “the walk” to see if there was toilet paper in any of the other stalls. I decided against “the walk” and resorted to using the only option at my disposal: The Gringo Times, Cabo San Lucas’ newspaper for honkies. It was quite the experience and I’m sure I’ll remember it for the rest of my life. I didn’t bother to look but I’m sure I had a nice print of page 8 on my hind side for the rest of the day.

My happy digestive system and I walked back down to the docks to meet up with everyone: Elise, Sean, Jennifer and our crew, Captain Ed and deck hand Saul. Sean and Jennifer are on vacation from Houston so it was great to be on a fishing boat with other Texans.

We shoved off from the dock at 7 a.m. and headed straight out from Land’s End. We made small talk while trolling the ocean with squid lures in search of marlin. We trolled and trolled and trolled. Nine o’clock rolled around and not a nibble. At almost 10 a.m. Saul jumped from his seat and down to where us fishermen were sitting (the girls were our cheerleaders for the day). He handed me the pole and told me to start reeling in. I hooked a little tuna. Finally, a little action. I celebrated by cracking open a Pacifico,.

Half an hour later Sean hooked a good-sized dorado (mahi mahi). We trolled where Cortez and Pacifico (not the beer, the ocean) meet for another hour or so. After constant radio communication between us and other pangas, El Capitan saw a big fish. He threw a line into the water where he saw the fish, waited a few seconds and it hit. He yelled something in Spanish and Saul started reeling in the troll lines. He told Sean to sit down and handed him the pole. He instructed Sean on how to reel in a marlin (pull up and wind while going down). Sean felt the fight of the fish, looked over at me, sitting next to him and said, “Shit, I’m going to need your help on this one.”

Just as he said that a gorgeous sailfish flew out of the water, into the air for all to see and then crashed back into the water. I think this fish wanted to go out in blaze of glory and one last breathe. The fish pretty much died after that. Or maybe when he came out of the water for the brief moment he caught my cold and called it a day. The sailfish didn’t put up too much of a fight but its weight alone made for sore arms for Sean.

I got excited because I was up next to reel in the big one. I went to the cabin of the panga and scarfed down my boxed lunch so as to have some energy. We trolled for another hour or so and I caught a pequito dorado. We trolled for another hour and Captain Ed saw a big marlin. We tried to bait it but came up with no luck. We trolled the Cortez for another two hours with no nibbles.

Eight hours after leaving the marina and four fish caught our fishing trip came to an end. Saul hung our flags as the birds followed closely behind to get leftover live bait.

I was pretty bummed that I didn’t catch a marlin. Oh well, we’ll come back in a year or two and charter a better boat that will take us deeper into Pacifico. I tipped our crew and had our catches measured and weighed. Nobody told us how much our fish weighed so I can’t make up any good fishing lies. Just by guessing I’d say that Sean’s sailfish was over 9-feet and weighed a little over 150 lbs. The four Texans then followed our fish to the skin and filet shack.

I took the meat of tunas and dorados and Sean took the bill of his sailfish. We exchanged e-mail addresses and handshakes and Sean and Jennifer went on their way. Elise and I went back to our room, put the fish in the fridge, showered and headed back out to town to do some shopping. Elise really wanted some silver while in Cabo. We found a great little shop where we were given samples of almond tequila and free beers. Elise was impressed with my Mexican merchant haggling abilities. We got her a nice necklace, pendant and matching bracelet for a price that I felt was acceptable.

We were sun-beaten, tired and hungry so we went back to our room to get our fish and then headed down the beach to the Office for dinner. We had to wait half an hour to be seated. I was about to fall asleep when we were called for our table. While waiting we gave the host our fish and he gave us our options for the preparation. We had the tuna seasoned, baked and served with a rich garlic butter sauce. The durado was breaded with breadcrumbs and tortilla chips and served with an awesome tomato and chile salsa.

Dinner was great. I told Elise all about my awkward spa experience for the day before. We had a nice little date on the beach, eating the fish we had caught that day and laughing the night away. We paid our bill and walked hand-in-hand along the beach to our room where we both immediately conked out when our heads hit the pillows.

We had a late start on Wednesday. First thing we booked our times for parasailing and the Baja ATV rides. We started walking to town and realized we also had to book our couples massage. We walked back to the concierge and had him book our massages for that afternoon.

To kill time we walked downtown and shopped for souvenirs. I found a cool metal sculpture of a dorado twer hat I’m going to buy before we leave. Elise wants to buy some silver jewelry. I don’t understand women and their jewelry.

