We aren't sure if this was intentional or not, but the message (on a 90-degree plus day!) is that there are some "hot" properties down here... Our journey to the marina on Tuesday resulted in finally connecting with the glass-bottomed boat vendor and getting our ride out to the famed arch over 'excited' seas - take a look at what we saw... and these are only a few of the totally awesome views - an amazing experience.
It was a day to learn about another time share, a sister site to where we are staying. We went because they offered to pay our way back to the airport, gave us a discount on a spa day, and provided us with some water activities... why refuse? Yesterday we met a nice fellow, learning some more about the area, and on this trip we met some other time share refugees on the way, making it a little more festive - and the biggest surprise of all was that one of the couples is from Snohomish, just up the road from where we live in Washington!
We woke up to cloudy skies and slightly cooler temperatures - only 80 ish... yesterday it was 90 when we arrived. We were scheduled for a time share trip to the Westin, a Raintree vacation resort. Our connection was “Jorge” and we were supposed to meet him outside the gates, as they are not allowed to drag people away from the Pueblo resorts to persuade them to sign up someplace else.
Well, we also got lost as we asked the captain at the front desk how to get out of the gate to go downtown and he directed us to the other gate and we ended up walking through some brush to find our way back. We both agreed it felt quite clandestine.
The drive from where we were, closer to town, took us back toward the airport. The thirsty desert of this area of Mexico was as rich and verdant as if it had been raining for weeks. Apparently there was a shower a couple of days ago - maybe an inch of rain. It didn’t matter that it was cloudy when we arrived at the Westin as the brilliant colors of yellow, pink, turquoise and magenta overwhelmed the eyes anyhow. And the view, as you can see from the pictures, was very impressive.
The actual tour only took 30 minutes, but after that our “guide” ate breakfast with us, and we found him to be quite entertaining and really a remarkable storyteller. The story he told us was touching and would bring tears to anyone's eyes. It turns out that he was also into Public Relations earlier in his career, so he and I also had that in common.
Anyhow, we toured the entire facility and sat through a lengthy presentation which took almost another three hours - too long!! Finally we were done and yet another individual came to try and close us on yet another "package" but we are hard nuts to crack and were able to keep saying, "No, gracias..." until they were worn out and gave us our "gifts" for letting them try to sell us.
So we have a glass-bottomed boat ride, a sunset boat cruise and a dinner for two to schedule before we leave. Let me add that there were some appealing aspects to the Raintree timeshare, but it is not near anything downtown and if they really wanted to sell their shares, they would be offering free transportation for owners to go back and forth to town by shuttle.
After a day of someone trying to sell you something non-stop, we were ready for the pool and a good book. I ended up making a sort of dinner out of the roast chicken we got at COSTCO and some freshly baked multi grain bread. (Yes, Marcie, they have a bakery just like yours down here... and we were going to take a picture but my camera needed to be recharged.) We sat on our little balcony and listened to the waves crashing on shore, though less intensely than they did the night before. The air was warm and we enjoyed listening to the music on the various boats criss-crossing the little bay here as we wound down from our day. (This last shot is from the Westin looking toward the eastern end of the Baja peninsula and the western edge of Mexico proper.)
Day One - We do have a sort of luck... curious at times. We arrived at the airport at 3:00 a.m. for the 5:15 flight to Cabo San Lucas in Baja, Mexico. Jey-hu received a call as we were standing in line waiting for the airline ticket folks to arrive and begin processing us. It was a call from Orbitz advising us that U.S. Airways had cancelled the Phoenix-Cabo portion of the flight due to “scheduled” maintenance on the aircraft.
You'd think they could schedule things a little bit better... But hats off to the airline’s agents who quickly found seats for the six of us who were being displaced out of Seattle. The two of us were put on Alaska, leaving at 6:15 a.m. which would get us to Cabo two hours later than expected.
It was a flight through San Francisco, CA, with enough time to find a place to order up a nice boxed lunch before we started on the next leg. Alaska’s offering on board at $3 a pop was considerably less appealing than the fresh chicken salad sandwich & chips I purchased along with some fresh pineapple I’d brought along from home. In just over two hours we were landing at the Los Cabos airport. The photo below shows what may be a sandy riverbed, inland from the coast. There are more mountains here than I expected, but never having been here before, it was all more than I expected!
