The last week in May, Brian and I visisted Cabo San Lucas in Mexico and man how I wish I could go back and relive some of those memories! Brian desperately needed something to look forward to during his winter semester and I think I needed a break from being a Mommy of three adorable, yet high maintenance little girls. This trip was just what we both needed! We went to Cabo having nothing planned except for a rental car and a place to stay. We had both done some research of what we wanted to do, but we just wanted to wing it and see what deals we could get when we arrived.
Just getting around in Mexico when you speak little to no Spanish was harder than we thought. We figured my phone was going to automatically switch over to an international plan so we'd have a GPS right away and it took a little figuring out before it would do so, so our driver (Brian) was a bit stressed that first day :) Since there were no kids involved I figured it didn't matter if we got lost driving in the deseret. We easily made it to our resort and Brian got to unwind from a hectic few hours.
We stayed at the Hacienda Encantada through a time share my awesome Dad
gave us. It was breathtaking and nice and ritzy. Brian got to do a lot
of tipping this trip because their were so many people that would help
us wherever we went.The resort was right up against the rocks and we stayed in a really nice room with a pretty view! I took this first picture from our helicopter ride (haha j/k)
This was the panoramic view from our balcony. Brian brought this great little camera with so many fun features.
One of the pools was an infinity pool and there
were so many serene places to relax and listen to the ocean crashing into the
rocks.
Our
room was super nice and had a kitchen and fridge which made it great to
keep all of our bottled water cold since you can't drink from the tap (a lot
of people warned us before we went and luckily we never got sick).
This is the view from where the valet would bring our car. Every
time we left our room a guy on a golf cart would take us to the lobby
and then the valet would bring us our car. It was so much walking to
park it ourselves and we were on vacation and did enough walking around
the town anyways right.
To describe the way Cabo looks is pretty much the desert meeting the beach, and their were cactus's everywhere.
Brian
made us breakfast a few of the mornings and we'd just relax and sit on
the balcony. I didn't know if we had a deal with an all inclusive meal
plan and I'm kind of glad we didn't because all the reviews said the food
at most of the resorts was pretty average and we would never have discovered Brian's all time favorite Mexican restaurant...
Brian went on tripadvisor to see where the best places were to eat and he took us to #1 on the list called
Maria's Jimenez Restaurante Mexicano. This is probably the happiest Brian was on our entire trip. He talks
about this place nonstop! You can just tell from that cute grin he could eat there everyday.
It is this
cute little restaurant in a hut right across from an elementary school
in a Mexican neighborhood off the beaten path.
I got a picture with this lady because I thought she was Maria, but then the real Maria showed up :)
She definitely had a little more pizazz!
Top
left is what Brian is still craving. A really good authentic sope.
Luckily Los Aldabertos has sopes, obviously not as good as Maria's, but it still helps
to curve the craving we both have for them!
One of our adventures in Cabo was kayaking on the ocean. Brian rowed us out to the point and we were told that it was a unique year to be in Cabo because there is only sand underneath the arch every five years, so we got to see it in all it's glory.
Brian was sweet and told me I didn't have to row unless I wanted to...so I didn't row much. HA!
All our of pictures would have looked like the ones above if this nice lady hadn't have offered to take our picture. Definitely much cooler! I took her's too and emailed it to her, but she never responded. Hope she got em.
While we were on the beach in between our kayaking and snorkeling we ran into friends from back home. I was actually an adviser in Young Women's and this girl was in one of the other classes in our old ward. We seem to always run into people from that ward in the strangest places. We saw the bishop of that ward when we were in Hawaii. Is this a sign we will be back in that ward someday....hhhmm.
Brian LOVES to snorkel. It was probably one of the things he was most
looking forward to doing and our friend let us borrow her underwater
camera which makes me so happy to have these pictures where we usually
wouldn't have taken a camera. The water was on the colder side and the day we went was kind of choppy, but we were still able to see some cool tropical fish and wear ourselves out. I wore a lifejacket and floated a long the top of the water and really enjoyed myself. Brian on the other hand was already tired from kayaking and then didn't wear a life-jacket so it is just a miracle to me that he didn't drown.
