hola, isabel

To some of you, I may just be the “Party Shuttle Sign Girl” from BlogHer. Really though, my name is Stephanie; I have a real job, real friends, a family, and I’m also a blogger. (Hey – if you were offered $100 to do it, you’d do it too, OK?)

To say that I was a little bit honored when Isabel asked me to be a guest blogger is a bit of an understatement. I’ll spare you gooey details, but it’s true. When she asked me to blog specifically about vacationing, I had to laugh because I’ve become known as a sort of “Vacation Queen” amongst my friends. So far this year I’ve been on the road for 53 days. That’s roughly 20% of the time, people. And those were not days that I traveled for work. So yes, I think I’m qualified to tell you a little bit about vacationing, or as I like to call it, “making the most of my weekends.”

A few years ago I had a boyfriend who I will call Harold for the sake of this post. He was going to professional school and a few weeks before his first year of school ended, he told me he was going to Mexico for the last two weeks of his break. The first few days of it were actually spent in Alaska with me, so I didn’t have much to complain about. But, I was in love and knew that two weeks without him was going to be torturous. The morning I dropped him off at the airport on his way to Mazatlan, I said “What would you do if I came down to visit over the long weekend coming up?” He just stared at me and said “Well, if you want to come, that would be fine, but tickets are expensive, I’m sure.” I quickly replied that tickets were only about $400 and even if the prices went up by the time I bought it, I was sure that I could get a cheap ticket to Cabo and he could take a ferry over to spend the weekend there. (You think I did a little research before bringing up the idea????) I just told him to check his email within the next week and I’d email him my flight information.

By the time I got online to buy my ticket, the price of plane tickets to Mazatlan was $900. I quickly checked on tickets to Cabo San Lucas and found that they were much cheaper. I checked into the ferry from Mazatlan from Cabo, saw that they had a scheduled departure the night before I arrived, so I booked the flight and sent the information to Harold. The night before I was to leave for Cabo, I was at dinner at a noisy restaurant. After leaving, I looked at my phone to realize that I had 20 missed calls. I hurried home and my roommate told me that Harold had even called her to try and reach me. Supposedly the ferry from Mazatlan to Cabo didn’t exist any longer – he had taken a bus a few hours north to catch the ferry from there, but the tickets were sold out for that evening. Great. Just great. Keep in mind that buying my ticket to Cabo was the last thing I had done in preparation for the trip – no hotel reservations, no car rental, no NOTHING. The next morning, my roommate was supposed to drive me to the airport, so she came in my room and asked me what I was going to do. I just told her that I was going to go and hope that everything worked out like I had planned. I bought the ticket (and a new bathing suit!) and with or without Harold, I was going to enjoy a long weekend in Mexico.

Right after I walked through security at the airport, my phone rang and I saw that it was an unavailable number. I quickly answered “Harold!??” His voice on the other line wasn’t very reassuring when all he said was “Where are you??” I replied that I was in the airport on my way to Cabo and he said “Oh good” with a sigh of relief. I asked him where he was and all he told me was that he didn’t have much money left on his phone card from all his failed attempts at getting a hold of me the night before and that I should meet him at the bus station in San Jose del Cabo when I left the airport. I tried to ask him how he got there and all he said was “Well, I’ll never think of avocados the same way again. See you in a few hours.”

Thanks to Harold’s phone call, I wasn’t quite as anxious on the flight as I could have been. The lady next to me was very chatty, though all I wanted to do was sleep. A few minutes before landing, she asked me where I was going in Cabo. I told her that I was meeting my boyfriend at the bus station and she offered me a ride. I quickly said “Oh, no, thanks” and then a few minutes went by. I started realizing how bad my Spanish really is and then of course started panicking about how I was going to get to the bus station, etc. I asked her if I could actually get a ride and she was more than happy to help me out. Before I knew it, I was in a stranger’s rental car in the middle of Baja. When we pulled up to the bus station, I hopped out of the car and ran inside the bus station convenience store to find Harold buying a candy bar. I told him about the lady I met on the plane and that she was willing to drive us into Cabo San Lucas. He got in the car and started telling us the story of how he’d basically given some truck drivers $200 so that they would put him as a stowaway on the ferry in the back of their avocado truck for over 15 hours while he had a knarly sunburn. (I’m thinking that his side of the story deserves a whole other blog post.) Needless to say, he got there to the station around the same time that my flight landed. Airplane Lady asked if it was OK if she just took us to her hotel since it was within walking distance to downtown Cabo. Of course we were just grateful for the free ride and nice company she was providing. Upon arrival to her hotel, she told us that we just HAD to come in and see her room since it was so nice and we could go for a swim there since there were 3 pools right outside her door. We weren’t dumb enough to turn down her offer and she seemed legit. About five minutes later, we were in her hotel room checking out the nice view and she told us that if we wanted to just stay with her for a few days, we were welcome to. Harold and I talked it over and 10 seconds later, it was agreed that we would stay. In the mornings, we would lay out by the pool and then in the afternoons, we’d go downtown and go shopping and see the sites. At night, we would go out to the beach and watch shooting stars. I don’t think there is anything more romantic than laying on the beach at night watching shooting stars. The morning that my flight left we hiked over to Lands End and saw the famous arch out in the water. It was early enough that we were the only ones there. …sigh.

We sent our gracious new friend a dozen roses after returning home – she wouldn’t accept any money. Did I mention that the trip was romantic? These days, I just can’t get over the fact that I somehow ended up staying in an awesome hotel with a super nice stranger in Mexico for free-fifty-free. Forget that it was romantic. Forget that my boyfriend rode in the back of an avocado truck with a sunburn for 15 hours as a stowaway just to spend the weekend with me. In fact, let’s just forget that it was probably the most reckless thing I’ve done in pretty much my entire life – fly to a foreign country with zero plans. So now you tell me: what’s the most reckless thing you’ve done on a vacation? Keep it clean, people; keep it clean.