But the time we made up in flying was lost as an estimated 450-500 other tourists were also arriving and had to go through customs. Finally we were able to get through customs without issue and found the taxi service we had been pre-advised to find. (Thanks, Keith!!)
And then we had the gauntlet to run - an “S” curve of human intensity I have rarely seen, unless you consider the running of the bulls in Pamploma! Guys were coming right up to Jey-hu trying to touch him, convince him to listen to them, and we kept on walking without talking at all, as instructed. Outside we found “Jose” who was waiting to get us to a taxi... but first we had to speak to Jorge who, it turned out, was a better salesman than the others, and he convinced us to go to Westin timeshare resort for breakfast on Sunday and a tour. (The zoom shot of the ricks rising out of the water is where the famous "arch" is and we have plans to take a day cruise out there while we are here.)
By the time we reached our charming hotel, Pueblo Bonito Blanco, right on the water, we had been up for 34 hours without sleeping... we had made the decision to get some business done on the home computer before leaving for the airport, knowing it was unlikely we would have the bandwidth to send large e-mails easily and that was probably a good decision in spite of our fatigue.
But we slid into the 80-degree pool and simply floated until sunset - dressed for dinner, took a few shots of the fading light but it is Jey-hu's last shot that earned the "Blog" award and is herein posted... and then we crashed.... totally wiped out. There is a lot to learn about this really lovely place - it's warm here almost year 'round and only gets about 5 inches a year in rainfall. Many of the taxi drivers do not speak English, so I am being challenged to remember what little Spanish I do know and learn a whole lot more. Even Jey-hu is getting bolder and using the few words he knows and is building his vocabulary. Tomorrow I think we may try and take the Beginner's Spanish class that the hotel offers. All in all, it's been very interesting and we really like this area a whole lot!
PS: Free WiFi is practically non-productive here... groan!
On Saturday, Sept. 12, at o-dark-thirty, I headed south from Everett to Lake Washington to Mercer Island's Luther Burbank Park for the first annual Swim Across America event as a fund-raiser for a beneficiary which this year was the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.
I took a break from being a spectator for a walk around the park and discovered a dew-covered spider web plus loads of blackberries ripening, and they were a tasty breakfast treat!
The announcer proclaimed a new wave of arrivals from the 2-mile group and I found the best spot to watch was up in the lifeguard's chair. My hat is off to all the swimmers who churned up the water for at least an hour; a few took longer than that to complete the course.
The last of the half-milers came in as well, moving the event from being spectators to the animated talk between swimmers and supporters about the event. Friends and relatives began arriving to share in the post-event breakfast and awards ceremony.
Young boys and girls were now bored with the adult conversation and quickly found a way to entertain themselves - a dried up fountain offered an opportunity to discover what it was supposed to be doing, where the water came from, where the water would go. I was fascinated by their youthful conclusions and research as they worked together easily, boys and girls, to reinforce their ideas.
One enterprising young lady had seen a number of bottles of water not being taken by the adults, and she offered to make several trips from the dry fountain to the source to carry more than a few bottles of water back to be poured into the dry spot to see if it would either generate more water or when overflowing would run down to the outlet. As I was her temporary "caretaker," at the request of her mother, I let her make a few trips without comment. Finally, after 9 bottles of water had been 'sacrificed,' I had to be the spoil-sport and stop her, partly because her parents were getting ready to leave. She was quick to think of another way to get the water... go to lake and fill up the bottles she already had! I hated to
be the limiter of her fun and stopping the energy of youthfulness.
The lazy sun was now heating up the day without a cloud to slow it down. People were leaving the park, heading off to other weekend duties or adventures. I had been a part of something powerful and moving... and my thoughts went out to the individuals who had committed to the swim and why they did it. How many times did their arms reach into the water to pull them along over a two-mile area? How many kicks did it take to get to the end? It was impressive and thought-provoking. And because of each one, combined into many, SCCA would have some additional research funds perhaps to help solve the mysteries of MM. Like this last shot suggests, a victory over cancer for good!
There are bound to be curiosities anywhere one travels, and when it's a 3200 mile route, it is possible to find lots of them. Here are some of the unanswerables seen between Florida and Washington.
