We flew into Dallas first to change planes. Dallas wasn't really all that interesting, at least not from our extremely limited perspective.
We had about an hour lay over, so we thought we had plenty of time for Kevin to go outside and smoke, and to grab a bite to eat. Suddenly, we realized we only had about 20 minutes until the plane was to leave, and we weren't even close to where our exit terminal was. Neither of us had been to this airport, so we didn't know about the fancy little monorail system they have that takes you to all the gates (it's that big!). We finally found the monorail, and just as we got off to where our terminal was, we heard our names being paged over the loudspeaker. How embarassing! We barely made it.
When we flew into the Mexican airport, it was...weird. We got to exit the plane on one of those little metal staircases that are usually reserved for presidents and movie stars or musical legends like Elton John, so that was pretty fancy.
But once we got inside...ay yay yay! You have to fill out all the stupid visa and customs forms, but there are no pens in sight. We had to wait there for like 10 minutes, begging passerby's to use their pen. Finally, we made it in, where we were immediately introduced to what I view as the driving force behind the destination economy: Timeshare salesmen (notice I said men and not people? That's because they were ALLLLLL MEN). We wasted about 15 minutes listening to this guy go on and on about how he could get us this and that for free, and all we had to do was sit down for 90 minutes with this company and listen to their "presentation". We had read up on this stuff before we got there, so we just said no thanks and went outside to catch a taxi. Taxi. For 15 miles. 40 dollars, plus tip!!!! We didn't care though...we just wanted to be out of the airport and away from all the leeches.
We got to our hotel, and were greeted with a lovely host who brought in our luggage, and gave us a couple glasses of champagne. We checked in and went up to our room after a brief tour of the hotel. WOW! It was so beautiful!
The setting was very romantic, and perfect for honeymooners. We wasted no time, and went right down to the pool. The pool was surrounded by palapas beds, but most of them were taken, so we opted for the loveseat style chairs on the other side.
They had a swim up bar in the pool, so you could just go hang out in the pool, and pretty much do whatever. During the day, they would have little activities, like volleyball and bingo, or dance lessons, but we just kept to ourselves most of the time we were there. They also had an upstairs hot tub with more of the palapas beds, and little couch seating set up by some really pretty fire pits. They also had a swim up bar, and the view of the ocean from the hot tub was amazing! They also had a nightclub in the hotel, which we went to one night, but that wasn't really our thing, so we just went back to the room and looked out over our patio.
We did some research about this place, and a lot of the advice we heard was not to take the taxi into San Lucas, but to take the public bus.
To take the bus, it costs about 23 pesos, or about $2.30 US. A taxi costs 40 dollars each way, so this was DEFINITELY worth it. On Monday, we took the bus into town. We met a local homeless guy that made his living by being a "guide" to tourists. He told us a lot of the hot spots, and gave us some good tips.
He also showed us where to get off the bus (a big help!). When we got off, we gave him some money and were on our way. We walked up to the marina and spent some time looking at all the boats, and seeing all the local vendors with their things for sale, flea market style.
Pretty much everyone that is there is selling something, wether it's entrance into their restaurant, trinkets behind the fence, or water taxi's to hotels and events. We decided to do some snorkeling. The guy took us out on his boat, which was a glass bottom boat, so we could see in the water as we were going.
He took us to Pelican Rock where he let us out to do our thing. They gave us flippers and snorkels. Kevin had an easier time with this than I did...I have a "thing" about not being able to breath through my nose, so I fought it for the first 15 minutes or so. But, once I got comfortable, it was incredible! These fish would swim right up to your face! We were in school of fish, everywhere, and the really bright tropical fish! It was looking at one of those computer screen savers, but in real life! The water was super clear, and you could see the sand below even. There was a reef around the area we went to, and when we swam up to it, there were little sponges and fish and all sorts of sea life on it. We saw some puffer fish, big fish, little fish, red fish blue fish...all sorts of fish. Then, the guy took us to Lover's Beach. This is where on one side you have the Sea of Cortez, and the other side is the Pacific Ocean. The Sea side was really calm, and you could swim, or just wade in the water. The other side was massive rip tides with huge waves crashing against the rocks and beach. Kevin tried to play chicken with the tide a couple times, so one wave came up pretty quick and I tried to grab him to "save" him, which caused me to lose by balance and be knocked right on my back/tushy. Luckily we were ok, but it made for quite a site to the others on the beach. When we went back into the marina, we found out that the people we shared our boat with were also from Utah. Provo, in fact. How crazy! We showered off and did a little bit of shopping. We got all the souviniers for the kids, and a few for ourselves.
