Comments Off on Cabo November 2004
In an effort to have one last little vacation before the utter zaniness that Kaiya will bring when she’s born in February, Sharon and I took a long weekend in Cabo.
We stayed at the Marquis which is really in the hotel corridor that sits between San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas. It’s actually slightly closer to San Jose (and the airport) than it is to Cabo San Lucas which was fine by us. San Jose was actually a neater town than Cabo anyway. That said, we spent the vast majority of our time at the resort so the towns were sort of irrelevant anyway.
So some stories:
First, we forgot our passports. We’re so close to Mexico living in San Diego, we didn’t even think about passports as necessary so when we got to the airport and subsequently wondered if we’d need them, we were slightly concerned. Never fear though, lots of people are idiots like us and a simple notarized affidavit obtainable at the ticket counter takes care of the lack of passports. So we’re still Cabo bound.
That evening (Friday) we were meeting our friends Lauren and Josh for dinner at Tropicana (the name of the resturaunt in San Jose del Cabo), who just happened to be in town the same weekend for a wedding. As it turned out, the dinner we were invited to was pretty much the rehearsal dinner but it included all 50 people who came for the wedding. Thankfully, we did actually know the bride and she invited us. So we had a few drinks (well, I did, Sharon couldn’t drink) and enjoyed some time with our friends. Before dinner we walked around some of the quainter parts of San Jose del Cabo and it was really a cute little town.
Saturday was mostly a lounge around the pool day. We invited Lauren and Josh over to our hotel to join us until they had to leave in the early evening for the actual wedding. Good times… good times (except for Josh, who was badly hung over from the evening before and went up to our room to sleep it off a bit).
Sunday we went into downtown Cabo San Lucas. I’d hate to say it, but we were pretty disappointed. It’s a mad, mad, mad tourist town. There’s a massive new mall, that’s pretty much just like any mall in the US. The side streets were basically filled with little shops and restaurants, all of which obviously directed toward the tourists. Cabo Wabo, the Giggling Marlin, Squid Roe and a number of other bars and clubs would have probably provided some interesting entertainment for us if Sharon weren’t pregnant, but all the same it seemed targeted at the mad tourist trade and it felt rather “fake”. Street vendors are semi-aggressive soliciting pretty much every person who walks by to hock their wares. It’s fine, but after getting approached for the 20th time in the past 30 minutes about taking a bicycle taxi ride or picking up some beaded bracelets or silver neck chains, it gets a little old.
The areas between the two towns were are punctuated with various estates and resorts in between which sit what could only really be referred to as small developments of “shacks”, making for a rather interesting dichotomy. Obviously development of the area is happening very, very quickly and the local buildings are in many ways being pushed out of the way for these new developments. Construction sites and plot preparation seemed to be happening all up and down the corridor, with several new resorts and golf courses having been recently finished or nearing completion.
Monday was our departure day. We slept in rather late, read some books in bed with the balcony doors wide open so we could see the water and listen to the waves. We grabbed some lunch by the pool and caught a cab back to the airport later in the evening.
All in all, Cabo was something of a bargain. It was easy to get to (just a 2 hour flight from San Diego). The flight was cheap. The hotel was absolutely gorgeous and service was top rate. It’s similar to the Fairmont Kea Lani that we stay at in Maui with regard to its appointments and style, but was about half the nightly cost of Maui. Food was relatively inexpensive though to be fair in general we had yet to find a really stellar restaurant. I don’t want to say it was bad, because it wasn’t, however the food in general was overcooked (from pasta to seafood to meats) regardless of the chef and that was a little disappointing for the level of places we were eating at. Perhaps getting some recommendations from others with more Cabo experience than ourselves might help next time.
The one thing that was very expensive was ground transportation. Cabs charge a fortune ($65 from the airport to the hotel, though we got a cheaper rate in the other direction). Thankfully there’s a bus that runs up and down the corridor between the two towns that will take you the whole way for about $1 per person each way. That said the bus is slow and crowded but it did the job.
All in all, four days was probably one day longer than we really needed there. Flying back Sunday would have been perfect. So the good news is, we have a great little escape for a quick, relatively cheap three day weekend should we be able to take one in the future. 🙂
Pictures are here.
n an effort to have one last little vacation before the utter zaniness that Kaiya will bring when she’s born in February, Sharon and I took a long weekend in Cabo.
