oakenguy

I'm back! And damn glad to be here.

Before too much time passes, though, let me transfer my paper journal into LJ.

Cabo San Lucas Post 1
(transcribed from the longhand)
10/14/05

There is no way to complain about a palm tree blocking your balcony view of the sunrise over the Sea of Cortez without sounding like a total prick, is there?

Day 2 in what, if not paradise, is doing a pretty good impersonation.

The sunrise is making the clouds glow like copper, by the way. It's about 72 degrees F--you just don't notice the temperature, any more than you notice the temperature in dreams.

So here's the setup: 30 or so little villas, each with about a dozen rooms, on a gentle slope that eventually ends with the main building, some of the nine pools, and then the sea. There are cactuses and palm trees and little burbling fountains everywhere.

It's beautiful, it really is. But almost a little too beautiful, and the reason why didn't really hit me until I read in our tourist brochure that the hotel enjoys beautiful clear skies 360 days a year.

Little geography quiz: what do you call a place with 360 days of sun per year?
(Hint: cactuses)

Suddenly charging $4 per can of soda seems a little more reasonable.

We're in the capable-if-ever-greedy hands of the Sheraton Hacienda del Mar, who have realized (pause here while an employee drives by in an ATV with a special roller designed to smooth down the beach sand) that gringos would happily pay them $17 for a bottle of sunscreen rather than venture the half hour through the desert and into town to buy it themselves. As the only members of the wedding party anywhere near the poverty line, this has triggered D and myself to make some adamant money-saving decisions:

* A cart to take our bags to the building we're in? Pah! We'll walk up that hill!
* $26 for an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet? Pah! Alright, Mr. Sheraton McGreedypants, we'll eat your food, but we'll eat a LOT of it! We'll probably eat more than $26 just in salmon alone! So there!!
* $12 a day to use the fitness center?? We'll show them! Fitness schmitness, I'm not going anywhere NEAR that place!

At the rate we're going, if we were any better at saving money we'd lapse into comas.

Coming in Part Two: A wedding, 3 bits of physical comedy, and the author meets a good friend named Don Julio