I had been seriously itching to go on a big trip for my 30th birthday. (YOU GUYS! I know I’m about to turn 31 soon, so PLEASE pardon the extreme tardiness/untimeliness of this blog post. I’ve just been so, SO, SO busy! That, plus a recent horoscope I read informed me that Cancers suffer from the most debilitating writer's block, so, yeah.)
One night at dinner sometime back, maybe in January or February of last year, I "subtly" hinted to Tim, my dad, and his girlfriend, Shelley, that I wanted to go on an exotic, tropical vacation to ring in my new decade.
I fantasized out loud, (heavily red wine-induced, I'm sure!) about where could we go where there is warm, turquoise water and white sand beaches and cabana boys carrying coconut cocktails? What about Hawaii? What about the Bahamas? Maybe Miami? Could we go to the Caribbean?
I knew all the things I did and didn't want in my dirty thirty birthday celebration. I just didn't know where to go to to find all my wants in one place.
See, I knew I wanted to vacation in a tropical paradise place, somewhere situated on an uncrowded beach, framed with skinny, swaying palms and clear, blue ocean water. I wanted to shop for lunch in an open air market, bustling and loud with "no hables Ingles" vendors hustling fruit juices and cold beers and fresh, fragrant flowers. I wanted hot, hot sun for unlimited hours of sunbathing and to stay at some boutique hotel or some outrageously Grammable Airbnb.
But also, I wanted to go somewhere with the potential for some light adventure. A day of sailing on the sea, a romp through town, maybe a massage at the spa.
What I knew I didn't want was to travel somewhere far away only to stay at some all-inclusive Hotwire/Hotels.com resort, fully equipped with a fitness center, a swim-up bar and unadventurous tourists. I did not want to recline at a pool with a water slide or eat at a buffet.
Shelley took careful notes of all my specific stipulations and in the weeks that followed, as my personal travel agent, she spent hours researching and planning and organizing the perfect birthday beach getaway.
When she had arranged and booked the whole damn trip, (God bless you, Shelley!) she told Tim and I to block off some days on our calendars at the end of June and to make sure our passports were still valid.
Feliz cumpleaños, Kate!
Pack your bags! We're goin' to Cabo Pulmo!
When Shelley told us that we were going to Mexico,¡Ay! ¡Ay! ¡Ay!
I was so excited.
It's the hot, dry sky. It's the dusty color of the air, the incessant taste of dust, caked on your lips and gritty in your teeth. I love the pink houses. Yellow houses. Red houses. The tongue-rolling Spanish words and roadside juice stands that also sell cigarettes and Chiclets chewing gum and cold Modelo beers. I love the creamy horchata milks, the technicolor papel picado flags and the taste of grilled poblano peppers.
I love Mexico.
So, a week before my 30th birthday, I packed up a suitcase full of all my favorite, frilliest fiesta tops and cheekiest bikinis. I packed sunscreens and sundresses and sunglasses. Sandals and short skirts and short shorts. Tim packed up his bag with bug spray and baseball hats.
Then, the day finally came for Shelley and my dad and Tim and I to board a jet in Los Angeles bound for Cabo San Lucas. In our first class seats, (I SAID GOD BLESS YOU, SHELLEY!) I drank too much champagne and Tim kicked his legs out in a stretch in the extra roomy seats.
Off to Mexico!
Have you never heard of Cabo Pulmo?
Truth be told, I hadn't heard of it before our trip either, and, admittedly, I had to look it up on Google Maps when Shelley had announced it as our destination.
Located on the east coast of Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula, about two hours north of Cabo San Lucas, surrounded by undeveloped desert and the stunning Sierra La Trinidad mountain range, Cabo Pulmo is a tiny village and federally protected National Marine Park.
In 1995, after decades of over-fishing, Mexico's state of Baja California Sur officially established the Cabo Pulmo National Park, a marine protected area covering 27.5 square miles of Cabo Pulmo reef in the Sea of Cortez.
