Obvs I have neglected this blog. I'm dusting it off and sharing information you might (or might not haha) want to know! Coronavirus put a damper on my travels for the past year, so I bought furniture instead. It was long overdue for replacement, but hey, who wants to spend money on boring stuff when you can travel to fun and interesting places?!
I'm going to attempt to get caught up from my last post which was, ahem, several years ago. (Cringe)
I have begun the awesome tradition of going somewhere, usually warm, for my birthday, which is in January (email me if you want to send a gift 😏 ). This year I decided to go to Cabo San Lucas, which is on the Baja Peninsula in Mexico. I've been looking at this destination for a few years, but plane tickets were very high. I planned the trip back in July 2020, and low and behold, tickets were half the price! Yay! I really thought COVID would be over by January, but that was wishful thinking. I had a friend lined up to go with me, and we debated on whether to go because the USA implemented a required negative COVID test to get back into the country. But hey, YOLO, right?! It was fine, actually. They had many COVID procedures in place, and many people thanked us for putting money into their economy. You're welcome, my friends. Such nice people. I checked a few things off my bucket list on this trip: whale watching, riding horses on the beach, camel riding, and sailing!
Anyway, Cabo was on my list because - whale watching! Humpback and Grey Whales come south from the Alaska area to breed and give birth to their babies, and let me tell you, they did not disappoint! Some areas of Cabo are high up from the beach, and we could see the water spouts of whales all along the coastline. One of our first activities was whale watching. On the boat ride out to find whales we passed this famous landmark: This is called, simply, The Arch. Doesn't it look like a dragon getting a drink from the ocean? Right away we saw a humpback whale with a baby (this is the baby):
They bring them to this tip of the Baja Peninsula to build up their strength for the long swim back to their feeding grounds in Alaska. This is a baby humpback whale in the top picture. The whale would kind of "jump" out of the water and we could see its snout, as you can see here. The second one is the mama. Did you know that female humpback whales can grow to 56 feet long? Trust me, you can't see them clearly in these pictures, but what we could see was massive.
On the same trip we also saw a gray whale, and it came within 20 feet of our boat, which was such a gift! We could clearly see it's blowhole. When we first found it, it did this:
It's as though it was as curious of us as we were of it. It stayed just like this for about 2 minutes. Finally, it swam towards our boat:
We were required by law to stay a certain distance away from the whales, but we could just stay in one spot if they approached us, which this gray whale did. We could clearly see the barnacles attached to it.
We had a great time horseback riding, and the ride lasted about 1 1/2 hours, which was great. I had horses growing up, so I was very familiar with riding them. It's just like getting back into the saddle. Literally. LOL. We saw lots of wildlife, including some birds I had never seen before. There was a lady taking our pictures as we rode, but sadly she didn't get pictures of those. We passed a mini farm that had lots of goats, and some of them were near the road watching us as we road by:
On the way back from the beach we could hear goats in the distance, and I called out "BAAAA". It sounded like the entire herd answered me back haha. Our guide had a good chuckle over that one.
The beaches in Cabo were beautiful, but dangerous riptides abound, so there were actually very few places along the beach that were safe to get into the water. Here we are riding along the countryside and the beach:
On another day we rode ATVs. I let Dawn drive because she's the daredevil and I'm not. Let's just say I'm glad I survived. She's crazy! We did see a wild donkey, though, so that was cool. Here's a picture of one (this is a stock photo - we weren't allowed to take our phones/cameras with us):
We went on a sunset sailing cruise the night before we left, and it was amazing! I would love to sail again, maybe out in more open water, but this was good for a first experience. They told us before we left the marina not to lean against the sails, but to hold on to the railing as we walked. Then here when they wanted to take our picture (where we are standing up), I couldn't hold onto the rail because of the sail, and they said "Just lean on the sail"! Um, hard no on that one.
As I mentioned before, the people were very nice. I've been to Mexico several times, so this wasn't a surprise at all. We stayed at the Marina Fiesta Resort right on the huge marina, which was surrounded by shops and restaurants. We went to one particular restaurant several times called Alexander's. The wait staff was very entertaining. It got pretty cold at night, and much of the seating was outside, and they provided lap blankets for the patrons, plus free hugs to keep you warm! This was a nice touch. The food here was amazing! The last night we ate here they asked us if we would like to meet the chef and tour the kitchen. Yes, please! Here are some of my favorite pictures of our dining here:
Did I say we road camels?! Who knew they had camels in Mexico? Not me, but darn if I wasn't going to ride one. I didn't buy any of the pictures of us riding them (this was the same trip as the ATV death ride, I mean, fun ride). But I did get a pic with this "little" baby:
You can see the ocean behind us, and it was very windy that day. While I was standing here waiting for them to take the picture I felt water sprinkling on the backs of my legs. I remember thinking at first that we were too far from the beach for it to be the spray off the ocean. Then it hit me. I looked behind me, and that little bugger was peeing and the wind was blowing it on the backs of my legs. Ew. Ew. Ew. He was sweet though, so I forgave him.
For my birthday I wanted a break from Mexican food and decided to get a burger. The restaurant gave me this cake for my birthday, too. It was delicious!
Here are some random pictures around the marina. We saw lots of pufferfish, which I had never seen in person before. Sorry for the poor picture quality of the fish, but I wasn't in the water with a waterproof camera. The locals called the penguins Mexican chickens!
I hope you have enjoyed reading about this trip! I had so much fun, and I would definitely go back here. Let me know in the comments if you have been to Cabo San Lucas, and what your favorite memory is!
