What, you ask, is the best Christmas / anniversary gift combo gift
ever? Babysitting our girls for a week-long vacation in Mexico (pics)!
Since it is snowing outside and I am trying to finish working from home and avoid shoveling, let me instead tell you about the first evening Cpu and I spent in Mexico, La Paz, Baja California Sur!
Since it is snowing outside and I am trying to finish working from home and avoid shoveling, let me instead tell you about the first evening Cpu and I spent in Mexico, La Paz, Baja California Sur!
Planning? What planning?
Cpu: Think our parents would watch the girls so we can go on vacation before the baby comes?
Epu: Call over there and see. You know what I've always wanted to do since we lived in San Francisco? Go to Baja and get sick on fish tacos.
Cpu: Hey, we have frequent flier miles enough to get a last-minute trip direct to Cabo.
Epu: Do it. But we probably want to find someplace further away.
Cpu: There's this city, La Paz, a short drive away. Lots of marine life. Snorkeling. Kayaking.
Epu: I'm not ever driving a car in Mexico again.
Cpu: We can take a 3-hour bus from Cabo.
Epu: Sold! Where should we stay?
Cpu: I have some e-mails out. Hey, the German dude e-mailed me back already!
Epu: Great!
Cpu: Oh-oh, these reviews about him make him sound crazy.
Epu: Skip that place.
Cpu: Ok, here we go. Kayak trips arranged from a clean, nice hotel. 65$ bucks a night.
Epu: We love kayaking! Where's the travel scrabble?
Show time.
Cpu and I arranged a hand-off of the kids and packed our things. Everything but my Birkenstocks. I have wide feet, so this was to prove my undoing. It all fit into our carry-ons. I strongly felt the absense of a Lonely Planet guide book, which we probably had on all our other trips. I actually have a strategy for not carrying the damn things.
Irony strikes: our stupid iPod docking alarm clock is now incapable of setting its alarm time, just like the last iPod docking alarm clock. I set the cel phone to wake us in time for a cab. I still can't find my Birks.
Uneventful cab drive. We get dropped off at Internation terminal. After a quick scan of all the lines in international, we note that our airline is not represented. This actually happens a lot, Mexico flights out of domestic boarding area. Cpu tries to call the cab company to get the driver back to take us to our actual terminal. I note the tram on the floor below us, and manage to argue a cranky-morning Cpu into riding the inter-terminal tram just before its departure. Literally, its door closes on my arm. The tram flies to our terminal in under 2 minutes.
We are befuddled by our airline's handling of our flight. None of the self-checkin kiosks will allow us to check into an international flight. After 15 minutes, we find a line where we can enter our information in and check in, and the kiosk prompts us to wait for someone to look over our travel documents (passports). This mysterios someone never arrives, and eventually the kiosk goes blank and resets itself. WTF?!
Eventually, we get it out of the local airline rep that we should move over to the First Class line, which he asserts is also configured to handle international passengers. No kidding? They should put up a sign for that. Unfortunately, there is a long line. Cpu complains to a desk person, who has already had enough before we got there. We end up moving through the line anyways. We get a great clerk who gets us booked just fine. Move through the security line, which is much shorter over here by First Class. Thank god for the early arrival at the airport.
Cpu dumps me off at a bench at our gate with the luggage. I am no good within airports, where I specialize in preparation to ignore the entire trip. She comes back with sandwiches, coffee, a Lonely Planet: Mexico guide book, and noise-cancelling headphones complete with airplane adapters. Sweet. We mock the 'COBY' brand headphones, logotype all-caps and cast in the same font as SONY. Someone is bringing his dog to Cabo with him. Nice. We talk about going to La Paz, which he says we will love.
Once on the plane, the carry-on luggage fits without any problem. We'll find out later that apparently international flights will allow you to check 2 bags per person for free (whereas all the signs are telling us that we need to pay per-bag). Cpu fits the battery into her headphones. We joke about needing the noise cancelling, because we are right next to the engines in the tail of the plane. It turns out, there are no in-flight movie players built into this plane. And no head phone jacks either. We are seated together though, unlike the couple split behind and next to us. Nice.
I tear into my on-flight book Remix, and Cpu starts to watch the climatic ending of her thriller movie Identity. Lessig's book turns out to be an extremely well-thought-out (but sometimes mis-argued) look at what's wrong with American Copyright, and what lawyers and politicians can do to fix it. Someone should send Obama administration a copy, or better yet, send Lessig to make his points in brief. I ignore the rest of the flight, with the exception of filling out our emigration cards. We land, our approach just above a highway, as we hit some kind of mesa and the flaps kick in and roar. We deplane, down the ramp, outside, in full 78 degrees daylight. No snow.
It turns out, if you want to pee in the line before you are officially in Mexico, you are forced to the end of the line. We witness such a pee event, and decide against it ourselves. Our agent used to live in Milwaukee. It must be a sign. Our bags X-rayed again, Cpu makes a break for the potty.