Today, the pristine beaches of Cabo Pulmo National Park cradle a coral reef that is approximately 20,000 years old, one of three living reefs (the only hard coral reef) in North America, and provides a safe haven for roughly 800 species of marine animals. As continual coral growth projects ensure a steady rise in fish levels, Cabo Pulmo National Park is said to be one of the most successful National Marine Parks in the world.
As you can imagine, visitors of Cabo Pulmo National Marine Park are attracted largely to the offerings of the ocean. The refreshingly clear water is ideal for swimming and the coral reefs below the surface provide outstanding scuba diving and snorkeling views. Kayakers also regularly arrive here to enjoy close sightings of the sea lion colony in the area and, a little further to the north, at certain times of the year, strong wind currents draw windsurfers into the waves of La Paz and Los Barriles.
Land adventurers and explorers are drawn to the Cabo Pulmo area, too. Birdwatchers. Botanists. Hikers.
And yet, despite the natural beauty of the landscape, ease of access, and the affordability of Cabo Pulmo, the National Park still remains relatively untouched by tourism. Maybe that's because in Cabo Pulmo, there are no sprawling beach resorts with swim-up bars and screaming children, handstands in the shallow end and cannonball splashes. There are no pool parties hosted by a club DJ or blended piña colada drinks (yet).
Actually, in Cabo Pulmo, there's barely even a grocery store.
For me, though, the exclusivity of Cabo Pulmo AKA the promise of a totally relaxing vacation without all the crowds and their kids was the real main attraction. (That, plus the potential for getting seriously sunburned/margarita drunk at the same time.)
But, I digress.
We landed in Cabo San Lucas on a sizzling hot afternoon.
To prepare for our week at the beach house in Cabo Pulmo, where we had been informed there was extremely limited restaurant/market options, we decided to stock up on groceries at a big warehouse store called Soriana HÃper near the airport in Cabo San Lucas.
At the Mexican Smart & Final-like store, we filled up a cart with fresh, handmade tortillas and cans of black and pinto beans. We bought fresh-fried tortilla chips, oily and salty and still warm in the bag. We bought homemade salsas, queso fresco, onions, peppers, avocados. A ripe pineapple, a few mangoes and lots and lots of limes. Bottles of tequila, cases of beer, packages of chorizo, cartons of fresh eggs, pink and white conchas pan dulce. We bought espresso coffee and guava nectar, passion fruit soda and sparkling water.
Our groceries in Mexico were seriously inexpensive. A full weeks worth of food (including tequila and beer) for four people only cost us about $100. At the register, a kind woman at the cashier helped us to count out our Pesos and bag up our goods.
In our (compact) car, loaded to the brim with jalapeno peppers and carry-on luggages, we drove up Federal Highway 1 through the hilly, dusty Baja California Sur desert until we came to the turnoff for Camino Cabo Este, a rough, curvy, unpaved road that offers the only way in and out of Cabo Pulmo National Park.
On our drive through Mexico, windows down, horn-heavy Mariachi music honking over the fuzzy radio, my dad jerked the car to a halt a million times to point out a desert bird or wonder at a succulent shrub species.
After two bumpy, warm, cramped hours in the car, past herds of cows and countless cactus, only occasionally passing by some lonely Mexican village, a few roadside shrines, some petrol stations, we arrived at Cabo Pulmo, or, a cluster of bungalows overlooking the diamond colored water of the Sea of Cortez.
On arrival, we found that the beach house Shelley had booked for us in this little seaside village, The Jewel of Cabo Pulmo, was, truly, a jewel.
Situated directly across the street from a sandy strip beach, our peach-colored beach bungalow was beautifully decorated, very clean and thoughtfully furnished.
The bright paint, a ceiling of carefully braided palm fronds, salamanders on the walls, fruit trees in the garden, gave the house an undeniably tropical and exotic air. Here, in this casita, we were definitely on vacation.
The house was so unbelievably affordable, too. For only $150 a night, the property's luxuries included an outdoor shower, a rooftop patio, a fully stocked kitchen, a wrap-around porch, a half-acre garden filled with fruit trees and flowers and a separate "Garden Casita" guest house, with a full bathroom, porch and kitchen, for Tim and I, which allowed for plenty of privacy and opportunities for alone time when we needed it.
