Baja (September 19 - September 24, 1998)

Before I can begin to talk about this trip, I think a bit of a prelude is in order. My two friends (Rob Stark & Robert Eastman), and I had begun to discuss taking this trip as far back as late 1997. The dates of trip were up in the air for months. The main reason for this, is the company I work for was planning a move to a new warehouse, and the projected moving dates changed frequently. Once dates for the move were determined, our trip was planned.

We wanted to fly into La Paz, spend two nights there, take the bus down to Cabo San Lucas, spend 3 nights there, then fly home out of Cabo. We had been checking the Internet, and found air fares no lower than $256. However, Eastman was able to call Aero California vacations, and get a couple of different rates. The first rate he got was for two nights in La Paz at the Cabañas de Los Arcos and three nights in Cabo at the Plaza Las Glorias. The rate was somewhere near $450 per person (I think). Robert also got a rate for the air fare and the two nights hotel in La Paz only, which was $318.62 per person. We also determined that we could book a room directly with Hotel Mar de Cortez in Cabo for $70.76 per person for 3 nights. Done this way, the total for the trip would be $389.38, which would save us about $60 each. Now, the Plaza Las Glorias is a beautiful hotel, and we would have loved to stay there, but we figured we wanted to save money for this trip.

Saturday, September 19

We got to the airport (LAX) at about 6:00 am for our 7:45 am flight. As opposed to last year, the line at the airport was very small. We checked in, were allowed to carry on all our luggage, and headed to McDonald's for a quick breakfast. We got to the gate, and boarded the flight at about 7:25 am. The flight actually left a bit early, around 7:40 am. There were 23 passengers on our approximately 130-seat DC-9 airplane.

The flight arrived in La Paz at about 10:30 am La Paz time (one hour ahead of LA). As we went through Mexican customs, I became the first of us to ever get a "red light" for inspection. I only had two bags with me, so the search was quick and easy. We had free transfers to our hotel in La Paz through Aero California, in fact a woman was waiting for us at the gate.

The weather was near perfect for us, as it was throughout the trip. The temperature was about 100 F, with medium to high humidity. We got to the hotel, checked in, and immediately went looking for a store to buy beers. One of my only complaints about La Paz is that there are very few markets along the "malecon" waterfront. Mostly restaurants, hotels, and small shops.

After walking up to about Carlos N Charlies, we spotted a pickup truck being driven by Federal Officers. Robert politely asked where we could find a market. The officer asked what we needed to buy, and I guess Robert didn't want to tell him "beer", so he told him "groceries". The man told us to hop in the back. Well, it was some drive. The men took us through downtown, all the way to a supermarket about 10 blocks in from the malecon, and approximately 3 blocks north of Carlos N Charlies. I must admit, it was very kind of these men to go out of their way to take us to this market.

We bought our beer and ice, and walked back to our hotel. It took about 15 minutes to get back to the room. By the way, in La Paz, we were getting 10 pesos to the dollar everywhere. From there, we decided to head to the Hotel Los Arcos to play ping-pong and sit in the pool for a bit. Well, as it turns out, the pool at the Los Arcos is under construction. So, we played a few games of ping-pong for about 2 hours, before deciding to head back to the pool at the Cabañas for a swim. Before we left, we talked to a girl who worked at the hotel, about taking a boat to Isla Espiritu Santo. The hotel could arrange trips, for about $100 a person. We talked her down to $80 per person for the boat, which included having the driver take us anywhere we wanted to go. This was still too much for us, so we told her we would think about it. We headed to the Cabañas pool, and once we got there, we found a birthday party going on. A few local family and friends had gathered for a boy's 9^th birthday party. So, we shared the pool with many young kids.

We relaxed, drinking our ice cold Modelos, juiced up with limes picked fresh off the tree just behind the pool area. As I mentioned before, the weather was perfect. After about two hours, we were getting a bit hungry, so we headed to the room, took showers, changed, and left for one of the restaurants along the malecon. To be quite honest, La Paz was empty as far as tourists go. There were very few Americans there, mostly locals. We did see a few Orientals and Europeans. Still, nothing near the amount of tourists we normally see in the city. We ate dinner at one of the restaurants on the malecon (I didn't catch the name), and headed back to the room by about 8:00 pm. We finished our beers while sitting at an outdoor table and chair set placed just outside our room. We were up until a little after midnight, before heading to bed.

