Month: April 2013

As well as watching wildlife and taking a city tour we also put some hard work in relaxing by the pool. Each morning we realized that Americans like to get their towels on a lounger even more than the Germans do. If you weren’t careful and spent too much time in bed in the morning all the best locations by the pool were gone! Fortunately Tracy is an expert at getting up and claiming what is rightfully hers so we managed to bag loungers by the pool bar and on the last morning in the pool:

Each morning began with plenty of breakfast, although the buffet style approach caused Tracy many problems as there was too much food and she couldn’t focus on what to eat. Fortunately about half way through our stay she managed to get her focus and structure her meals in a way that meant she didn’t spend 10 minutes walking around aimlessly!

After breakfast it was a covering in sun lotion and straight into the pool for the boys:

And once in position on a lounger that was our day pretty much taken care of! There were occasional dips in the pool, sitting at the pool bar having a drink, going for some lunch and listening to all sorts of 80’s music and annoying people but all in all it was very relaxing doing nothing in the lovely warm sunshine.

This was our apartment block – we were up on the top floor:

 

This was the view from our room:

This was the view from our pool side loungers by the banana bar:

This is the banana bar with the swim up bar:

 

This is the view across the pools and out to sea:

 

On the first night at the hotel after we’d been for dinner we went upstairs to the Premium Club area which we had access to and Toby decided he was hungry! He’d already had pasta, fruit, cakes and then a second plate of pasta (yes, in that order) but that clearly wasn’t enough – melt in your mouth steak, with some Egyptian dance moves thrown in were required:

 

We also went to a nice Japanese restaurant while we were there and enjoyed more lovely food. For this meal we had to sit on the floor and our legs then went down under the table. It was very comfortable but it must be said that Tracy did have issues getting up which, if you click the link to the photo’s below you will see one of her being hauled up by Harry and Toby!

And that was that. Just a quite few days relaxing by the pool. None of us had been to Mexico before so we can cross that off our list and I think there is a chance we may be back – it’s definitely a good place to go to get some sunshine while the cloud and rain is around in the Pacific North West!

More hotel highlights available here!

As part of the almost free vacation we got a complementary Deluxe City Tour which we decided to take on the Tuesday. The downside of the tour was that we had to get up very early as the mini bus was picking us up from the hotel at 8am! The first few stops were at other hotels to collect other guests and then we went across to Cabo San Lucas – about 25 minutes across from San Jose del Cabo which is where we were staying.

The first part of the tour was meant to be a trip on a glass bottom boat our from the marina to the main “thing” that Cabo is famous for – it’s iconic lands end rock formation. However when we arrived at the marina, we met big Lenny our tour guide and he told us that the boat tours were cancelled because the harbor authorities had closed the marina due to high winds. With this being one of the main highlights of the tour this was a rather disappointing turn of events which being told we could spend 30 minutes looking round some shops full of Mexican tat couldn’t compensate for! We looked briefly round the tat but spent most of our time looking at the pelicans that were chilling out by the water. I don’t know what it is about pelicans but I like them – I think I’d like to come back as a pelican!

After boarding the bus we set off back out of Cabo towards San Jose to a place called Chileno Beach. This beach is one of the few along this stretch of coastline where you can swim in the sea – most areas are too dangerous due to the currents that exist between the Sea of Cortez and the Pacific Ocean. Chileno beach is also very popular because it is home of a large area of coral reef. This makes it a very popular location for scuba divers but it was only a paddle for us! The water was warm crystal clear and considering the benefits it offers it was surprisingly quiet – mainly because tourists don’t often know about it. The locals obviously do though because there were security guards up in the car park to make sure people weren’t pinching the coral!

 

As we boarded the bus to leave the beach, big Lenny informed us that the harbor had been opened again and we could go back and take our boat ride if we wanted to, which of course we all did! Back on the bus, we set off back from where we had just come and on to the boat. On the way back to the marina Harry and Toby were trying to get their heads round glass bottom boats. They couldn’t quite understand what the would look like and why they didn’t sink – because glass sinks.

 

As we went out of the harbor we saw lots of California sea lions flooping about and then as we got further out we started to see fishes appearing under our glass bottom. There were some parrot fishes, yellow fin something or others and many other multi-colored fishes. We then went on to the famous rock formation at lands end (the end of the Baja peninsula). Although there were lots of other boats around it was actually a pretty impressive formation/sight with lots of small beaches all around – all of which are only accessible via the boats. 

 

The rock formation, if you have an imagination is meant to look like a dinosaur putting its head down into the water to take a drink:

 

With the boat trip over it was back into the bus, with beers and sodas provided for all (apart from the driver) and we set off in the direction of San Jose del Cabo again. Next stop was a glass blowing factory where we watched the professionals creating an attractive/ugly glass fish and then we watched a couple of slightly less professional glass blowers creating something which resembled more of a big bubbly mess until they blew so much that they exploded (the glass bubbles not the blowers)!

After leaving the glass blowing we walked round the corner to a local, traditional Mexican restaurant. We all sat down at the table and the owner kept plying us with glasses of tequila – hoping that we would buy some later! I wasn’t overly interested in the samples however the host was most insistent and wouldn’t let anyone (apart from the boys) not drink it! It was much smoother than tequila we have tried in the past and then there were probably 6 or 7 other flavors to sample including apple, pear, mango and coffee which were actually quite nice – although slightly sickly after the first 4 or 5!

