Hola Amigos,
Phew! We've had a busy couple of weeks and had a great time with cousins Tom & Karan, who sure didn't want to go back home very badly! This place can grow on you.
We took them whale watching (yes! we stayed healthy this time and got out there), bought fresh shrimp, enjoyed some top-notch music here in town, and got to stay at a luxury resort near Cabo San Lucas for a couple nights. Wow.... now we're back to "normal", until Ben's brother Greg and his wife Cherlene and daughter Georgie come next Monday for a one-week visit.
In all the years that we've visited and lived here in Baja California, this is the first time we've taken a boat tour in the Cabo San Lucas Harbor and saw the famous arch up close. Pretty impressive looking, and we even went around and got to see it from the other side, too!
Here's another boat that is similar to the one we were on.... We were on a sunset dinner cruise at a great price (thanks to Ryan's friend), otherwise, us cheap (thrifty?) Purkeys probably wouldn't take a cruise like this. Now we can say, "been there, done that"! And it was fun and enjoyable.
The whale watching trip started out with us finding an honest shrimp fisherman, who wouldn't sell us a couple kilos of his catch, but was willing to have his boss sell it to us after proper weighing. So, we ended up with his entire catch for the night 10.5 kilos (about 22 pounds!!!) All for $300 pesos per kilo! ($16.75 US for a kilo). We have managed to sell some to friends, and are enjoying the rest very much. Yum!
Here's Polo in the mangroves, de-heading his shrimp catch.
We didn't see a large number of whales, but one particular Mom and baby stayed with the boats for quite a while. Crispin, our captain, said that she was born there about 15 years ago. She came back to have her baby here, too! He recognizes her from her white patch birthmark. Her baby is just on the other side of her right at the white patch.
And we always eat well when we go whale watching with Crispin. He had prepared Chocolate clams the way Ben likes them (raw, with soy sauce, lime juice and Salsa Huichol), and boiled fresh shrimp in sea water (heads and all). That was before our Lobster and Halibut lunch on Magdalena Island! Man, were we stuffed!
What a great way to spend a day!
When we got back to Los Barriles, we had reservations for dinner and music. Miguel de Hoyos and Alex DePue were in town after a 3 or 4 year absence! Hooray! And they are just as good as ever....maybe even better! It was fantastic to hear them live.
The best part is that they promise to come back regularly.
The last two days of Tom and Karan's vacation, we stayed at a luxury resort, the Esperanza https://esperanza.aubergeresorts.com/. This was part of our reward for letting them use our 1928 Model A Woody for their New Year's Eve party. What an amazing place! Not only is it in a beautiful setting, but they've thought of everything that you might need to be comfortable.
The pool was beautiful, and the attendants kept bringing by sample drinks for us, or water, or moving our shade umbrella. It's a rough life....
Our private patio was pretty comfy, too! (That hammock was a bit difficult to get in and out of, but nice once you were in it!) Below is the maid turning down our bed for us (and stowing the 5 or 6 extra pillows!)
Alas, all vacations must come to an end, and Tom & Karan had to leave, and we had to return to our "real life" of maintaining a home and garden here in Baja. We did have one last "hurrah" (translated: Margarita) with our lunch at Tropicana Hotel in San Jose del Cabo before they had to go wait for their airplane.
Phew! We've had a busy couple of weeks and had a great time with cousins Tom & Karan, who sure didn't want to go back home very badly! This place can grow on you.
We took them whale watching (yes! we stayed healthy this time and got out there), bought fresh shrimp, enjoyed some top-notch music here in town, and got to stay at a luxury resort near Cabo San Lucas for a couple nights. Wow.... now we're back to "normal", until Ben's brother Greg and his wife Cherlene and daughter Georgie come next Monday for a one-week visit.
In all the years that we've visited and lived here in Baja California, this is the first time we've taken a boat tour in the Cabo San Lucas Harbor and saw the famous arch up close. Pretty impressive looking, and we even went around and got to see it from the other side, too!
Here's another boat that is similar to the one we were on.... We were on a sunset dinner cruise at a great price (thanks to Ryan's friend), otherwise, us cheap (thrifty?) Purkeys probably wouldn't take a cruise like this. Now we can say, "been there, done that"! And it was fun and enjoyable.
The whale watching trip started out with us finding an honest shrimp fisherman, who wouldn't sell us a couple kilos of his catch, but was willing to have his boss sell it to us after proper weighing. So, we ended up with his entire catch for the night 10.5 kilos (about 22 pounds!!!) All for $300 pesos per kilo! ($16.75 US for a kilo). We have managed to sell some to friends, and are enjoying the rest very much. Yum!
Here's Polo in the mangroves, de-heading his shrimp catch.
We didn't see a large number of whales, but one particular Mom and baby stayed with the boats for quite a while. Crispin, our captain, said that she was born there about 15 years ago. She came back to have her baby here, too! He recognizes her from her white patch birthmark. Her baby is just on the other side of her right at the white patch.
And we always eat well when we go whale watching with Crispin. He had prepared Chocolate clams the way Ben likes them (raw, with soy sauce, lime juice and Salsa Huichol), and boiled fresh shrimp in sea water (heads and all). That was before our Lobster and Halibut lunch on Magdalena Island! Man, were we stuffed!
When we got back to Los Barriles, we had reservations for dinner and music. Miguel de Hoyos and Alex DePue were in town after a 3 or 4 year absence! Hooray! And they are just as good as ever....maybe even better! It was fantastic to hear them live.
The best part is that they promise to come back regularly.
The last two days of Tom and Karan's vacation, we stayed at a luxury resort, the Esperanza https://esperanza.aubergeresorts.com/. This was part of our reward for letting them use our 1928 Model A Woody for their New Year's Eve party. What an amazing place! Not only is it in a beautiful setting, but they've thought of everything that you might need to be comfortable.
The pool was beautiful, and the attendants kept bringing by sample drinks for us, or water, or moving our shade umbrella. It's a rough life....
Our private patio was pretty comfy, too! (That hammock was a bit difficult to get in and out of, but nice once you were in it!) Below is the maid turning down our bed for us (and stowing the 5 or 6 extra pillows!)
We enjoyed breakfast there each morning, and could watch from our table to see whales spouting out in the Sea of Cortez.
Alas, all vacations must come to an end, and Tom & Karan had to leave, and we had to return to our "real life" of maintaining a home and garden here in Baja. We did have one last "hurrah" (translated: Margarita) with our lunch at Tropicana Hotel in San Jose del Cabo before they had to go wait for their airplane.
More photos are in our 2016 February album, including a couple of cool videos. Hope they work for you! (I'll also try to get captions on so you know what you're looking at!)
Hasta la proxima vez,
Tus amigos in Baja
Harriet, Ben, Ryan, Sam & Zoey
No comments:
Post a Comment