We bid farewell to the Sonoma Coast and took flight for the southernmost tip of Baja California...
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| Highway 1 in Sonoma County. From our trip to Cazadero. |
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| Sunrise takeoff for Cabo San Lucas! ! ! |
After leaning over Charlotte's lap repeatedly, she was nice enough to trade me seats. I was curious what Baja California would look like from above as well as from ground level. It appeared extremely dry from the airplane.
I noticed this very peculiar little island on the Sea of Cortez east of the peninsula:
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| There were also some nice clouds over the shimmering sea. We landed and of course the four of us promptly got pina coladas. Charlotte's parents, Hal and Selene, were with us, and her brother, Daniel, who arranged the trip, was also on his way from L.A. The private villa that he reserved for us for 3 nights was absolutely incredible and we wasted no time in chilling the heck out upon arrival!  It was incredible to just look at the dream homes that covered the hillside across the way.   We proceeded to spend the next three days relaxing together and basically living like kings and having the best time possible. We were celebrating the conclusion of, to say the least, a terribly challenging year, so a few days with family and no worries in sight was a wonderful idea. |
Of course, the local flora and fauna were exciting to see. Like this Magnificent Frigatebird (Fragata magnifica) that seemed to fly high overhead every mid-morning. If you zoom in you can see it's unique forked tail. There were many of these large cacti as well. Sort of similar to the Southwest's Saguaro cactus, however these are Pachycereus pringlei, commonly called Mexican Giant Cardon (cardon = thistle in Spanish) or Elephant Cactus.
Charlotte and I took a walk down to the beach and saw some impressive Ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens). Not a true succulent, Ocotillo is in the order Ericales, like Heather, Blueberries, and Manzanita are.
Some interesting rock formations at the beach.
💙 and happy faces 💙
We were told that Cabo gets about 10 days of rain per year. It seemed like a pretty rough environment for survival... I wonder if the area could ever have been inhabited by humans without modern commerce and technology? The plant life is appropriately resilient and adapted to a life in the blazing sun and rocky soil.
It was interesting to see the juxtaposition of such bone-dry landscape with human development. There was a very large and lush-looking hotel down the beach a short ways. Just out of the photo to the right is about where our villa was, up on the hillside.
Of course Charlotte befriended the local invertebrates. We also saw these hummingbird-sized moths at sunset. This one had a taste for hibiscus nectar.
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| A nectar of a different sort... "Tequila time" was any time. But especially at sunset. |
On our second night, Daniel took us to an exquisite tequila tasting at Clase Azul. It was a private tasting in an unsuspecting little bar room and it included food pairings with each different tequila. We were charmed by the young man and woman who guided us through the experience; they occasionally would do little synchronized gestures or words, and were overall just very friendly and fun.
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| Here is an example of what was served with each tequila. The little bowl is ceviche with lime sorbet and a fried banana or plantain, and in the close right hand side of the picture is a fish-skin chicherone surrounded by an assortment of little flavor-dollops, one of which is "onion ash"... wow. |
The tequila was really good as well. I found the clear ones very pleasant and mellow. The darker barrel-aged ones were a bit more intense, but good in their own way.
(We were forbidden from taking pictures during the tasting, but Daniel managed to sneakily snap a few... Charlotte and her brother share a passion for defying rules and regulations 😄 )
The next day we hung out by the pool and drank lots and lots of water:
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| This about sums it up! |
Just swaying in the breeze and reading, aaahhh . . . . .
And occasionally surveying the horizon: a peculiar monument atop the cliff, and a large ship that looked like a container barge, but with no containers?
We did see some whale spouting and breeching out on the water, but I didn't get any pictures of it (it would have been a tricky thing to time... photography through binoculars is not easy).
We were so pampered at the villa, having all our meals prepared for us. Here we are inspecting the local cuisine. Charlotte insisted this was a green called "verdolagas"... Our server informed us it was spinach. 🤣
This is a lifestyle I could get used to. We had a wonderful couple of days doing "nothing" in one sense, but doing a lot of feeling good and hanging out, soaking in the pool, joking, family bonding, exploring a new place together, and reflecting on the past year. It was a lot of fun, and also my first time out of the States in 20 years!
🦐 Hallelujah! 🦐
