Josh & Elise’s Cabo Blogo

I took the day off from work on Thursday so I could do things around the house as well as some shopping for our trip to Cabo. Elise had to work all day and didn’t get home until around 9 p.m. I had all but two shirts packed (they were in the pile of laundry that Elise was doing). I went to bed at midnight. Elise pulled an all-nighter packing and putting a contract together for work.

Elise woke me up a little before 6 a.m. We scurried about the house, bumping into each other as we rushed to get our luggage into the truck, say bye to the cats and whatever other frenzied activities that usually happen before leaving on an international vacation.

I drove all the way to Dallas while Elise slept. We were making good time and didn’t have much traffic to contend with. We stopped in West for kolaches.

DFW airport at 10:30. On time. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 12:22.

We were in front of a family of three in the check-in line. The family was also traveling to Cabo San Lucas. We chatted with them for the half hour wait in line. We exchanged cell phone numbers and planned on getting together to split the cost of a charted fishing trip.

Security was relatively pain free this go-around. Our plane took off ten minutes late. So far so good.

We landed in San Lucas on time at 2:10. As we flew over the Sea of Cortez and over the southern end of the Baja peninsula I took in the mountains, desert, bone-dry river beds, cactii and old ranch houses.

As everyone exited the plane, I stepped onto Mexican cement, took a deep breath, sighed and my inner monologue spoke, “Hello, Mexico!”

Mexican customs was simple to get through and we made our way through the airport. Soon we were bombarded with “senor, senor, senor, where are you staying?!?!” That’s when it all started…

Everyone in Cabo wants you to go to their resort so you can be subjected to a timeshare presentation. The worst, so far, was a the airport. We politely told each buzzard that we knew where we were going. I will affectionately refer to the locals as buzzards.

We found our Cape Travels bus, loaded up and rode the 45 minutes to Cabo through San Jose. Elise noted that some of the surrounding areas looked like war-torn cities. Buildings looked as if they had been ravaged by bombs and battle. Store and house facades are old and free standing – damaged and forgotten.

We arrived at Pueblo Bonito Blanco at 3:30. We were greeted by smiling faces who said, “Hola, welcome to Cabo San Lucas”, took our bags and open doors for us. We checked in and were told that our room would be ready in half an hour. In the meantime were instructed to walk across the lobby to introduce ourselves to the hostesses and to receive our complimentary drinks. Meeting the hostess meant meeting with buzzards. The hostess asked if we would be interested in seeing one of the company’s new hotels on the pacific side of Cabo. We politely told her that we just arrived, we were tired and we’d like to settle in first. She gave us our drink tickets and we walked south out of the lobby to the pool where we sat for a while and tried to regroup.

At 4 o’clock we went back in to see if our room was ready. We were told with a great big smile that our room wouldn’t be ready for another hour. We were very tired. I’m usually non-confrontational. We both turned away and in my non-confrontational way I mumbled to Elise, “S___! F___! Why the hell isn’t our room ready yet?!? We confirmed our arrival! Why isn’t our GD room ready yet?”

We walked around the pool, took in the scenery of land’s ends and took a seat at Cilantro’s, the pool-side restaurant. I had a Miami Vice. Elise had a mango daiquiri. We split and order of beef nachos. I also ordered the ceviche but it never came. I think that was because the waiter thought I was trying to say something in Spanish. The beef nachos tided us over and the drinks were weak despite the waiter telling me that they packed a punch.

Carrie, a nice buzzard, hostess and transplanted Californian came to our table and talked with us for half an hour or so. She gave us the skinny on the buzzards. Everything in Cabo is a sale. If you go to a “meeting” a buzzard will give you a free booze cruise, parasailing, horseback riding, cash, snorkeling, wave runner rentals, fishing, ATV Baja trips, glass-bottom boat tours – anything there is to offer in Cabo. 90% of the buzzards work on commission only. They schedule a meeting and they get paid. The less they give you, the more they earn. Carrie told us that she wasn’t planning on making much this month so she would get us whatever we want and the best discount. From what we’ve gathered, if you schedule a “meeting” through a buzzard we can get one or two free activities and discounts on other activities. For example, free parasailing and a sunset cruise and dinner and 40% discounts on a spa treatment, horseback riding, etc.

