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- A Little History
- Birds, birds, birds
- Morning Activities
- Our Dinner with Guillermo
- Celebrity Amenties
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Cabo San Lucas: Morning Activities
(First, a few updates. Bea informs me that the name of the good on-site restaurant we went to was the Brigantine, not the Buccaneer. Hah! Well, both words have more to do with the Caribbean than they do the west coast of Mexico, so maybe that’s why I got mixed up. And a reader, David, says the lone ostrich really has many friends because there is a large bird farm located there. With a little Internet sleuthing I turned up Rancho Tezal in San Bartolo, that might be it. I’ll be sure to check it out next trip and let you know.)
We didn't do a lot of roaming around in Mexico this time, because Bea and Patsy were there to recover from difficult family and business stresses and I was babying a shin, ankle and foot that had been smacked up pretty badly from a wrong step off the neighbor’s deck and was now swollen and sore.
But we still had a great time, running our triangle from the Playa Grande to Solmar (a sister resort) and the waterfront of Cabo San Lucas  proper. And we did a lot of relaxing, all of us having contributed to the passive recreation supplies. We had 6 trashy novels, 2 self-help books, 2 decks of cards, 1 cross-word puzzle book, 1 sudako book, a Quidler game, a jigsaw puzzle and a laptop computer (mostly used to play Spider solitaire). Oh, and 2 pounds of fudge that one of Patsy’s restaurant regulars had made for us.
We ate very well this trip (even in addition to the fudge). Our favorite restaurant for breakfast was next door at the Solmar. The fruit plate was always great and after a few days they knew that we would have that to share for starters. Then usually chilaquiles, which most of the Internet recipes say is a kind of Mexican lasagna made with tortillas instead of noodles. The way this breakfast cook made it, though, was as an individual serving and it went something like this. First of layer of tortilla strips, probably fried ahead of time. Then add quite a lot of salsa, red or green, and stir fast until heated. You’re trying to keep some of the tortilla strips still somewhat crispy. Top with precooked chicken shreds or scrambled eggs (or both) and then with jack cheese. Melt it (broiler?) and then top with a crumbled layer of that nice dry white Mexican farmers cheese. Cotija is what my local Mexican market calls it. We always had green sauce and chicken. The chilaquiles is then garnished with thinly sliced red onion and chopped cilantro and the plate is served with two small (muffin-cup size) corn tortillas made into baskets, one filled with guacamole, the other with refried beans. Excellent breakfast.
We ate a lot of shrimp and lobster and sea bass. It all tasted nice and fresh, but couldn’t have been local because there is NO commercial fishing out of this port. So while the sports’ fishermen were hauling in tuna and blue marlin, the fish on any menu was always sea bass. Interestingly, there also were sushi  days at many of the resorts and restaurants and several stand-alone sushi bars. Our salesman and one-night dinner host, Guillermo, (more about him later) claims that Peter O’Toole (when in town to film “Troy”) claims that the best sushi bar in the Northern hemisphere is in San Jose del Cabo. He didn’t tell us which one, but I can probably find out. Guillermo said he spent time with O’Toole because they are both avid and excellent dominoes players. Probably true. And a demonstration of how the celebrities and rich folks get what they want. I’m sure it’s not the Spring break college students who are demanding sushi.
Solmar was a nice place to while away some time in the morning too. It’s the last hotel before Land’s End (the point where the Pacific and the Sea of Cortez meet) and almost every day some locals with boogie boards came through on their way to surf, so that was entertaining. And usually there were two couples playing cribbage in their bathing suits. And it’s a smaller place, about 100 rooms, so it just seems homier. It’s not a high rise and the buildings,  although bright white, seem to tuck into the landscape nicely, like pueblos almost.
About every other day, after a long breakfast, sometimes made longer because it seems to be a national sin to bring the bill unless the whole table appears to be falling asleep, we would wander down to the Marina Mercado and then on down to the waterfront. The Marina Mercado is a big building chock full of little shops selling silver jewelry and t-shirts and chess sets and hats and dope pipes (some of them *quite* rude) and any other little thing they think a tourist might buy. And it has a tacky little bar, in case you can’t make it any further without a margarita.
All these vendors used to line the waterfront and make life hell for the tourists walking by. So they gathered them up and put them in this building and, according to my favorite vendor , if anyone harasses you, you report them and they have to pay a $50 fine! Quite a lot to them probably. There are still vendors who follow you, shouting, “Only a dollar, only a dollar, miss!” And if you stop they say, “Well, of course, this beautiful silver necklace (whatever) costs more than a dollar, but I’ll give you a very good price!” We didn’t have much luck saying “No, gracias, no, gracias,” over and over, so consulted one of the bellhops at the hotel. First, he said, try “No quiero!” (“I don’t want it!”-- imagine the upside down exclamation point just before No) and be emphatic. Then he tried to teach us a phrase for “go away” that we didn’t get. Then he said, just tell them “Vete!” But I think that’s pretty rude (like look up your own behind, or something) because every time we told a Mexican national what we were going to say, they sort of gulped. So don’t say it unless you’re prepared to be clocked.
The Marina Mercado provided the sighting of our best celebrity. I didn’t even see him because I was busy buying earrings. But Bea and Patsy did. They said it surely was Santa Clause on vacation. He had on red pants and a red shirt. He had rosy red cheeks and a bushy white beard that hadn’t been cut since Christmas. And he looked very jolly, but was only smiling broadly, not ho-ho-hoing. *I* believed them, even though they decided not to bother him for an autograph, which is only polite, of course.
Next, more food and Our Dinner with Guillermo.
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