Hola Amigos!
Finally we arrived in the country we wanted to spend some time in! The first thing we realised was the small amount of spanish we had learnt was completely inadequate and we needed to sharpen up big time! We hung out in Cabo San Lucas for a few days, checking out the local beaches and generally settling into the Mexican vibe. It felt good to be here.
Cabo
Cabo San Lucas is a bit of a tourist trap, with lots of big hotels scattered along the shorefront. It wasn’t really a town we enjoyed. However there are many stunning beached located close by. We did a day trip up the coast to Cabo Pulmo (a large marine reserve) where we went snorkelling with the best guide ever Eli (more on her later) who had just returned from living in NZ. Her next stop was working with dog sledding teams in Finland, she is from Guadalajara in Mexico. We had a fun morning snorkelling, tho we had to wear life jackets while snorkelling (what???). Glen was dismayed at this as he can freedive to 30m, but still managed to get down to 5m WITH the life jacket on haha! We found out later it was to stop people touching the bottom and disturbing the marine life as this was a marine reserve…. fair enough. We saw all sorts of reef fish, turtles, seals, and a big school of trevelley which swam all around us.
Todos Santos
We hired a rental car so got out of Cabo San Lucas and headed up the coast in search of a few waves, less tourists, and cheaper food. After checking a few spots on the way up we decided on Todos Santos. This is a really neat small town with a chilled out vibe, good surf and The Hotel California (from the Eagles song). We settled into a bit of a routine of waking up early, picking up mangos off the road while going for a surf/yoga, coming back home and eating mangos for breakfast, then exploring the town and local beaches. Dinners were at local Taquerias where with our limited Spanglish we stumbled through ordering sometimes not knowing what we ordered, but it was always delicious! This routine lasted for about 5 days until tropical storm Lidia rolled into town. Lidia brought with her the first rain since January (8 months) and there was lots of it! The good thing is we knew two days before that it was going to wipe out the power and roads for a couple of days, so we hunkered down with lots of food, water and tequila to ride it out. We moped up leaks and watched it storm hard for two days. Once the story had passed the sun came out, the heat and humidity went off the scale, and there was no power for fans or aircon. Yeah it was hot. Once the rivers subsided and the roads opened again we made our way past washed out bridges, downed powerlines and general storm carnage to the coastal town of La Paz.
La Paz
We rolled into La Paz with a dust and mud covered rental car looking like locals and found a lovely Air BnB place run by America (a local Mexican woman). Once we had settled into our accommodation, we then went for a look around town. La Paz has a really nice vibe (in the off season) its relaxed and funky and has good food options, a must is J&R ribs. These sticky little numbers will blow your tastebuds away!. While walking about we also saw a mexican Lamborghini which is a brilliant piece of engineering. The main attraction for going to La Paz is the fishing and snorkelling/diving in the Sea of Cortez, especially around Isla Espirito Santo. However after the storm had passed through everything was stirred up so we were hesitant to fork out our pesos for a average visibility trip also the whale shark season was closed. We did have two days exploring beaches around Bahia de Los Suenos and El Tecolote. On the first day the beaches around Los Suenos were pristine and the water looked azure blue, but best of all we saw no one all day. We had a swim and a snorkel and found a funky Dr Suess like light house while getting loose in the mud with the rental car!
The second day we ended up at Balandra Beach which was a very family friendly beach, there was not many people there so we busted out the tequila and tonic and some nibbles and watched the sunset over the sea. The other reason for visiting La Paz is to catch the ferry over to mainland Mexico. We booked our tickets at the office in La Paz (don’t try it on the internet, its a nightmare) reserving a cabin for the overnight sailing. We got on board and watched the sunset as we sailed out of port towards Mazatlan. The ferry crossing was really pleasant, the food ok, and the cabin basic but clean and comfortable. We were both fast asleep when the call came through to the cabins that we would be arriving in port soon. That thirteen hour ferry crossing went quick! We were really looking forward to the next part of the adventure.
Dream Home Minders 
LIke the green glasses Glen. ( remember there are two more pairs here- they’re good alright)
You guys covered quite a distance.
Lucky Glen is a weatherman and you were prepared for that storm- quite a bit of carnage. Many thanks xx
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