SUNDAY.


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Published: August 16th 2010
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I survived the night!! We crammed my dad, sister, and I into 2 double beds, but I slept pretty well throughout the night. We woke up around 9-9:30am (Cabo time), after going to bed around 11:30pm (Cabo time). Weird time differences. We ended up switching rooms from 2109 to 2105-- the latter has one king bed and a couch that folds into a bed, so we figured that was a better deal.

It's currently 5:30 (Cabo time), and we're heading to dinner around 6:30. We got a reservation at one of those fancy hotel restaurants today, so I'll be sure to update my life after I eat dinner and head out back here to the lobby.

So...today! We woke up and wandered in tshirts and such to the breakfast buffet. I'm not much of a breakfast person, so the food didn't amaze me, but it was still super good! They had tons of regular food, then quesadillas and random pastries and hardened wafer things with hella sugar. I had no idea what the majority of it was. I got pancakes, scrambed eggs, a hash brown, these waffle potatoes (which looked like Chicfila fries), a donut, and maybe other stuff?

So after that, we came back to the room. I showered, and then we moved our stuff into the new room and got ready for (duh duh duh) our day in town! It was rather overcast when we woke up, so we figured we'd go shopping. Go figure, around 1pm the sun came out, and currently it's 104 degrees and sunny and hot and gorgeous!

We caught a taxi down town, which took maybe 10 mins max, and it was so cool! There was the Reserva Marina de Cabo San Lucas, so tonssss of boats and Mexican shops, restaurants, bargaining booths, and more. I bought sooo much random stuff....pretty touristy, but hey-- it's Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. What do you expect me to buy? The downtown area looked pretty much like California. Palm trees lined every street; there were hills nearby with massive houses overlooking the water. The restaurants were all islandy (One was named Ole Ole; another was Margaritaville; another was Cabo Wabo--- the guy from Van Halen owns it!!) and everything was awesome. I guess when I pictured Cabo, I imagined beaches beaches beaches and a fancy clubbing downtown area. Kinda wrong. After all, it IS Mexico, and we're totally the minority here when we leave the resort. The cars all look the same, literally everyone drives a pick-up truck. The streets were dirty (literally), trash was everywhere, and there were random rocks and puddles everywhere haha. The stuff sold had chipped paint, dust, dirt, etc...but I think that made it so much cooler!

There were booths set up EVERYWHERE that sold jewelry, statues, bags, clothing, you name it, they had it...and we bargained on most of our stuff. My sister got a cute little sarong? If I spelled that right? to wrap around herself and got it down from $30 to $15. I bought slightly cheaper stuff-- some of my stuff includes this awesome red-white-red beaded bracelet, which I got for $5, and it fits my wrist perfectly! I also got this face mask statue that's made from these cool stones, and I got it from $15 to $10-- it looks so effin' cool. I got a postcard, 2 sarongs (sp?), and random other little gadgets. The stuff here is SO cheap!! It looks awesome, although the stores and booths send to sell similar things (kinda like the boardwalk stores in Ocean City), but everytime a guy would show me an item and tell me the price, I'd always go "Oh wow!" My sister was like "Melissa. If you keep doing that, they won't bargain with you....they'll give you the highest price." But I was in such awe with how cheap everything cost!

Mexico uses pesos, and I believe one peso = 11 cents, so it's pretty cheap. Omg as we were walking around, we saw a guy holding 2 iguanas, so I gasped and he came over and let my sister and I hold them! I held the baby, and when I asked how old they were, the smaller one was 4 months (but it was still rather large), and the massive one was 4 years! We got some pics, so I'll post them on facebook when I get home and all.

There's a massive language barrier here too. The workers and random people in town have a hard time understanding us...and vice versa. We use the word bus; they know it only as taxi (except in Spanish). I remember barely any Spanish, so it's kinda cool because my sister knows a lot from Panama and can speak to them pretty simply. "Dos copas de agua" = "2 cups of water", and I'm shocked she knows that. How am I even surviving here?!?!

The locals do some weird stuff...there's still tons of harassing for items and tours and taxis, but they also honk and shout and make weird noises haha. I guess I figured Cabo was a quaint beach town, but it IS actually a really populated town in Mexico.