We’re yet to figure out what we’re going to try to get for “free”.

We walked back toward the lobby and I saw a flamingo out of the corner of my eye. I proclaimed, “Holy shit! It’s a flamingo!”

We finally checked into our room and had our bags brought up. Then we tried to find a local market where we could buy staples such as bottled water and booze. We tried to find our way to City Club (Cabo’s version of Sam’s or Costco). On the way we were relentlessly attacked by buzzards.

We finally stopped at a local dive of a market and picked up a bottle of rum and scotch. We went back to our room and Elise decided she was hungry. We walked the beach to Las Palmas where we ordered a couple margaritas. We waited for our waiter to come back so we could order dinner. He never came back. Elise tracked him down and Elise decided she wasn’t hungry anymore. We paid our bill, went home and had a couple cocktails and called it a night.

I slept okay but was awakened by a bad dream. I dreamt that I was driving the Expedition through Cabo proper. To make a long story short, I wrecked, flipped the truck a few times and landed in someone’s yard, damaging their house and car. I got out of the truck and was about to call my dad to see what he thought I should do. That’s when I woke up.

Today is Saturday. A new day to fight buzzards and try to enjoy this vacation. We’re going to have lunch at the Office and call Carrie to see if we can get in on some activities.

You can see photos here.

Elise has taken care of our flights to and from Cabo San Lucas. John played the part of best friend and transfered some of his American Airlines miles so Elise’s ticket was “free” (we owe John a minimal credit card processing fee). We still have to buy my ticket.

I haven’t the time or inclination to sit down and wrap my brain around the whole frequent flyer program. I guess because when I was researching credit cards I thought that earning miles and redeeming them would be a fairly simple process. We started paying bills and and making necessary purchases on a Chase Travel Rewards MasterCard. I don’t like to read fine print (my wife handles that) so I signed up for this credit card assuming that miles earned could be applied to any airline ticket purchase.

$1 = 1 mile.

So in my assuming I assumed that if we were going to buy a ticket to Cabo San Lucas and we had 5,000 miles, we could apply those miles to the purchase of a ticket. That just seems logical in my mind. According to my wall map, Cabo is just under 1,000 miles from Austin, TX if we take into account that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. If we also take into account American credit card debt statistics:

The total U.S. credit card debt in the first quarter of 2002 was approximately $60 billion. The average credit card interest rate is around 18.9%.

Approximately half of all credit card holders pay only their minimum monthly requirements. There are a total of 1.2 billion credit and retail cards in North America. The average American household is solicited seven times a year by credit card companies.

Total consumer credit: $1.7 trillion.
Credit card debt carried by the average American: $8,562.
Total finance charges Americans paid in 2001: $50 billion.
Percent of U.S. households deemed credit worthy by the lending industry: 78%.
Number of credit card holders who declared bankruptcy last year: 1.3 million.
[From: Ask Yahoo!]

The average American family pays $1,000 in credit card interest annually. Why shouldn’t the banks and airlines pass some of that earned interest on to me, the guy who pays his balance?

If Cabo is 2,000 miles round trip, times that times two people is 4,000 miles - shouldn’t I be getting paid by Chase to take my trip to Cabo?

I’ll leave it up to my wife to figure out the Travel Rewards mumbo jumbo and read all the fine print. In the meantime I’ll quietly rack up 700 million Travel Rewards over time so I can be entitled to an extra bag of peanuts the next time we fly to Des Moines to see the in-laws for Christmas.

So, with the help of John (who travels often for work) we get one free ticket. We’ll buy my ticket tonight. As of right now, taxes included, a single seat to Cabo from Austin, stopping in Dallas, is $609.

Next on our agenda is acquire certified copies of our birth certificates. Note: in 2006 passports will be required to travel to Mexico.