Sunday, September 20

Our original plans for this trip called for us to go to Isla Espiritu Santo on this day. However, after having woken up early on the morning before to fly to La Paz, and drinking a bit the night before, we decided to sleep in, and enjoy our vacation.

We awoke around 9:30 am, took turns taking showers, and headed to the Hotel Lorimar to see about breakfast. Well, the restaurant at the Lorimar was closed, so we walked to the Terrazza restaurant, located at the Hotel La Perla on the malecon. We ate a slow, good breakfast, and headed back to the room at about 1:00 pm. We then headed out to catch a taxi, to take us to the bus station to buy our tickets for the ride to Cabo the next morning. We found a driver willing to take us to the station, wait for us, and then take us back to our hotel for 60 pesos, or $6 total.

We got to the bus station and bought our tickets for 71 pesos each. The busses to Cabo leave at 7am, 8am, 9am, and 11am. Of course, we were looking for a 10am ride, but settled on the 9am bus. Once we returned to the hotel, we decided to play ping-pong, so we headed to the Los Arcos. After ping-pong, we headed back to our room, then to the pool. We sat at the pool for a bit, talking a lot while children swam in the water. We met a couple of guys from California - Bud Terrell from Seal Beach and his brother Tom from San Luis Obispo. They had flown to Cabo and taken a rented van up Highway 19 to La Paz, while looking for good surf spots. They found good spots by Todos Santos.

During our discussion, the topic of ping-pong was brought up, so we agreed to all meet at the Los Arcos for a couple of friendly games. At about 6:30 pm, Bud and Tom showed up, and we played a few games while discussing various Baja trips, and our "alternate" lives back in California. We also decided to have dinner together that night. We decided at about 8:00 pm, to head back to our rooms to shower and change, then all go out for dinner. We met at the lobby of our hotel at about 9:15pm, then headed to the restaurant on the malecon, next to the one we had eaten at the night before (sorry, I just can't remember these names). After a good dinner, the 5 of us decided to head to Carlos N Charlies for late drinks. We sat back and watched as many cars and trucks drove by the malecon honking their horns in what seemed like support for a political candidate (I had heard rumors that this day was election day in La Paz). It was a bit eerie, but right at midnight, the traffic thinned out, and by 12:05 am, all vehicles were virtually gone! I guess the locals didn't want to be late to work the next day. We got back to our rooms, said goodbye to our new friends, and went straight to sleep.

Monday, September 21

We got up at about 7 am, showered and packed quickly, and got a cab to take us to the bus station. We got to the station at about 8:40, which left us 20 minutes to wait. At about 8:55am, we checked in our big bags and cooler, to fit under the bus. Then we boarded. One thing I liked about this ride as opposed to last year, is we had assigned seats. Stark and I sat in seats 5 & 6 (second row, left side of the bus), while Eastman sat in seat 7 (second row, aisle seat). The bus ride was easy, along Highway 19. We did notice two major washouts, which took us off the road. Running water was still flowing from these washouts, which I believe were the result of the hurricane which hit the region about two weeks ago. Road crews were there, but the work appeared to be going slow, as there is a lot of work to be done.

We got to Cabo very early, at about 11:20 am. We decided to take the short walk from the bus station to our hotel, and along the way passed our favorite breakfast spot, the "white" restaurant (again, the name escapes me). We stopped and asked until what time they served breakfast. They told us 12 noon, so we hustled to the hotel, quickly checked in, and headed straight for the restaurant, arriving at about 11:50 am. After a quick breakfast, we headed first to the bank to exchange dollars into pesos.

On this day, most of the exchange booths were giving anywhere from 9.7-9.9 pesos to the dollar, while the bank gave 10.10. We never went back to the bank, but the next three days the change booths were down to 9.6-9.7.

We then headed to the store to stock up on the essentials - beer, ice, and water. After the store, we strolled back to the room to change into our beach wear. We took the street to the marina, headed through the marina to the Hacienda Hotel, then straight through the hotel to the beach. This walk took about 20 minutes. We unloaded our towels and beers in front of Billygan's restaurant, and headed straight into the water. The water was extremely warm, I would guess around 85-90 degrees F.

As in La Paz, the weather in Cabo was simply perfect (for us, anyway). Probably about 95-100 F, with medium to high humidity. Great for swimming. With the warm water, the perfect weather, and the music pumping from Billygan's, the atmosphere was "pure vacation". My only two complaints - the taxi boats and jet skis which have populated this beach, leave an odor of gasoline in the air when they are nearby. My other complaint, is that the water was extremely saline. I know the water in Cabo is salty anyway, but this was the worst I had seen it (or should I say, tasted it). Other than these two very minor disturbances, the setting was tremendous.