With lunch finished there was just time for a short walk around some of the town and then it was back in the bus and a return to the hotel. It had been an eventful morning and it was good to have taken the tour and seen some of the Mexico outside of the hotel but it was also nice to escape the heat and get into a nice refreshing pool! What a tough old day!

The rest of the pictures can be seen here.

What we had expected on our vacation was sunshine and some relaxation time by the pool. What we hadn’t expected was a bonanza of wild and marine life. If only I’d bought the camera with the big lens! Nevermind.

First of all it has to be said that not all creatures were captured on camera however all were witnessed by everyone so there is no disputing their existence!

As we were still in north America our first sighting was an eagle as we drove from the airport to San Jose del Cabo. They were everywhere throughout our stay and, according to our cab driver, it was a fish eagle. Although we saw plenty of these across our few days this particular creature was one that did escape the camera. We’re also not 100% sure it was a fish eagle but we have no other suspects so we will run with that.

We also saw a large number of another odd shaped soaring bird which looked like this:

We’ve no clue what it is but we will rely on Russell to let us know! There were plenty of them though.

Other birds that were not particularly rare but sighted by us included the pelican (one of my own personal favorites):

And the woodpecker, who we saw at the beautiful Chileno beach:

Also at Chileno we saw a lizard of some sort:

We wouldn’t make very good wildlife commentators because, again, we have no idea what it was, other than our tour guide said it was a lizard and we agree with him!

Off the land and into the water, we saw another collection of interesting things!

The biggest sighting was one that we have no photographic evidence of as we had just gone for a walk a long the beach and didn’t take the camera, however it was, until the last morning, the most spectacular. We stood on the beach going “oooo” and “aaaahhhh” as if we were watching a July 4th firework display. What we were in fact watching, out on the horizon, was at least one and maybe several grey whales leaping out the water and crashing back in with a massive splash. It was pure chance that we had seen them – we first spotted what we thought was the blow of air shooting into the air – but then after watching a bit longer and moving a bit higher up the sandy beach we saw the whales leaping and saw lots of whale watching boats zooming towards them. Even with my best lense I’m not sure we would have got a great picture but it was amazing to see nonetheless!

Moving on to somewhat smaller aquatic life we did get a slightly imperfect picture, on our boat trip, of some “yellow fin fishes”! I’m sure they have another name but I’m not sure what it is! Here they are though:

Also on our boat trip we saw Californian sea lions a-plenty both swimming in the water and being pretty stinky on some rocks:

Away from our boat trip and on walks along the beach in the morning from the hotel we had spotted manta rays leaping out the water. They seemed to congregate each morning along the beach from our hotel and for some reason they would just leap clean out the water, do a little spin and then flop back into the water. We had initially thought they were fish but as they did their spin, mid flight we saw their flappy wings. It was very entertaining but again we managed to get no photographic evidence of the leaping. We did however get evidence of the rays and pretty spectacular (and lucky) it was too!

On our last morning we had claimed our sun loungers in the pool and while Tracy and I lay in the sun Harry and Toby went to the beach to play volleyball. After a while Tracy went to check they were ok before arriving back to tell me that there were rays in the sea playing in the waves. Harry and Toby had seen these and decided that although numerous people were watching this event it wasn’t worthy of telling their parents – they’d just carried on playing.

When Tracy and I got down to the beach we saw the amazing sight for ourselves – and it was so good that it was the single best moment of the holiday! With the waves crashing onto the beach the sun was still at a low enough angle that the light was shining clear through the waves as they rose from the sea. As it did there were tens (if not hundreds at times) of rays playing in the water and surfing their way into shore right in the middle of the wave.

Although I have used the word several times already it really was amazing to see and even more amazing was the fact that I managed to get some pictures! Because the sun was still at a fairly low angle I couldn’t see a thing on the camera screen so I just pointed at the water and kept on taking pictures! Here are a couple but there are more available here:

So there we go! That was our wildlife extravaganza! The only other creature we should mention was a nasty little wasp that lay on the beach and stung Toby when he trod on it. It was a whooper of a sting but it came out nicely although it did reduce our big brave Toby to heap of tears. Fortunately we weren’t far from the hotel so we went to the pool bar and got him a kids Pina Colada and everything in the world improved!

 

Leading up to our Mexico vacation we had watched a UK TV series that tracked the migration of the Grey whale from the Baja peninsula to northern Alaska. Inspired by the fact that we now found ourselves at the base of the Baja peninsula Harry decided to perfect the art of being a grey whale.

After some hard graft in the pool I think you will all agree that for a casual observer he could easily be confused with a whale:

httpv://youtu.be/kpW3RWMgEpc

Toby wasn’t as keen on being a whale – he much prefers talking to them (and is very good at that) – so he just decided to spend some quality time on a body board that some random person had given to the boys as they left:

httpv://youtu.be/XERuWta0xgg

Toby’s smooth moves on his body board caught the eye of a drunk American lady (term used loosely) in a bright yellow bikini who decided to join him as he went up and down the pool. He seemed very pleased with himself although we’re not sure this bodes well for later in life!