We had to make a mad dash back to Pueblo Bonito Rose to catch the shuttle to Sunset Beach for our massages. We were six minutes late. We took a cab and made it to Sunset beach at 2:30. We walked to the spa were we uppitidly greeted by the spa staff. You like that word, uppitidly, don’t you? Go ahead, use it at your disposal.

Elise and were separated – she went to the women’s lounge, I went to the men’s lounge. We both had half an hour to kill. I asked the men’s lounge attendant what I was supposed to do. He gave me a key, pointed me to my locker and told me to put on my robe. I did as instructed. I found Mr. Attendant again and asked him what I was supposed to do next. He escorted me to the showers. I took a Swiss shower with some soothing hair and body soap at a temperature that is supposed to stimulate circulation. In man terms: A really hot shower with girly soap.

After my shower I found a buffet of assorted waters. Available were cucumber and mint water, lemon water, hibiscus tea and chlorophyll water. I opted for the chlorophyll because I thought it would be cool to drink a lot of it to see if my skin would turn green.

I didn’t turn green.

I asked Mr. Attendant what I was supposed to do next. He looked at the clock and told me that I had 15 minutes left before my message. He walked away. It was up to yours truly to figure out what to do for 15 minutes to kill time in this unknown territory. I walked into the “steam room”. I walked into a dark room of 140-degree humidity and smelled of mint and eucalyptus. My sinuses immediately cleared as did my head of any cognitive thinking. I was at one with the steam. I thought of mountain lions ravaging midgets in a bowling alley. I thought of Smurfs on skewers. I thought of extension cords with busy dinner dates. I had attained the Zen-like panoramic vision. I almost passed out.

I walked out of the steam room and chugged a couple glasses of chlorophyll. I then found the rain shower. I cleaned the sweat and humidity from my skin. I walked out of the shower to find that I had no robe. At first I thought it was the extension cords who took it. They’re deviant bastards. Later I found out that Mr. Attendant stole it. He gave me another robe and took me to the spa lobby where I met Elise and our massagers (that’s French for “people who lube your skin and rub their hands all over your body” – or English for: I can’t spell the plural form of massagers because I’m in Cabo San Lucas and don’t have Dictionary.com at my disposal)

We were elegantly escorted to our massage room via a tea light-lit hallway. We were both recipients of a 50-minute Swedish massage complete with New Age music piped through the spa. It was very relaxing. All of the doors read, “Silence beyond this point”. That was hard for Elise. I immediately adapted and indulged in the ambiance. Our massages were fantastic. The ladies spoke very softly and calmly when they instructed us to turn over, take deep breaths or to not fart so much.

Our massages ended too soon. Our massagers left the room after instructing us to put our robes on. We were again escorted to our respective lounges. Elise showered and pampered herself. I was stuck in the lounge with three workers who had turned the water off to work on the showers. I put my clothes back on and walked back out to the lobby with my skin and body hair glistening of massage lube.

I was the sticky guy for the rest of the day.

We didn’t have time to take a cab back to the Blanco for me to shower to we rode straight from Sunset Beach to the marina for our Sunset Cruise. We forgot our voucher so we waited in line to see if our name was on the list. Our names weren’t on the list so we had to pay cash for the cruise. We were told that we could bring our voucher back the next day and get our cash back.

We left the dock a little before 6 p.m. and headed north along the Pacific coast. Everyone took snapshots of the arch and Lovers Beach. We toured around the Pacific and Cortez side of Cabo. We just rode around – all 50 of us. We were served a fajita buffet with all the extras. I spent most of the trip downstairs, next to the grill and bar. I was shortly met by Judas. Judas is a 73-year-old San Salvadorian of Mexican-Italian descent who lives south of San Francisco with his wife Ria who is from Holland. We all immediately befriended one another. Judas and I had an existential conversation about Lance Armstrong’s contribution to the sport of cycling and humanitarianism. We really clicked with Judas and Ria - they’re like the El Salvadorian/Mexican/Italian/Dutch parents that we’ve never had. We were invited to visit them at their home in El Salvador. We’re going next year.

After the cruise Judas and Ria drove us back to our hotel in their car. We invited them to the fiesta at Blanco. After an hour or so Elise and I had to call it a night as we had to wake up 5 a.m. the next morning for our fishing trip.

We woke up to the sound of friendly Mexican music blaring on the mono alarm clock this morning. I cranked the volume before I went to bed and thought it would be fun to wake up to southern Mexican music. Luckily my illness had subsided but Mexican music still pissed me off in the morning (on that note, any music that wakes me up usually pisses me off). I habitually got up and went through my morning ritual.

I woke Elise up after showering and shaving. We walked downstairs to Cilantros and met with Carrie. On our freebie bill: discounted deep-sea fishing, two passes for a sunset cruise with dinner and open bar, free parasailing and $30 USD for two Baja ATV tours.

