Mexico!

Where to even start?! Well, first off... its good to be home. Even though its rainy, cold, dreary... still there is nothing like waking up in your own bed.

That said, we had an AMAZING time! Some highlights... ATVing on a beach in Mexico (day four), swimming with the dolphins (that's right! day seven), and sitting in the bar drinking a fruity drink listening to the waves crash on the beach (which was everyday).

Friday we met up at Ro & Pat's early.... then it was on to Vegas, where we spent one night and a few hundred dollars. ;-)
This was the view from our room:

Saturday we flew to Cabo and their tiny little airport. The drive to Solmar (website way outdated!) took about forty minutes, but it was a nice trip and a good first glimpse of Baja Mexico. We got checked in and went for a welcome margarita at the beach-front bar. This dude happened to be enjoying the swim-up portion of the bar when we arrived:
That evening we enjoyed a fiesta dinner... a huge buffet with tons of mexican foods to enjoy plus dancing and singing. I have a lovely video of Trav and I getting called on stage to dance... but I think I'll keep that one under wraps... ahh, tequila.

The next day we woke up to this view:

Not too shabby, huh?!
We headed off to do a tour of Playa Grande, the sister hotel to Solmar. We did the tour because for the low cost of one blister and 2 hours of walking/sales pitching we got a free breakfast, a nice look around the resort, and a 50% off coupon for one of the activities that we were planning on doing during our trip... ATVing! Which is what we did the next day (Monday):

It was a lot of fun... even the part where I almost ran into a tree. And considering I've never driven an ATV before, or anything that you have to shift gears for that matter, it went really smoothly. Plus who could pass up the opportunity to drive on this:
We spent the next few days swimming in the pool, lounging in the hot tub, relaxing at the bar (happy hour 3-5, buy one get one free drinks!), and eating tons of food. We ate lunch in the bar almost everyday.
Dinner we switched it up... one night we ate at Romeo & Julietta (great italian), there was also Ole Ole, and the Shrimp Factory. I ate so much guacamole, I'm surprised I'm not green... and surprisingly they also had great sushi! Right in the bar too.
The bar also had a bunch of these little dudes that ran around eating all the crumbs:
And we got to spend our time listening to these waves.
With this for a backdrop!
On Tuesday, we headed to the Playa Grande again to do some painting. They had a guy who would bring all this pottery... you would select your piece, paint it to your liking, then leave it with him. Come back then next day and he had added some details, glazed and fired your piece. Very fun and now I have some neat, one of a kind pieces to remember Cabo by.

At night we got to enjoy the most beautiful sunsets:

Thursday was a busy day. In the morning I got to complete one of the items on my "to do before I die" list... swim with the dolphins!! It was amazing, a wonderful experience and a ton of fun. I was the only one who did the actual program (here), but Trav, Ro & Pat all watched. This is Monet, the dolphin I got to swim with:
Truly I can't even explain how neat this was for me. Dolphins are such huge, powerful, but graceful creatures... and to be so close and get to swim with, play with, and touch one! Just amazing!

That afternoon Ro & I went for pedicures at Playa Grande. Very relaxing and a nice treat.

That night was our last night at Solmar, so we decided to relax at the bar and then head to the in house restaurant for dinner. It was a great choice because we got to enjoy this:

Friday morning we had a leisurely breakfast then hung out until our shuttle picked us up for the airport (I used this time to buy, fill out, and send a few postcards I had forgotten about until that point...). We had a pretty uneventful flight to Houston (except for the longest descent in history!), then an as-fast-as-possible trip though customs, and a run to our gate... only to find out our second flight was delayed. That actually worked out to our advantage as we were able to get some food because boarding for the flight from Houston to Philly, a good thing too since we proceeded to sit on the plane for over an hour before we took off! You knew it wasn't going to be good when they announced that there were 35 planes ahead of you for take off from the one open runway!!

Oh well, they gave us dinner on the plane and free headphones, and the flight itself was easy and uneventful. We got to the airport, rode to Ro & Pats, picked up our cars and headed home. We were at home just before 3am and in bed just before 4. Good thing we had the weekend to recover!!

I'll write about the weekend later... but for now I have tons of emails to sort through and plenty of work to catch up on. In the meantime, I have one video to leave you with... so that you too can feel like you are at the beach. ;-)




Ciao!

ps. If you want to see all my pictures... you can do so here (or by clicking the travel pictures link to the left).