We make it to the shuttle vans, paying in dollars. Take us to the bus station please! And they do. I note the van driver's pictures of his kids. Our kids would love this. Where are our kids?! I sorely feel the absence of any kind of foreign language training that would equip me for reading, listing to, or speaking Spanish. I took the communist combo of German, Russian, and Chinese. At least I speak travel.
El Aguila
Cpu buys the bus tickets to La Paz in dollars. We are getting between 10 and 12 pesos to the dollar. I park myself with the stuff again, while she seeks food and water for the trip. She returns with water and goes out again for food. The outbound bus arrives, but Cpu is nowhere to be found. Long minutes go by, but we haven't boarded yet anyways. She shows up, and we all board the coach bus.
We find some seats, move the window shades aside, and tear into giant bagel ham-and-cheese sandwiches. With freshly fried thick-cut potato chips. Apparently, our options were between these expensive for-foreigners-sandwiches or gut-wrenching buffet food packed into a go box. I think she chose well, but lament the lack of actual Mexican food.
I begin to relax, and take in the magnificent big-box-ification of a once-small resort town. At first it looks only like local Mexican chains, but it doens't take long before the string of American stores kick in. The last day of our trip in San Jose del Cabo, an old-timer expat tells us that 15 years ago, there were only 5 flights a week into the airport (one a business day). Today, he claims, there are more than 100 a day.
Once the bus makes it to the coast and I can see the ocean, I forget all about the chain stores. There are huge manicured golf courses just out of view, and cool grey skies above grey ocean. On the other side, the brown October hills of Sunnyvale have materialized here in Mexico. Only they are full of cacti and rocks.
In Cabo San Lucas, I learn through my listening and pointing skills, that our bus tickets have assigned seats. The lady demurs and takes another seat. A handicapped woman with crutches takes our assigned seats. We feel justified.
The bus gets moving, and the sun gets low. An amazing blare of a movie wakes me from my stupor. Fievel Goes West. By the end of the movie, I get it. Fievel lives in the desert, has friends who are cowboys, and he wants water. It's a story that's been appropriated by the residents. Now I'm thirsty. Luckily, by design the bus stops here and there to pick up passengers and let passengers get refreshments.
It's pitch black outside by the time we roll into the outskirts of La Paz. I get ancy anticipating the transfer from Bus to who-knows-what. We pass the giant big-box-store district and movie megaplex. We arrive at the bus terminal; it's painted a cad yellow heavy on the titanium white, no glaze. Taxi to the hotel, 50 pesos. It's probably walkable, but who wants to walk with their suitcases and bags in the dark through a strange town?
We pull into an alley, and I am like, what the hell? Cpu has read up, and knows that the hotel is tucked away the block, only accessible by a pair of alleys. Our night shift hotel guy -- Hugo -- checks us in, and we grab some water. The room is clean. We unpack, and hit the sack.
Cpu: Think our parents would watch the girls so we can go on vacation before the baby comes?
Epu: Call over there and see. You know what I've always wanted to do since we lived in San Francisco? Go to Baja and get sick on fish tacos.
Cpu: Hey, we have frequent flier miles enough to get a last-minute trip direct to Cabo.
Epu: Do it. But we probably want to find someplace further away.
Cpu: There's this city, La Paz, a short drive away. Lots of marine life. Snorkeling. Kayaking.
Epu: I'm not ever driving a car in Mexico again.
Cpu: We can take a 3-hour bus from Cabo.
Epu: Sold! Where should we stay?
Cpu: I have some e-mails out. Hey, the German dude e-mailed me back already!
Epu: Great!
Cpu: Oh-oh, these reviews about him make him sound crazy.
Epu: Skip that place.
Cpu: Ok, here we go. Kayak trips arranged from a clean, nice hotel. 65$ bucks a night.
Epu: We love kayaking! Where's the travel scrabble?
Show time.
Cpu and I arranged a hand-off of the kids and packed our things. Everything but my Birkenstocks. I have wide feet, so this was to prove my undoing. It all fit into our carry-ons. I strongly felt the absense of a Lonely Planet guide book, which we probably had on all our other trips. I actually have a strategy for not carrying the damn things.
Irony strikes: our stupid iPod docking alarm clock is now incapable of setting its alarm time, just like the last iPod docking alarm clock. I set the cel phone to wake us in time for a cab. I still can't find my Birks.
Uneventful cab drive. We get dropped off at Internation terminal. After a quick scan of all the lines in international, we note that our airline is not represented. This actually happens a lot, Mexico flights out of domestic boarding area. Cpu tries to call the cab company to get the driver back to take us to our actual terminal. I note the tram on the floor below us, and manage to argue a cranky-morning Cpu into riding the inter-terminal tram just before its departure. Literally, its door closes on my arm. The tram flies to our terminal in under 2 minutes.
We are befuddled by our airline's handling of our flight. None of the self-checkin kiosks will allow us to check into an international flight. After 15 minutes, we find a line where we can enter our information in and check in, and the kiosk prompts us to wait for someone to look over our travel documents (passports). This mysterios someone never arrives, and eventually the kiosk goes blank and resets itself. WTF?!
