Cabo Trip 2010

Logan and I just got back from spending last week at our timeshare in Cabo, Mexico.  We bought the timeshare last year when we were at the resort for Mike and Leanne’s wedding.  (Funny story – I was dragging Logan along to go swim with the dolphins, for “free”, but before we could get to the dolphin swimming, we were required to sit through a timeshare presentation and eat a “free” meal.  No problem.  4 hours later, we were signing papers to buy our timeshare, which we will own for the next 25 years… and we never got to swim with the dolphins.  Truthfully though, they were practically giving them away due to the swine flu epidemic last year, and we decided this would make the perfect wedding gift to each other, so we went for it.)

Anyway, this was our first time to use our timeshare, and we had a blast!  Chris and Leslie Thomas met us out there halfway through the week, but the first few days it was just Logan and I. 

Here we are, right after getting to our room.    
And now for the requisite tour that I always feel I should provide:  Here is the entryway.  Directly to the right is the bedroom, which you can’t see.  The door in the hallway is the guest bathroom, and farther down the hall is the living room. 
Bedroom.

Master bathroom.
 
Our unit actually has two patios.  This is the back one off the bedroom.  You can’t tell in the picture, but past the trees we had a great view of the ocean.

Looking off our patio at what became our favorite breakfast restaurant, Girasoles.  All you can eat and drink breakfast for $14.99.  Not bad!
 
Guest bathroom.

Living room.
 
From the other side of the living room.  (We had a tiny kitchen.)
 
Our back patio had a jacuzzi tub on in.  Nice in theory, but I wonder if people ever actually use it?

View from the back patio.
  
The next day we rented a car and drove to the Wal-Mart grocery store to stock up on food for the week.  Definitely a different experience from the American grocery store.  How could I not take a picture of the fresh octopus for sale?

They had TONS of fresh fish, but the germ-conscious nurse in me couldn’t help but wonder why they were all out in the open and not behind some plexi-glass…

Ugh. 
 
After unloading all of our groceries, we headed down to the beach for a while. 

The water in Cabo is SO blue.  And the waves were actually fairly calm this day. 

That evening, the resort had a party Celebrating the 200 th Anniversary of Mexican Independence Day.  They had tons of food and a Mariachi band. 

They also had traditional Mexican dancing. 

We headed back up to our room to catch the sunset, and saw a cruise ship leaving port.  I had no idea how big those boats are. 

Pretty nice way to end the day, right?

I loved this picture – You can see the moon, one of the planets, and the sun setting all at once. 

That night we ate dinner at Pitahayas, which is a fancy seafood restaurant at the resort.  We had a great view of the pool, and the ocean.  (The ocean pictures didn’t turn out though.)

Pitahayas restaurant is in a giant “tiki hut” type building, and at night they light up the ceiling with pretty lights. 

The next day, we attended our “free” owners brunch where we thought we were just going to discuss how we liked our timeshare.  If you haven’t figured it out yet,  nothing in Mexico is free.  :)  We did get the free breakfast, but we basically sat through another several hours of them trying to get us to upgrade our timeshare membership.  When we bought our time share last year, we only owned usage of it for one week every other year after the first five years, so we wanted to upgrade to every year anyway.  That was always the plan.  However, what we walked away with was even better… but just not “free”.  :)  We now own one week in our one bedroom unit every year for the next 25 years, but for the next 2 years, we get to use the 2 bedroom 3 bathroom unit instead.  And they let us use it for the rest of our week there too at a very discounted rate.  Since Chris and Leslie were coming the next day, we thought we’d surprise them with the bigger place so we could each have our own rooms.  The new room was fantastic! 

So, on to tour number 2!  :)  Here is the entrance.

The guest bedroom, which is on the right when you first walk in. 

Guest bathroom number 1. 
 
Dining room and living room

Our huge patio and great view. 

We found a great place to store our liquor.  :)

Master bathroom, with an indoor jacuzzi tub this time. 

Master bedroom. 

Great view from our room!  (I don’t think I got a picture of it, but Michael Jordan’s house was right next door.)

Later that day at the pool, a huge bird landed on the infinity edge and just hung out for a while, drinking the water and bathing. 

More breakfast at Girasoles!

We had a great view of Logan’s favorite spot on the beach during breakfast. 

Enjoying some time on the patio with Chris and Logan at sunset. 

Leslie and I before leaving for dinner at De Cortez, the steak restaurant.  (Mmmmmm… steak….)

The next day we took a taxi to downtown Cabo to watch college football.  We kept trying to find a place with air conditioning since it was miserably hot and humid that afternoon.  Apparently the Mexican idea of air conditioning is a covered patio with fans. 

I liked this building with the frog peeking over the roof.  :) 

We finally found a great sports bar (actually inside a casino) with tons of flat screen TV’s, and a great air conditioning.  This was the highlight of my day.  :) 

The view from the courtyard of the mall at the Marina.  Pretty!
Next, we went to Cabo Wabo, and then found “The Littlest Bar in Cabo”.  It was tiny.  Not much more room in there other than what you see.  The walls were covered with American $1 dollar bills. 
A guy came in with his dad and their guitars and played us some great songs… but not before showing off his “big hand”.  Lemme tell you, it was the biggest hand I’ve ever seen.  His other hand was normal sized, but this one was huge.  I wish I’d gotten a better picture of it, but that’s Chris’s hand next to it. 
We found another bar down the road (with air conditioning!) and the owner was a huge Dallas Cowboys fan.  He even had figurines displayed with his liquor. 
On our last day, Chris and I decided to brave the huge Cabo waves.  I have a very, very healthy respect for the ocean after this experience.  The waves were huge, and the undertow is really strong in Cabo.    The first wave knocked me down flat! 

I had a really hard time getting back up after that.  I basically washed in and out of the ocean for what felt like forever until the waves calmed down and I could stand back up.  (It was probably less than a minute, but it felt like way longer!)  Having your body wash around on the sand sure doesn’t feel good on sunburned skin…
If Chris is 6 feet tall, you can imagine just how big these waves were.  (And there were many that were even bigger.)
  We had dinner at Pitahayas again on our last night since Chris and Leslie hadn’t had a chance to eat there yet.  The appetizer was great!  Coconut breaded shrimp, pork dumplings, and crab stuffed jalapeno poppers. 

After dinner, we had to come back to the room and start getting things ready for going home the next morning.  We were all exhausted, but I think this picture of Logan “doing laundry” pretty much sums up how we felt.  :) 

We had such a great time on vacation, and really enjoyed getting to spend time with Chris and Leslie too.  Can’t wait to go back next year!!