We were taxied to the Pueblo Bonito Sunset Beach resort on the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas. To spare you the details, we had a great breakfast (I wish I could remember everything that we ate – refried beans, fried eggs with a tomato-based sauce, Mexican-style hash browns and a tortilla chip mixed with sauce concoction that was to die for along with various local salsas [spicy as hell] and fresh squeezed cantaloupe juice).

We then went through the whole sales process. It was a long ordeal – longer that we had anticipated. Again, to spare you the details, we endured the sales pitch, got free breakfast and lunch. Yeah, it took that long. I also milked the sales lady for three Coronas. Hell, I figured if we have to go through this, might as well get cervezas out of the deal. Salud.

Elise’s objective for the day was to utilize the swim-up bar. There are three Pueblo Bonito resorts in Cabo to date. We are able to take advantage of the amenities of all of them. Sunset Beach has six pools, all of which have swim-up bars. So we changed and swam up to the bar and had more Coronas and some fruity drinks for Elise.

We walked to the Pacific-side beach and dried off. A towel boy by the name of Aloys (pronounced similarly to Elise) came out and started talking to us. That was so much fun. A conversation that would have taken same-language-speaking people 30 seconds took almost an hour. But we laughed and had a great time. I was actually able to talk to Aloys about Tae Kwon Do and found that he is an 8-month, self-taught student of Tae Kwon Do. I showed him three or four pressure points and he quickly realized that I was a lot more versed than he.

The sun set and we headed back to the lobby to catch the shuttle back to the Blanco.

Tomorrow is parasailing and the sunset cruise.

Having stayed up dining and partying on Saturday night made for a difficult time getting out of bed on Sunday morning for your humble narrator. And I was getting sick. I picked my head up from my pillow and immediately felt the Baja rat that crawled into my throat sometime during the night. I couldn’t swallow. It felt like my throat was swollen shut. My head hurt and my body ached. I didn’t feel like doing anything other than crawling back into bed. I forced myself to shave and take a shower. I got dressed and went out onto the patio.

Elise woke up shortly after. I somehow managed to eat my leftover steak and shrimp from La Golondrina. Elise got ready and we walked through town to the marina in search of a fishing vessel. We quickly decided that instead of finding a boat and captain on our own, we would go see a time share presentation and get a discounted fishing trip instead. We then changed our course in search of a pharmacia. After visiting two pharmacies we found one that carried a throat lozenge called Graneodin B. I opted for the grape flavor. My throat immediately felt relief. I bought a bottle of Gatorade and started feeling human again.

We stopped in at a coffee shop where Elise bought a muffin for breakfast. We then walked a few blocks into town and found an actual grocery store. Our mission was to find fingernail polish for Elise. Once in the grocery store we bought bananas and ingredients for breakfast tacos. We picked up four bananas. Once at the check out line I noticed that one of the bananas was cracked open. I showed the banana to the check out girl and tried to tell her that we didn’t want it. She gave the banana to her 9-year-old daughter. The daughter ran to the back of the store. We made our purchase and left the store. The daughter came charging out of the store and said, “Senor, senor, aqui”. She brought us our banana. I don’t think we were charged for it. Elise said, “Gracias”.

We came back to the room to put our groceries away. Elise wanted to go hang out on the beach. She made a 32 oz. rum and Coke and asked me if I wanted one. I bought in. One way to kick a Cabo cold is Echinacea, Zinc, bottled water and a lot of liquor. We found our chaise lounges on the beach and worshipped the sun for a few hours and pretty much got drunk – you know, that thing you do on vacation. Elise caught some “sweet waves”, as she likes to call them (I’ll let her get away with it because she’s a Midwesterner) as I watched comfortably from my beach chair.

After the sun went down we went back up to the room to shower and change for dinner. We walked downtown and had a fantastic dinner at Nick San. Sushi with a Mexican flare is awesome. The sushi chefs get to drink while there working so that makes for some serious entertainment (and probably some sliced fingers on a wild night!). Dinner was great and I’m sure the seafood couldn’t be any fresher.
After dinner we stumbled into the Giggling Marlin. We didn’t have money for drinks (nor the inclination to drink anymore) so we didn’t stay for very long. The Giggling Marlin is a “sex sells” skit & drink too much joint that would be perfect for a bachelor or bachelorette party.

