Saturday, January 7, 2017

Top 10 List for Baja California Sur

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A week isn’t very long to get to know a place and so, as per usual, we were just warming up to the place when it was time to leave. If I had to summarize my thoughts, it would be that Cabo is a destination favoured by Americans who haven’t really heard of Canada, and by Canadians who are trying to find somewhere, anywhere, to escape the cold. The fact that they are in another country is really just an annoyance to some travellers, especially those who consume fountains of beer and tequila before roaming the streets in packs, trying to outdo each other in the ‘obnoxious’ department and demanding their change in their own currency. However, there were pockets of loveliness and we did our best to find them.

10.Tacos. Even if you don’t like tacos, you will after a week here. Our group has likely consumed hundreds of them and may have caused a shortage.

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Seth after a session with his beloved/hated ‘the orange sauce’ at Taco Guss.

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9. Drinks by the pool: A necessary evil that someone has to do so it may as well be us:

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8. Deciding to have a bracelet custom made for your friend, thinking you’re so funny for your ingenuity, adding your request to the vendor’s list of names and then learning that you’re not the funniest person on the beach after all.

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7. Marvelling at exactly how tacky Cabo San Lucas can be:

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6. Drooling over all the awesome VW Beetles that still roam the streets…

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5. Lighting and sending off lanterns at New Year’s Eve on the beach

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4. Getting tired of what a circus Cabo San Lucas is and then being thrilled to discover charming San Jose Del Cabo:

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Even if the Baby Jesus in the local nativity scene is weirdly huge…

3. Being even happier to discover the beaches and amazing Baja landscape north of La Paz, even if you did have your camera on the ‘1972’ setting when you took most of the pictures

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2. Having one of the members of your party asked by a street hustler if he was the guy from Just for Men, deciding that is hysterically funny, and then hatching an evil plan to run with it and see if we could pass Kent off as a minor celebrity at dinner one night.

I then found this photo, which, if you know Kent, made this task much easier:

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In short order we managed to convince the waiter at dinner the next night that Kent was indeed very famous. The conversation went something like this:

Seth (to waiter): You know my friend here is very famous. (Holds up picture above for waiter to see)

Waiter (looking back and forth from picture to Kent, who is unaware of our evil plot): Si? Hee ees de same mayn?

Seth: Yes. He’s very famous. Muy muy famous. Just thought you should know.

Waiter: Hee ees from Yust for Mayn? Ok ok. Wow! I see that. Gracias, amigo.

Seth: Yeah no problem, De nada.

At which point the first waiter ran over to the second and started yammering away in Spanish, rubbing his face and pointing at Kent. Second waiter looked suitably impressed.

Then this happened:

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Kent is now down one very nice shirt purchased for him in Paris, and up one very purple shirt that used to belong to our waiter, but actually looks surprisingly good on him (Kent, not the waiter, although it looked good on him too…).

Things got even funnier as we observed the wait staff moving around the restaurant informing the other tables of customers that they were in the presence of greatness in the form of the ‘guy from Just for Men’. Each time they would tell a new table, we could see the waiter rub his face to indicate a beard, and point over at Kent. It seems that perhaps it was a bigger deal to the waiters here in Mexico than it was to the customers although there were quite a few stares and curious looks. We tried our best to hold it together, and the evening ended in fine form as Kent was blessed by the grandmother who owned the joint. I’m pretty sure she was on to him but went along with it anyway.

Everyone gets their fifteen minutes of fame, folks, and this was Kent’s second fifteen. He is well on his way to making a career out of impersonating other people in Mexico as this performance of “The Guy from Just for Men” rivaled an earlier performance two years ago in Sayulita where he played a Mexican beach hawker selling cervesas to our friend Pepi, who was unaware that we were in Mexico. You can watch that video here http://whats-the-plan.blogspot.mx/2015/01/in-which-zoe-faints-pepi-is-very-very.html

Yes, it was all very silly and we felt only slightly bad about fooling them all. I’m sure the last joke was on us though as really, what kind of a big deal is it to be “The Guy from Just for Men” anyway?  And definitely even less of a deal to be his entourage…

And finally..

1. Visiting the town of Todos Santos, home, in legend anyway, to the iconic Hotel California of Eagles fame. There is some question as to whether or not it was actually the inspiration for the song but after driving down a dark desert highway, with cool wind in my hair, the warm smell of colitas rising up through the air, ahead in the distance, I saw the shimmering lights. My head was heavy and my sights were dimmed so we stopped for a bite.

Then I saw the mission bell and drove up right beside Hotel California.

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Such a lovely place. Really.

The dinner was excellent and the town beautiful and I would like to have stayed longer. Next time.

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I should note that the members of my group would probably complain that I have left off a visit to the Fox Canyon Waterfall from this list. This was done only because I didn’t actually go there with the rest of them but they regaled me with stories of crystal clear pools, beautiful rock formations, fearless youth jumping from dizzying heights (my two kids among them), etc etc. It’s just north of San Jose Del Cabo and you should probably go there.

Adios, amigos, and hasta luego.

Jane

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