Eventually, we get it out of the local airline rep that we should move over to the First Class line, which he asserts is also configured to handle international passengers. No kidding? They should put up a sign for that. Unfortunately, there is a long line. Cpu complains to a desk person, who has already had enough before we got there. We end up moving through the line anyways. We get a great clerk who gets us booked just fine. Move through the security line, which is much shorter over here by First Class. Thank god for the early arrival at the airport.
Cpu dumps me off at a bench at our gate with the luggage. I am no good within airports, where I specialize in preparation to ignore the entire trip. She comes back with sandwiches, coffee, a Lonely Planet: Mexico guide book, and noise-cancelling headphones complete with airplane adapters. Sweet. We mock the 'COBY' brand headphones, logotype all-caps and cast in the same font as SONY. Someone is bringing his dog to Cabo with him. Nice. We talk about going to La Paz, which he says we will love.
Once on the plane, the carry-on luggage fits without any problem. We'll find out later that apparently international flights will allow you to check 2 bags per person for free (whereas all the signs are telling us that we need to pay per-bag). Cpu fits the battery into her headphones. We joke about needing the noise cancelling, because we are right next to the engines in the tail of the plane. It turns out, there are no in-flight movie players built into this plane. And no head phone jacks either. We are seated together though, unlike the couple split behind and next to us. Nice.
I tear into my on-flight book Remix, and Cpu starts to watch the climatic ending of her thriller movie Identity. Lessig's book turns out to be an extremely well-thought-out (but sometimes mis-argued) look at what's wrong with American Copyright, and what lawyers and politicians can do to fix it. Someone should send Obama administration a copy, or better yet, send Lessig to make his points in brief. I ignore the rest of the flight, with the exception of filling out our emigration cards. We land, our approach just above a highway, as we hit some kind of mesa and the flaps kick in and roar. We deplane, down the ramp, outside, in full 78 degrees daylight. No snow.
It turns out, if you want to pee in the line before you are officially in Mexico, you are forced to the end of the line. We witness such a pee event, and decide against it ourselves. Our agent used to live in Milwaukee. It must be a sign. Our bags X-rayed again, Cpu makes a break for the potty.
We make it to the shuttle vans, paying in dollars. Take us to the bus station please! And they do. I note the van driver's pictures of his kids. Our kids would love this. Where are our kids?! I sorely feel the absence of any kind of foreign language training that would equip me for reading, listing to, or speaking Spanish. I took the communist combo of German, Russian, and Chinese. At least I speak travel.
El Aguila
Cpu buys the bus tickets to La Paz in dollars. We are getting between 10 and 12 pesos to the dollar. I park myself with the stuff again, while she seeks food and water for the trip. She returns with water and goes out again for food. The outbound bus arrives, but Cpu is nowhere to be found. Long minutes go by, but we haven't boarded yet anyways. She shows up, and we all board the coach bus.
We find some seats, move the window shades aside, and tear into giant bagel ham-and-cheese sandwiches. With freshly fried thick-cut potato chips. Apparently, our options were between these expensive for-foreigners-sandwiches or gut-wrenching buffet food packed into a go box. I think she chose well, but lament the lack of actual Mexican food.
I begin to relax, and take in the magnificent big-box-ification of a once-small resort town. At first it looks only like local Mexican chains, but it doens't take long before the string of American stores kick in. The last day of our trip in San Jose del Cabo, an old-timer expat tells us that 15 years ago, there were only 5 flights a week into the airport (one a business day). Today, he claims, there are more than 100 a day.
Once the bus makes it to the coast and I can see the ocean, I forget all about the chain stores. There are huge manicured golf courses just out of view, and cool grey skies above grey ocean. On the other side, the brown October hills of Sunnyvale have materialized here in Mexico. Only they are full of cacti and rocks.
In Cabo San Lucas, I learn through my listening and pointing skills, that our bus tickets have assigned seats. The lady demurs and takes another seat. A handicapped woman with crutches takes our assigned seats. We feel justified.
The bus gets moving, and the sun gets low. An amazing blare of a movie wakes me from my stupor. Fievel Goes West. By the end of the movie, I get it. Fievel lives in the desert, has friends who are cowboys, and he wants water. It's a story that's been appropriated by the residents. Now I'm thirsty. Luckily, by design the bus stops here and there to pick up passengers and let passengers get refreshments.
It's pitch black outside by the time we roll into the outskirts of La Paz. I get ancy anticipating the transfer from Bus to who-knows-what. We pass the giant big-box-store district and movie megaplex. We arrive at the bus terminal; it's painted a cad yellow heavy on the titanium white, no glaze. Taxi to the hotel, 50 pesos. It's probably walkable, but who wants to walk with their suitcases and bags in the dark through a strange town?
We pull into an alley, and I am like, what the hell? Cpu has read up, and knows that the hotel is tucked away the block, only accessible by a pair of alleys. Our night shift hotel guy -- Hugo -- checks us in, and we grab some water. The room is clean. We unpack, and hit the sack.
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