We made the long trek back though town to our condo and hit the hay. When we came home to put the groceries away this afternoon Elise called Carrie (the hostess we met the day we arrived) and told her that we were “ready” for our timeshare presentation and wanted to load up on freebies. We were to meet her at Cilantros at 8 a.m. the next morning…

I woke up on Saturday not very rested as I had a truck flipping nightmare. Elise woke up around 10. While she was sleeping, I went out onto the patio and wrote for the website, downloaded photos from the camera and chatted with our next door neighbors, Tim and Keisha.

After Elise got ready we walked to the beach and headed south to find our way to the Office. We unknowingly walked way past the Office and found the marina. We walked past all of the fancier shops and restaurants near the marina and found the street that we had walked up and down the night before while in search of a market.

We walked for an hour or so and eventually found ourselves back at Blanco. We asked the friendly doorman where we could find the Office. He pointed us back to the beach where we had just walked. We walked slower this time and found the Office. We waited for half an hour for a table. Luckily we made it for happy hour (1 p.m.?!?). I had a couple Coronas and Elise had a bloody mary.

For lunch I had the Burritos Baja. Elise had the Combanacion de Officina. Both meals were excellent (thanks, Terri, for the recommendation). After lunch we headed back to the room where we changed into our swimsuits, grabbed some towels and filled our 32 oz. Styrofoam cups with rum and Coke. We walked down to the beach, found a couple chaise lounges and sat on the beach for too many hours. We mingled with a few other sun worshipers and eventually bought into one of the beach combing buzzards. These buzzards were peddling local wares. We bought a cool fish plate that we’re going to hang on the kitchen wall.

We both went into the ocean for a bit. Note: The Sea of Cortez is saltier than Hell. I don’t know if Hell is salty… anyway – Cortez is Hellusalty.

Elise swam out halfway to the buoy. A surge came in, dragged her halfway to where I was sitting and when she got up, her top was halfway off and she had droopy drawers from all the sand she’d brought upshore.

I went in after her and swam up to a few feet from the buoys. I caught a decent wave and body surfed the rest of the way. Needless to say we found ourselves winded after our individual outings and need to endure more physical activities more often.

At one point one of the buzzards walked by and said he’d write our name on a grain of rice. I said, “No thanks.” One of the Californian ladies that were lounging next to us said, “Don’t you want your name written on a grain of rice, Mr. Texan?”

“He’d have to write it on a watermelon. Everything is bigger in Texas.”

She laughed and bought a cheap beach basket.

Now that we’ve been here for over 24 hours, it’s much easier to ignore (and haggle) the buzzards. I think we were travel shocked yesterday and have since adapted well.

We had an excellent dinner at La Golondrina. The atmosphere was beautiful, the food was excellent and the service was fantastic. Our dinner began with a couple bottles of Pacifico and a taco salad with a great smoked chile dressing. The soup of the day was black bean. I had to have the recipe. This black bean soup is amazing. I asked the sister of the owner if I could have the recipe. She walked to a table where her family was sitting, came back with a few post cards and said I could mail them to the restaurant, request the recipe and they would send it to me. If I had to guess, I’d say the soup had smoked guajillos, cream, jack cheeses and a hint of chocolate and cinnamon to make it to die for. For the main courses I had the filet mignon and grilled shrimp with Diablo sauce. My steak and shrimp were grilled to perfection and the Diablo sauce left my mouth burning after we left. Elise had the jumbo shrimp and bay scallops with a combination of Firecracker, Wow and Diablo sauces. After dinner we met with the owners and praised them on the ambiance, food and service. They were all very friendly a graciously welcomed our comments.

Dinner cost $810 pesos (after a 10% discount for paying cash) and we both had two huge doggy bags to take back to our room. That was one of the best meals and best values that I’ve ever paid for. If you find yourself wandering Cabo proper in search of a romantic, fine dining experience, definitely dine at La Golondrina.

We walked back to our room to stow our leftovers and to download photos to the iBook to make more room on the cameras memory card. We walked up the beach, through the marina and into hopping downtown. After asking for directions from a cop, we found Sammy Haggar’s Cabo Wabo. We found the bar and bought a couple Pacificos and checked out all of the rock and roll memorabilia.

The bar was packed and the crowd was excited. A band was playing and the patrons were all screaming and dancing to what we agreed was covered versions of corny nineties pop rock songs. The crowd was singing along in unison with the band. Elise finally asked who the band was. Come to find out we were listening to the swanky tunes of the Gin Blossoms. We stayed for a couple more songs, just long enough to finish our beers. We walked out onto the crazy street and made our way past all of the nightclubs. Elise debated on whether or not she wanted to go to another club. We peaked our noses into a couple of them and agreed that they all reminded us of the cheesy meat market dance clubs on Sixth Street back in Austin. So we decided, when in Rome… just go home. We got home around 1:30 a.m. and conked out as the heads hit the pillows.