We walked around the marina a bit and saw some Mexican sardines! They all had bites from a larger fish, which apparently tries to eat them (according to a local). We saw HUGE pelicans too! At least...I think they're pelicans. All the boats had Mexican flags, and there were really cool boats we saw. We were trying to find our way back to a bus stop, which would have a bus that'd take us back to the Riu hotel, so we wandered to the police station for help.

Haha it was ridiculous, but cool! being in a Mexican police station. Most of the places here in Cabo have no doors and/or windows, so everything's just open. The stuff that does have doors & windows are barred up like mad-- I was thinking "What if I got lost in Cabo?" and I freaked out...I know hardly any Spanish, and at times, we were the only Americans wandering the streets. Talk about experiencing the culture!

This is so awesome! We finally stood at a bus stop with all the locals, and a ratted ole school bus came up, and it had the stops written on the window in marker! One local was like *whistle* "RIU!" because he heard us go "Is that for the Riu?" and the bus stopped, and we got on. It was ridiculous! There were bench-like seats that were lined up on both sides of the bus, kinda like OC buses? Only they were all one bench, and they were ripped and the bus was so dirty. Again, talk about experiencing the everyday life here... we got to a ride a bus that the Mexicans here ride every day!

It was super cheap too... the taxi downtown was 150 pesos, while the bus was only 24 pesos. A local on the bus saw us struggling and was like "it costs 24 pesos." God bless the people here haha.

So....yeah! I got tons of cool pictures, which will be on facebook whenever I get home, so for now...words will have to do.

Whoever's reading this, please let me know! I wouldn't mind just writing this for my own sake, but it'd be cool to know who's actually keeping up with what I'm writing/doing.

I'm trying to remember if anything else spectacular happened...we saw a cute pitbull puppy walking with its family. My money is running low. The power is currently out in our room, so when I return in a few minutes, it better be back on! Not that it does me any good...just allows me to charge my camera (er, Mike's camera) and computer. Yeah that's right. We were about to board at BWI and I realize I left my camera right where I pulled the charger out of the wall. At home. FML. But Mike gave me his underwater camera, so I've been switching my sister's memory card between her cam and Mike's. We got some awesome underwater shots yesterday, so woohoo! I can't wait to show them to everyone.

Let's see...I should probably head back to our room soon. Dinner's at 6:30 and it's 6:00 now. The sun is also setting a bit, and it's now shining right into my face in the lobby. As if reflecting off the tile wasn't bad enough! There's an open ceiling in a part of the lobby, so go figure. I'm right in the line of fire.

Tomorrow we're going on a 5 hour snorkeling excursion! We catch a boat at the harbor around 9:50? 9:10?am and then the boat takes us all around Cabo and anchors in a bunch of different waters so people can jump in and snorkel! I'm SO excited for that. All 3 of us purchased snorkeling goggles and the tube thing, so I'm excited to use the underwater cam and get some good shots! The boat is a catamaran and has free food and such, so I'm pumped for my first ever snorkeling experience and some awesome shots of Cabo from the water.

I figure once we get back after snorkeling, we'll prob get food and/or jump in the pool....shower....get dinner? I'm not sure if we have a reservation for tomorrow at the nice restaurants...but we'll see.

Oh! When walking around town today, a guy was playing his guitar and walking around people at the outside tables at some restaurants. Yesterday at the pool, there was an actual mariachi band! A bunch of Mexican dudes in white suits, walking around playing their instruments. It was so cool.

But yes, I'm off to the room to prepare for dinner. I'll try and post more later, if necessary. Hopefully I get more internet time later...but si! Adios, amigo!

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16th August 2010

ahh the iguanas sound so cool... and you have to tell me all about snorkeling!! ive never done it before!! you sound like you are having so so much fun!!
16th August 2010

A dedicated reader
Mel! I've been reading your blog and it's really interesting and a fun read. I'm pumped about the snorkeling pictures (and just pictures in general). It sounds awesome there though and I'm pretty jealous. This is Mike by the way haha.. but yeah I know a few others are reading this, Gerrity said he had seen it.. so keep it up.

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