We went into town on Thursday and met another local who of course was doing the timeshare sales thing. He offered us a deal on an ATV package, so we went and did that for most of the day. It was about 3 and a half hours, but it was awesome! They took us through these really pretty desert trails, with cactus and greenery everywhere, then out to the beach.
We were able to have about a half an hour of play time, then it was back to town. We decided to give the timeshare ploy a shot, because these guys are RUTHLESS! They offered us 300 dollars, US, just to go to this stupid thing, plus free parasailing, so we decided oh why not. We knew we weren't going to buy anything, no matter what they had to say.
So, the next morning, we got up bright and early to show up to the presentation. Here's what we were told:
90 minutes of our time
Free taxi to and from our hotel
Free parasailing for 2 people
Free breakfast buffet
300 dollars cash, US
Here's what we actually got:
3 hours of our time, not including travel time
Free taxi to and from our hotel
Free parasailing
Free eggs and orange juice (we were "asked" to leave the tip)
2500 pesos, which ended up being less than 200 US because of the exchange rate we got in Dallas.
It was a little aggravating, but I guess it was worth it. The parasailing was sooo incredible.
Totally one of the best things I've ever done in my life. Not what we expected at all! They hook you up with a life vest and a little harness that you just sit in. You sit on the back of the boat, and before you know it, you're in the air! Then they gently reel you back in. We got to see the arch, the beaches, everything. Very cool.
So this brings me to the meals. Every night that we ate, it was like artwork. Everything was so pretty and carefully prepared.
We got to pick and choose what we wanted from the menu, including appetizers, soup, salad, main dishes, and dessert. We even tried sushi one night! Gross. But, we lived! Friday night we had the Italian menu, so I tried some mushroom thing with goat cheese. Tasted alright...I know I don't really have the taste buds for food like that normally, so I didn't think much of the tanginess. The next morning, we had to get up around 5.15 so we could make it to the airport in time. I figured I wasn't feeling well from the parasailing the day before, and waking up early sometimes makes me queazy. Um, yeah, I pretty much barfed for about 20 minutes at the airport, and every 15 minutes thereafter. After we had our luggage checked by security, we were waiting to get our tickets and check our bags. I knew I needed to go to the bathroom again, but couldn't until they were done with our ID checks. So I'm standing there holding my mouth, looking around for garbage cans just in case, when one of the airport workers comes up and asks me in broken english if I'm ok. He asked if I was intoxicated, I said no, he asked if I had food poisoning, etc etc, I said I think I was just car sick and I would be ok. He told me they were going to check before I got on the plane. So, we went and waited for our plane (which was a little late), and I was STILL sick! As we're on our way out the gate, 3 different men asked me if I was ok, and Kevin said something like, Hopefully, and the guy looked at us very seriously and said, "No, she HAS to be ok". So I just lied through my teeth and said I was feeling fine, because I didn't want to sit in the Mexican airport with the pukes. After all of this, I realized I had food poisoning (which is funny for those of you who don't know-I had food poisoning on my first honeymoon, too!). Thankfully by the time we got to Dallas, it was a little better, but then mother nature kicked in and I had horrific cramps. I couldn't take any pain relievers, for fear that I wouldn't be able to keep them down, so I just put my knees up and tried to sleep through the ride.
We got into town around 4 on Saturday. It was bitter-sweet. Nice to be home, but Mexico was incredible. We learned so much about their culture and lifestyle, and everything there was just so perfect. Hopefully we'll be able to go back again one day, but in the meantime, I can speak for both of us when I say that this was the BEST week of our lives! If you want to see the rest of the pictures from our trip, click here: http://s164.photobucket.com/albums/u25/countryinheart/Kevin%20and%20Family/Mexico%202008/
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