Cabo San Lucas

Cabo San Lucas – Day 1

Tips traveling to/in Cabo

• Flying into SJC you are provided an immigration for to fill out. If this is your first time, the fun surprise is you aren’t allowed to go downstairs to immigration until you’ve filled out ANOTHER form, which is a Visa form. Do yourself a favor and bring a pen with you when you travel. There are not enough pens so it would be good to have your own. 
• You don’t get your luggage first, you go through immigration first, it took about…45 minutes? So the good news is by the time I got through my bag was just waiting for me at baggage claim. After all of that, you go through another security check where they make you push a button -_- Not sure what that was about
• October to May is high season in Cabo, so that means it is more expensive. Low season in Cabo is June to September because it’s so much warmer.
• If you like seafood, you’re in the right place, seafood is big in Cabo
• You should carry both USD and pesos. The exchange rate can differ drastically where you get the money. At my hotel, you can exchange the money for $1 USD = $16.80 Pesos, whereas at the airport it was $1 USD = $14.00 Pesos 
• If someone quotes you a price in USD, ask for it in pesos, you’re more likely to get a better deal
• Food tip: If you on’ do well with spicy salsa, don’t get the green, it is the hotter one, not the red
• Cabo means Capes, there are four Capes in this area.
• Cabo is going to explode. They are looking to build 31 hotels in the next 7 years.

Well…I chose a place I’ve never been to, which I try to do for all my travel. I’ve always been a bit apprehensive about coming to Mexico because I am so concerned about the drinking water here…but I really wanted to go somewhere for 4th of July weekend and Hong Kong and Singapore takes too long to travel to and from…I wanted to pick a place that had the lowest travel time so I could enjoy myself longer.

So, full disclosure, my vacation package including the hotel stay for 5 days, airfare, and roundtrip shuttle to and from the airport came to $990. Of course, that means some of the flight transfer can be a pain in the ass, but hey, it’s cheap! So, why did I choose Cabo? I figured because it was pretty touristy, it would be a good way to dip my toe into exploring Mexico, solo.

My first flight left Seattle with a connection into Phoenix at 5 AM (so yeah, I’ve been up for awhile, really looking forward to going to bed) and then I had a 2-hour layover in Phoenix. From Phoenix I flew into SJC (San Jose Cabo) and took the shuttle to my hotel, it was a shared shuttle so it took about an hour, I was the last stop. My room is a nice size and there’s air conditioning, so major win AND there is a private beach, so I’m all over that.

I finally settled into my hotel around 4 PM (yeah, it’s been a long day) and I hadn’t eaten a full meal all day so I decided to change and go find a restaurant. I decided to stop at a place called “The Office”. I had heard of this place from the flight attendant who had taken my bag when I checked it in in Seattle and she had raved about how amazing the food was at this place.

So remember, I’ve never been to Mexico…I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew Cabo was touristy, but I didn’t know what to expect, and wow…ok, so this isn’t a place that I would bring my kid. I mean, I guess I would if I stayed on the beaches and didn’t wander into bars, unfortunately, every restaurant around here feels like a bar. This place is like adult spring break or something. Lots of drinking, lots of obnoxious people…if you can’t tell, this isn’t really my kind of scene.

I ended up sitting at the bar at “The Office” and chatting with this nice couple from Texas who are here for a wedding and I asked if this is normally how Cabo is…they have never been here before either, but they told me that the place I want to go to is Playa del Carmen because people are super nice there.

I also saw this…tequila with a snake in it…uhm…so I’ve never seen this before. It was really interesting.

They told me that they have experienced the following:

• Rude cab drivers who insist they don’t have cash
• Cab drivers who say they don’t know where they need to be taken
• Random people trying to sell them stuff on the street or on the beach (yup, this is a thing)

This is only the first day, so I’m going to focus tomorrow on looking for authentic restaurants and staying away from tourists the best I can. I’m a bit disappointed that my dinner wasn’t more awesome. Then I remember, my time here is for me to focus on writing/revising my first few chapters of my manuscript…so I just want to hang out on the beach anyway.

The walk from my hotel to “The Office” was nice. It took me about 30 minutes, but it was along the marina, where if you go, be mindful that people will be trying to randomly sell you things.

Food that I ate:

 

I got this dish from Senor Sweets. Even though the name implies that it’s a dessert place, they serve all foods, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This was pretty good, the caramel was perfect…and the ricotta inside the tortillas had a good level of sweetness.

More to come!