The ride down to Cabo San Lucas from El Pescadero was short and sweet and the scenery was pleasant. After booking a room in the cheapest lodging available, I set out walking to get a feel for the lively town that my guide book calls a love it or hate kind of place. The two cents that I gathered upon spending a few hours walking around and talking to people is that Cabo San Lucas is what it is and I’m good with it. Touristy? Yes. Vibrant? Yes. Fun? Si! There’s amble opportunity to enjoy cheap, authentic cuisine or chow down on pricey comida with an American twist. Boat trips and tours of every fancy can be had as well as an overabundance of shops for shopping, bars & nightclubs for partying down and lots of good-spirited people from and not from Mexico. Since I’m sporting a pretty buff mustache (it’s either the walrus or the push broom style) and because I may be a little concerned about being tagged as a dirty ol’ gringo, I didn’t imbibe on the nightclub scene but, I did happen to meet a couple cool cats with whom the travel fat was chewed. Both were in their twenties, one from Jersey & California and the other was from Andalusia, Spain. It was awesome to bust out some of the colloquial speech used in southern Spain and nice to meet a couple of international travelers that were literally half my age and doing all right. In the a.m. I said adios to the land of missed party opportunities but free of bad decisions and headed north for round two of viva La Paz.
I was surprised at how awesome the ride was up to La Paz from Cabo San Lucas via Mex 1 and by way of San Jose del Cabo. The road north of SJC was very scenic with distant mountains to the west and the Sea of Corez to the east and she rose and fell through a series of pleasant curves that dissected pueblos I had hoped to see but never knew about having escaped the travel book radar. Right about the time that I closed in on an hour to go till La Paz, breakfast wore off and food was needed. As luck would have it, a sweet little taco + restaurant was spied from the road while passing by the East Cape. I meet a cool mama from the states that was skookum on my dietary needs and made my short road stop better than expected.
La Paz part du was also better than expected. I revisited the hotel San Bernado, where I had stayed the first time around and meet some new friends from Mexico, Switzerland and Texas. Come morning, I rolled out and birdog’d the Baja Ferries office and after securing passage on Tuesday for Thursday’s ferry ride, I figured on spreading the wealth and took up new digs closer to the waterfront. Baja Paradise is an economical hotel with charming owners and staff and has better than economical rooms at an economical rate as well as a nice little restaurant that serves breakfast and lunch. The close proximity to the Malecon paid dividends about ten minutes after visiting a local watering hole named The Ranch which was recommended by a former co-worker who is a few miles ahead of me and riding his bike to Ecuador (http://rangerrides.wordpress.com/author/rangerrides/). Anyway, at said minute mark, I meet Kevin who’s a former Craig Hotshot that is sailing the world with his fire brethren Tyler. I have to say that the adventure that these two cats are embarking on makes my moto tour seem like a $0.25 horsy ride out in front of the Piggly Wiggly. Around the world in a sailboat,…Badass!
Here's their website:
http://www.morehandsondeck.com/
And since we’re talking about part du, I also got to hang out with the AK duo of Brian and Soniyae for lunch on Thursday and had a delicious meal at Mariscos los Laureles prior to ferry launch. They are chilling in La Paz indefinitely and waiting on some motorcycle paperwork to arrive from Alaska and a new stator coil to arrive from California.
See y’all after the ferry!