I was soooo looking forward to ziplining. Maybe it is because I have seen a million dates on the Bachelor where they go on a date zip lining, and all of a sudden their relationship has "reached new heights" or they feel like now "they can accomplish anything because they had conquered a fear". It was built up just a bit in my mind and the experience didn't fail to disappoint. It was such a fun day and we ended up in a great group with some fun newlywed's Everyone was shocked that we had three kids because we were all about the same age.
There were employees taking pictures all along the way and when it got time to view the images there was no way we wanted to pay $40 bucks for the CD, so I just asked the guy if I could take some pictures of his pictures and he said sure. Sweet. It was a great experience! We repelled backwards, forwards, linked with my ankles on his shoulders
and then a special butterfly honeymoon special way. Too funny!
The first night in Cabo we walked all around the downtown area and there was obviously a touristy side and then the side the locals were on. It was pretty awesome on our first venture into the locals territory because I could tell that one of us was a bit nervous about it. I guess I am just too naive to think anything could happen to us, but Brian watches the news so he knows that some bad stuff goes down in Mexico. It probably hasn't helped that he has also watched a lot of Gangland too. Everywhere we ate they served guacamole and I loaded it on everything. Brian is not a big fan of the stuff but he got into the spirit of it all and ate it right along with me.
One of the days we went to San Lucas del Cabo and walked around the ritzy art distric and had lunch. We ran across this shop where you could watch the workers make glass and shape and color it. The entire time I was just so thankful to not have any kids in that store because there was just so much stuff that was breakable (it was just stressing me out)!
Lobster and steak dinner at the The Crazy Lobster. Blurry picture, but I still like it.
We were on the beach one night and according to our Google translator it said I should write Amos Cabo to write "We love Cabo". Well this local Mexican dude walked by and shook his head at me and wrote Amo Cabo. Had to laugh at that one!
We went to Walmart way too much this trip and had WAY TOO MUCH FUN! The panderia was an experience all in itself and made for some great late night snacking!
The dollar to peso exchange always had me confused so I was glad we had our trusty phone and currency converter app because we really needed it, especially when we were bartering at the markets.
After we had done all of our activities we had one full day left in Cabo and it needed to be filled so of course parasailing seemed the obvious choice. We met up with the company on the beach and took a water boat taxi out to our boat with the parasail. I was expecting to be blasted with wind and get soaking wet and be scared and have that rush feeling... it was completely the opposite. We just sailed along peacefully floating through the sky, and the only reason we got wet was because the boat guy asked us if we wanted to dip our feet into the ocean on the way back into the boat. Brian kicked his feet in the water getting me wet, but we came out of it all pretty dry. So glad we did this especially before the news hit about the two girls in Florida who had a terrible accident when they went parasailing.
We found this yummy breakfast buffet and they served Jugo Verde which was a mix of pineapple and apple juice, cactus, spinach, celery, parsley and (I am sure I am forgetting some stuff). It was so refreshing and it was fun to walk along the beach with my special drink :) I have made it a few times since I got home but have never got it to quite the same consistency. Guess we've got to go back. Ha! I will add here that Brian thought it was nasty!
The last night in Cabo we went on a sunset fajita dinner cruise. It may have been a terrible mistake, but we made the best of it.We should have realized when we got our Corona wrist bands that everyone was going to get wasted. Luckily they had a lot of yummy virgin drinks and the dinner was pretty good.
We split our time with the party crowd on the top of the boat where I put the moves on Brian since no one was paying attention and then on the lower deck with the "family" crown.
What's a trip without some souvenirs... These pretty girls wore their dresses to church one Sunday and now these outfits are their designated swimsuit coverups.
Sadie was the only one willing to sit for an individual picture.
A few more trinkets.
It was a great trip, but we were happy to get back home to our babies. We definitely have the traveling bug though and hope to do a Disneyland and then China/Korea this next year. Cross our fingers it all works out!!
