Our limo picked us up at 7am for a quick ride to the SFO airport. It's just three hours non-stop to the Cabo San Lucas airport. We rented a car and drove 45 minutes south, past San Jose Del Cabo and into Cabo San Lucas. We quickly learned that any time you turn off the main road, you're on a dirt road. Our hotel, the Melia San Lucas, turned out to be a very nice one, shaped like a giant "U" facing the ocean. The center area contained two pools (one with a bar in the middle) and lots of palm trees. After checking in we had lunch by the pool and then decided to walk into town and check things out. The town is centered around the marina, with lots of loud looking restaurants and bars along the main strip. We walked all the way across town, and then up over a small hill and out to the pacific. There were some amazing hotels carved right into the rocks overlooking the water. We even ran into the people who had been standing in line behind us at the airport in San Francisco. Back at our hotel we had a drink pool side, then went inside for a nap.

Around 8pm we woke up and headed back into town. It was Halloween night, and all the kids were walking around asking for candy. We picked a restaurant that didn't look too loud, but had a good view of the people walking by. Cabo can be a pretty loud place, think 'drunk Americans on spring break' and you have a pretty good idea. It was a lot of fun. Afterwards we made our way back to the hotel (dirt roads are interesting in the dark when you're a bit buzzed).

Friday morning we had some breakfast in the hotel (delicious mini-french toast!). Then we made reservations to ride ATVs in the afternoon and headed down to the beach where we rented a pair of jet-skis for an hour. We rode out to "The Arch" and "Lover's Beach", bounced around on the waves and had lots of fun. Afterwards we had lunch overlooking the water, each getting what turned out to be a giant pizza. It seems that the portion sizes in Cabo are very large, probably has to do with feeding the rather large tourists who seem to abound...

At 3:30 a van picked us up and took us to the ATV company. It was a group of about a dozen people and we were led through some of the less traveled parts of the town before reaching the giant sand dunes overlooking the Pacific Ocean. We spent about an hour and a half buzzing around on the dunes and through some fun winding trails. Just before sunset we made our way to the highest point we could find. It was really nice to just sit and relax and watch the sun go down. We were laughing at how great it is that we both enjoy the same types of things when we travel. The ride back into town was in the dark, which was an adventure all by itself.

After showering back at the hotel (we were really grubby after a few hours in the sand!) we walked back into town looking for a restaurant called "Mi Casa" that our friend Craig had recommended. When we found it we were surprised by how busy it was. It took about 45 minutes to get a table, but the margaritas were very tasty so we didn't mind too much. Mi Casa is an open air restaurant, with the table area gently sloping up a small incline. The walls are very brightly colored and the waiters were very friendly. There were a number of pretty loud groups making lots of noise, but that kind of went with the atmosphere. True to Craig's description, by the end of the evening we had met the people at the next table and chatted with them for a bit. Afterwards we wobbled our way back to the hotel (hmmm, kind of a trend appearing here...)

Saturday morning we woke up late, had a leisurely breakfast, and then headed for the pool. The margaritas and daiquiris were great, and they kept them coming. We had a big stack of magazines that we read under a big straw umbrella (moving our lounge chairs as the sun moved). We had a wonderful time chatting and reading, watching the other guests (many of whom were sitting at the bar in the pool). We even had some nice eye candy as 'the pool boy' and a friend played water volleyball in front of us. He clearly liked the attention. As the sun started to get low in the sky we decided it was time to head inside. Neither of us could remember when we had spent a whole day at the pool and had so much fun. We had dinner at a small Italian place called 'La Trattoria', then we walked around a bit and headed back to the room to sleep.

Sunday we had 11am reservations on the Oceanus to take us snorkeling. We arrived at the boat just in time, then set sail for a small bay about an hour to the east. We spent about half an hour snorkeling, then went down to about 15 feet in a pair of mini-subs. They were kind of crazy contraptions that made all kinds of weird bubbling/ringing noises inside and only went about 3 miles per hour, but they made us laugh and we got to see some fun fish, including a tiny little puffer fish that really wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else!

On the trip back we got a real treat when the captain spotted a gray whale off the front of the boat. We followed it for a while, seeing the waterspout and parts of it's back every ten minutes or so. Then we passed by the arch and sailed back into port. We had lunch at "El Viejo", a restaurant with a 6 story tower above it which gave us a good view of the harbor.

For dinner we went to a nice restaurant named "Edith's". It was much quieter that Friday night, open air, nice atmosphere. We had a great time and lots of great food (almost too much food, three lobster tails is more than one person could possibly eat!)

Monday we had decided to drive around the peninsula. We headed north on highway 19, along the west coast of Baja. The terrain was very dry, with lots of cactus (which Rick liked very much). About an hour and a half later we headed east, over a couple of mountain passes towards the Sea of Cortez. Heading south we arrived at the airport a couple of hours before our flight. After a quick Subway sandwich to restore our energy, we checked in. There were a few clouds around, and we actually felt a few sprinkles as we got on the plane, it was the first rain we had seen on the entire trip.

Mexico was a great long-weekend vacation: warm weather, friendly people, lots of fun activities and great margaritas.
We definitely enjoyed it.