Back from Vacation

May 24, 2015

Family, MentalNo Comments

My wife and I returned from Cabo San Lucas after a five day vacation and I’m struggling to get back to normal.  We had a great time and I unplugged from all work.  Cabo was a great destination for fun and for adventure.  This isn’t a travel blog, but we had too much fun not to share.

While our trip didn’t start until Saturday, our vacation began on Friday.  We love getting on the boat and heading to one of the lake front restaurants on Lake Murray.  You get in a relaxing boat ride and enjoy dinner at sunset overlooking the marina.  With a little advanced preparation, we didn’t have to worry about packing or the 5:00 am wake-up to catch our flight to Cabo.  It was a good chance to do a brain dump before getting into our trip.  We were able to discuss items that didn’t have a place in Cabo.

We had an early flight from Columbia to connect in Atlanta for our flight to Cabo.  The excitement of getting to Cabo made it easy to wake up and get moving.  After landing in Atlanta, we actually walked from Terminal A to Terminal F.  Most people use the train to get around, but we decided a walk would be good.  After reaching our gate, we met up with one of the couples that we were traveling with, caught up on some current events and then it was off to Cabo.

We landed in Cabo and were transferred to the Secrets Los Cabos.  After checking in, we met up with the third couple on the trip.  We had a few drinks and made plans for dinner.  The resort was beautiful and we had an ocean front room with the crash of the waves out the balcony.  There wasn’t going to be a problem having fun.

After dinner and drinks with our friends, we retired for the night.  The time change made sleeping in a little difficult, but we weren’t in a hurry for anything the next day.  We hadn’t planned to do anything, so we went for breakfast and in search of an adventure for Monday.  This was the one time that I had a problem relaxing.  In my mind, I wanted to explore in the mornings and have the afternoon to relax and enjoy the resort.  The adventure we found for Monday was going to land in the middle of the day and take up the hours of 11:00am to 4:00pm.  Prior to getting to Cabo, we had already booked a camel adventure for Tuesday that would take up the same amount of time.  I started to feel like the trip was ending instead of being excited about the chance to explore Cabo.

My wife had to work me through this problem.  She clearly wanted to go on the Monday snorkeling /paddle boarding adventure.  I knew I wanted to as well, but our stay was short and I wanted to get in some relaxing.  I knew I would regret not going off the property, but we didn’t have other options.  You couldn’t swim at the beach due to the riptides and currents.  After talking about the pros and cons, we decided we would commit to the adventure.  One set of friends decided to join us, while the other set would stay behind.

Getting the plans together for Monday made relaxing the rest of Sunday.  We enjoyed time with our friends at the pool and had a lot of laughs.  I’m not usually a guy that likes to hang out by the pool, but this was different.  I didn’t have anything else to do or anywhere to be.  There were no responsibilities and it made enjoying the company of my wife and friends easy.

Monday was an early morning.  We had an excursion with Cabo Adventures for snorkeling, kayaking and paddle boards.  We were transported to the Marina Cabo San Lucas and onto a fast boat.  The boat driver toured us to the Arch, Lover’s Beach and Divorce Beach.  We were right on the split of the Gulf of California and the Pacific Ocean.  On one side was the Gulf and the other was the Pacific.

After touring the Arch, we headed to the Santa Maria Bay for our water activities.  It was fun to do some snorkeling and the other activities.  The water was still pretty cold, but you warmed up pretty quickly.  We had an hour of fun in the water and then sped back to the marina to transfer back to the resort for some pool time and dinner.  My wife and friends got in some karaoke later that night and we rested for our camel excursion the next day.

Tuesday was our last full day and our best excursion.  We were headed to the Pacific side of the Baja Peninsula for a nature walk, camel ride and tequila tasting.  The bus ride was a little long, but we all had time for a quick nap.  After getting off the bus, we followed our guide for a walk through the desert.  It was nice to get the blood flowing and some exercise.  We had partied pretty hard the night before so this was a good re-charge.  After the hike, we boarded some old military trucks and headed towards the beach where we met the camels.

The camel ride was great.  My wife and I aboard a camel, strolling along an empty beach on the Pacific coast.  We were in the middle of nowhere; zero distractions or corporate advertisements.  It was a memorable ride and great fun.

After getting off of the camels, we went for an authentic lunch with Mexican favorites.  While we ate lunch, we learned about tequila and the different versions.  It had been a long time since I had knocked back 4 shots in less than 10 minutes.  A beer chaser helped and we were ready for the ride back to the marina.  This was a great excursion and the people at Cabo Adventure took care of us and were very professional.

We got back to the marina and had a couple of hours before we were going to get transported back to the resort.  My wife and I did some shopping for the kids while our friends went looking for a bar.  We didn’t catch up to them, so we sat down for a bucket of beers overlooking the marina.  It was a good chance to catch up on the trip.  After our drinks, we caught up with our friends and rode back to the resort for dinner and drinks.

Wednesday was our return day.  We woke up and had breakfast with our friends and said goodbye to Cabo.  I was ready to get back to the kids, but I also wished I had one more day to relax.  We packed in a lot of adventure into a small window.  If we had to do it over, we would have left the last day to relax and decompress.  No matter what, it was a fun trip.