Our days in Mexico unfolded unhurried and without a plan, just how I like.
For five mornings in a row, I woke up early for coffee and contemplative beach walks/wave watching at sunrise.
Afterwards, back at the house, breakfast, taken in the garden, always with fresh fruit juice and coffee brewed in a stove-top espresso maker. I scrambled up some eggs with chorizo and Mexican cheese in a cast iron skillet. We served up the breakfast tacos with raw onions and some vinegary, red salsa that we bought from a roadside carne asada taco stand in a town called Santiago.
Mid-morning, for a snack, we liked to slice up ripe mangoes and melons. Best served with a squeeze of lime.
I liked to spend my days in Cabo Pulmo on the nearly-empty beach across the street from our house, baking in the sun, as I always like to do on vacation. Then, a quick dip in the water, a float on my back to wet my hair to refresh, then, back to my towel to bake.
Dip. Bake. Repeat.
Dip. Bake. Repeat.
Dip. Bake. Repeat.
One day, feeling lightly adventurous, the four of us packed up a cooler of Coronas, a backpack of snacks, a beach bag of towels and tanning oils and we hiked to a famed snorkeling cove in the area. We followed the clearly marked path on the cliffs above the sea, on a roughly mile-long trail that offered sweeping views of the ocean and the desert beyond. We watched for whales, hawks, lizards. At pauses along the trail we hydrated (responsibly) with chugs of beer.
At the secret snorkeling spot, Shelley taught me how to wear the mask on my face and put on my flippers. Then, she slowly led me out to a nearby coral bed, fantastically colored pink, white, yellow, and swarming with sea things.
Yellow fish, fat fish, crabs, corals, blue fish, big fish.
Tim swam out to join us. I floated close to him and we pointed to pretty things.
I am admittedly not good at snorkeling. My mask is forever filling up with water, my breathing labored in the tube, flippers falling off. Unfortunately, due to a combination of poor coordination/mounting frustration/too much beer, I didn't end up snorkeling for more than maybe an hour during our entire trip. As it turns out, however, I am really much better at drinking/getting drunk on the beach, so while Tim and Shelley and my dad spent the day snorkeling in the shallows, I spent the afternoon drinking too many Coronas in the sun.
In Cabo Pulmo we saw lots of animal wildlife. We saw red cardinals and yellow orioles, beach ponies, turkey vultures, a big yellow snake. At night time, we listened for owl howls and watched for bats in the twilight.
On another day, at another beach down the road from our beach house, Tim and I marveled for nearly an hour at the spectacular aerobatic display performed by hundreds of manta rays jumping out of the water in a frenzy just offshore. The sounds of their belly-flops carried in the wind to us on the beach where we sunbathed and snacked on sliced fruits.
All day, alone together, Tim and I drank beers and explored the shore. We walked and walked and walked for miles on soft sand, peppered with perfect sea shells, seeing almost no other people, save a few locals who napped on the beach at lunchtime. I collected a whole bag of the pink, white, cream-colored shells and, on a whim, I ripped off my bathing suit and splashed into the ocean naked. The water was warm and inviting and I swam, swam, swam.
On an afternoon, a drive through the Mexican desert landed us just outside the little town of Santiago, where we hiked to a waterfall called Cañon De La Zorra. My research on the area had promised that the hike to the waterfall was a moderately easy one, only about a 15-20 minute walk, and with only a slight elevation change along the way.
True to my guide book, I was pleased to find that when we got there, the hike really was as short and easy as it was promised.
(A girl only wants to hike so much on her tropical beach vacation!)
The short trek through the canyon along a well-marked trail, led us through a forest of indigenous plants in the Sierra mountains. Countless species of cacti and other desert jewels stunned us with their beauty and their winning ways of survival. We spotted a few lizards, some beetles, still more birds.