As in La Paz, Cabo seemed a bit slow as far as tourists are concerned. During the course of our trip, we talked to a couple of different people on the beach, who told us that this was the "slow" season down there - in between late-Summer and mid-Fall. According to employees at the restaurants, business would begin booming again around mid- to late-October. Anyway, after a couple of hours in the beautiful water, we decided to head up to Billygan's to get a snack. It was Happy Hour (between 2pm and 7pm), so we ordered Pina Coladas at 35 pesos each ($3.50). Turns out it was 35 pesos for two very large Coladas - what a steal!

We ate a decent lunch/dinner, then headed back to our room at about 7:00 pm. We jumped into the hotel pool for a bit, until Stark decided he wanted to take a shower. Eastman and I stayed down in the pool, until Stark called that he was out of the shower and dressed. After showering, we headed out to Squid Row for a bit of drinking. Squid Row was a bit busy, but not nearly as we had seen in the past. We stayed at Squid Row the rest of the night, leaving around 12:30 am to head back to the room, to go to sleep.

Tuesday, September 22

After a long but terrific day on Monday, we decided to sleep in a bit on Tuesday, not waking until near 10:30 am. Since the day before had been so good, we also decided to basically "carbon copy" it. We showered, ate breakfast at our "white" restaurant, went to the store for more beer, ice and water, then back to the room to change into our beach gear, then straight to the beach. We arrived about an hour earlier than the day before, getting to the beach at about 12:45 pm.

The day was spent much like the day before, with the first part of the day spent relaxing in the water, while the second part was spent up at Billygan's, drinking huge $1.75 Pina Coladas and eating our late lunch. After the beach, we again decided on heading to Squid Row to relax and unwind. This time we stayed out only until about 12:00 midnight, heading for the room and a good night's sleep.

Wednesday, September 23

With the days on our vacation dwindled down to one, a choice had to be made - do we stick with our original plan, and head to Chileno Bay for a day of snorkeling, or do we do what we had enjoyed so much the previous two days - go straight to the beach? Our choice was made a bit easier because of the slight winds which blew throughout the Cabo area during our trip. We knew Chileno would be a bit rough for snorkeling, so it was unanimously voted on to head back to the beach!

We awoke rather early (9:00 am), ate our breakfast, and headed to the beach. We decided against taking the cooler this day, since we were going to drink Pina Coladas later anyway. We didn't need any more beers. Our day was very similar to Monday and Tuesday, with swimming dominating the early afternoon, and Billygan's having the late afternoon/early evening. We ended up staying at Billygan's until after dark, not leaving until near 7:45 pm. Afterwards, it was back to the room to shower and change, then to Squid Row again for more drinks. We got back to our room at about 12:30 am on our last night in Cabo.

Thursday, September 24

We woke up early, at about 9:30 am. While showering and preparing to go to breakfast, the three of us talked about how we wished we had an earlier flight home. Our flight was not until 6:05 pm. Stark also realized that he did not have his sunglasses. He believes that he left them at Billygan's the night before.

We ate breakfast, then headed to the beach, although not in our beach gear. We sat at Billygan's for a couple of hours, having ordered Pina Coladas at the regular price of 30 pesos each. We talked about the great time we had during our trip, and the possibilities of another vacation sometime in the near future. Stark asked the waiter from the night before about his sunglasses, but they had not seen them.

At about 2:15 pm, we decided to head back to our hotel, where we took quick rinse-off showers, checked out, and waited for our bus to arrive to take us to the airport. We left our hotel at about 3:35 (the bus was on time, but we had to wait for a couple of people who were late arriving), and the bus headed down Highway 1 towards San Jose del Cabo. There were two more road washouts, both fairly serious, and numerous other places where, while the road was passable, construction was going on.

We finally arrived at the airport at about 4:15 pm. We checked in very quickly, and headed to the airport restaurant for a quick bite to eat before our flight. We then walked to the gate to wait to board the plane. Our flight was a bit delayed, and we did not depart Los Cabos until 6:20 pm. We made good time, though, arriving back in Los Angeles at 7:15 pm local time. We made it through customs very easily (we had nothing to declare), and were greeted at the airport by Anna (Stark's wife), Martha (Eastman's wife), and Eastman's two children, Megan, and Roberto. Anna dropped me off at my parents, where my wife Martha was waiting to take me home.