We stayed at the Marquis which is really in the hotel corridor that sits between San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas. It’s actually slightly closer to San Jose (and the airport) than it is to Cabo San Lucas which was fine by us. San Jose was actually a neater town than Cabo anyway. That said, we spent the vast majority of our time at the resort so the towns were sort of irrelevant anyway.
So some stories:
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First, we forgot our passports. We’re so close to Mexico living in San Diego, we didn’t even think about passports as necessary so when we got to the airport and subsequently wondered if we’d need them, we were slightly concerned. Never fear though, lots of people are idiots like us and a simple notarized affidavit obtainable at the ticket counter takes care of the lack of passports. So we’re still Cabo bound.
That evening (Friday) we were meeting our friends Lauren and Josh for dinner at Tropicana (the name of the resturaunt in San Jose del Cabo), who just happened to be in town the same weekend for a wedding. As it turned out, the dinner we were invited to was pretty much the rehearsal dinner but it included all 50 people who came for the wedding. Thankfully, we did actually know the bride and she invited us. So we had a few drinks (well, I did, Sharon couldn’t drink) and enjoyed some time with our friends. Before dinner we walked around some of the quainter parts of San Jose del Cabo and it was really a cute little town.
Saturday was mostly a lounge around the pool day. We invited Lauren and Josh over to our hotel to join us until they had to leave in the early evening for the actual wedding. Good times… good times (except for Josh, who was badly hung over from the evening before and went up to our room to sleep it off a bit).
|
|
Sunday we went into downtown Cabo San Lucas. I’d hate to say it, but we were pretty disappointed. It’s a mad, mad, mad tourist town. There’s a massive new mall, that’s pretty much just like any mall in the US. The side streets were basically filled with little shops and restaurants, all of which obviously directed toward the tourists. Cabo Wabo, the Giggling Marlin, Squid Roe and a number of other bars and clubs would have probably provided some interesting entertainment for us if Sharon weren’t pregnant, but all the same it seemed targeted at the mad tourist trade and it felt rather “fake”. Street vendors are semi-aggressive soliciting pretty much every person who walks by to hock their wares. It’s fine, but after getting approached for the 20th time in the past 30 minutes about taking a bicycle taxi ride or picking up some beaded bracelets or silver neck chains, it gets a little old.
The areas between the two towns were are punctuated with various estates and resorts in between which sit what could only really be referred to as small developments of “shacks”, making for a rather interesting dichotomy. Obviously development of the area is happening very, very quickly and the local buildings are in many ways being pushed out of the way for these new developments. Construction sites and plot preparation seemed to be happening all up and down the corridor, with several new resorts and golf courses having been recently finished or nearing completion.
Monday was our departure day. We slept in rather late, read some books in bed with the balcony doors wide open so we could see the water and listen to the waves. We grabbed some lunch by the pool and caught a cab back to the airport later in the evening.
All in all, Cabo was something of a bargain. It was easy to get to (just a 2 hour flight from San Diego). The flight was cheap. The hotel was absolutely gorgeous and service was top rate. It’s similar to the Fairmont Kea Lani that we stay at in Maui with regard to its appointments and style, but was about half the nightly cost of Maui. Food was relatively inexpensive though to be fair in general we had yet to find a really stellar restaurant. I don’t want to say it was bad, because it wasn’t, however the food in general was overcooked (from pasta to seafood to meats) regardless of the chef and that was a little disappointing for the level of places we were eating at. Perhaps getting some recommendations from others with more Cabo experience than ourselves might help next time.
The one thing that was very expensive was ground transportation. Cabs charge a fortune ($65 from the airport to the hotel, though we got a cheaper rate in the other direction). Thankfully there’s a bus that runs up and down the corridor between the two towns that will take you the whole way for about $1 per person each way. That said the bus is slow and crowded but it did the job.
All in all, four days was probably one day longer than we really needed there. Flying back Sunday would have been perfect. So the good news is, we have a great little escape for a quick, relatively cheap three day weekend should we be able to take one in the future. 🙂