The easy trail led us to a cascading 50-foot waterfall surrounded by shimmering granite rock. Here, the water from the falls collected in pools that were deep and green and warm enough for swimming. I spent the afternoon jumping off a tall rock into the water and when Tim noticed my amusement, he jumped in, too.
In the shallows of the streams that flowed from the pools, we saw some small freshwater fish and I spotted a water snake.
I was delighted that the only other people at the waterfall that day were a few locals taking a quick dip in the fresh water pools to cool down from the hot, Mexican noon.
Not long after we arrived, feeling sufficiently refreshed and cooled, the small group quietly gathered their things, laced into their shoes, hiked back through the canyon and left us to enjoy the entire waterfall all to ourselves.
I really loved that.
I could have stayed for hours more at the waterfall, swimming and sunbathing and wandering through the canyon.
But as the afternoon wore on I remembered that I was hungry for tacos and thirsty for beer and thus, it was time to leave.
At a no-name roadside taco stand we pulled over for carne asada tacos. On warm tortillas the spoonfuls of meat were chewy and salty, greasy and spicy. We ladled the meat tacos with salsa that was fiery, vinegary, peppery. Always, a squeeze of lime. On the side, a scoop of creamy beans, eaten with hot strips of fried tortillas. At $6 a pop, I dare you to find me a better plate of food anywhere.
On our trip to Mexico, we ate lots and lots and lots of tacos.
Carne asada tacos.
Adobado tacos.
Fish tacos from a seaside taco joint in Cabo Pulmo called El Caballero. Some were fried, some were grilled, all were served with lime wedges and shredded cabbage, a small scoop of beans and a couple of tortilla chips.
In Mexico we drank lots of cold beer.
Cold beer. Cold beer. Cold beer.
We drank lots of margaritas with salt rims.
Margaritas with salt rims. Margaritas with salt rims.
In the evening time, when the sun sank low behind the desert horizon, we retired to the wrap-around porch for margaritas with salt rims shaken up by my dad. Fresh muddled mango with lime and tequila and a splash of passion fruit soda.
And cold beer.
Tequila-tipsy, Tim and my dad laughed and laughed and laughed, some inside joke about Sammy Hagar and his Cabo Wabo cantina bar.
What I loved about Cabo Pulmo was everything.
At this meeting place of my two favorite landscapes-- the dehydrated, dry-air, still-hot, Palm Springs-esque desert, impossibly crowded with wildflowers and wildlife, spilling into the bluest, sparkliest, clearest sea of dreams-- Cabo Pulmo was the perfect place to relax and recharge.
To spend quality time and also alone time.
I loved our pace in Mexico. Here, time was slow, like drips of agave honey, our hours measured by the height of the tide.
I loved the food in Mexico. Perfectly acidic, salty bites of marinated meats or fresh-caught fishes followed by tastes of creamy beans, chewy tortillas and fluffy, mildly spiced rice. For a treat, a coconut Popsicle, orange Fanta sodas, or fruit candies coated in chili powder satisfied and refreshed in the heat.
I loved the Mexican people. At the fish taco restaurant across the street from our beach house, we joked and laughed with the servers in broken Spanish about "Más cervezas!" and "Más picante, por favor!"Always, they were polite, animated, welcoming.
Perhaps what I loved most about our trip to Mexico was that Cabo Pulmo offered something for everyone. Here, we found opportunities for both relaxation and adventuring.
My dad got to bird watch and search for for cactus seeds.
Shelley got to snorkel.
Tim got to hike.
I got a sunburn.
Our trip to Cabo Pulmo was also a big trip of firsts. It was the first time Tim had ever been to Mexico. It was the first time Tim and I had traveled internationally together. It was also the first time we got to travel with Shelley.
I really owe the biggest thanks to both Shelley and my dad who made me feel so spoiled and special on my birthday trip.
For taking care of all the bookings and arrangements.
For including Tim.
For fronting the bill.
Mexico is a magic place. (You can see it in the afternoon light, hear it in the fajita sizzle.)
You can be sure we’ll be going back to Cabo Pulmo again, and not before long, I hope, because I'm thirsty for a margarita with a salt rim.
