Day 3: Yummy Mexican grub for my tummy

Zac had gone parasailing with Tom and Danielle earlier in the day and had been smart enough to ask the sailing crew where the best place to eat was.  The answer?  Baja Cantina.  

I know, I know.  I too was a little leery about eating the food and drinking the water on the shores of Mexico, but I'm sure glad that I took a chance.  This was, hands down, the best food we ate the whole entire trip.  I wish that we could have eaten there 5 more times before we left.  Honestly it's the best Mexican food I've ever tasted, ever!  (And if you know me, you know we eat tons of Mexican food.  I think we've been to almost every Mexican restaurant on the island...lol.)

Baja Cantina, where meals become fond memories.

We wanted to try a little of everything, so we opted for the combination plate and a couple of margaritas.  (You can't fully enjoy a Mexican meal without a margarita!)  They even gave us a bowl of tortilla soup as an appetizer. 

MEXICAN COMBINATION PLATE
Chile relleno, cheese enchilada, chicken tostada,
carne asada, served with rice, beans and guacamole.

Everything was delicious!  All hand-made from scratch.  You'd think they had grandma in the back serving up the dishes.  Even the margaritas were made with freshly squeezed lime juice.

My tummy was in food-loving heaven.

We totally cleaned the plate.  I don't even think they had to wash it, it was so clean.  If we weren't so full we'd have probably ordered another plate and scarfed that down too!  That's how good it was!

My advice, if you make it out to Cabo, skip Cabo Wabo and park your little behind at the bar at Baja Cantina.  You could get a table, but if you sit at the bar it's happy hour all day long!  Oh baby!  (Just a little insider information for you all because I love you so much.)

Once our meal was finished we happily paid our check and were on our merry way back aboard the boat.

They gave me pesos for change.  This comes out to roughly $13 change.

Zac and I in line to get on the tender boat for a ride back to the ship.  A couple of margaritas makes waiting in line much, much less painful.

Goodbye Cabo.  We'll be back again tomorrow.

Day 3: Cabo Wabo

After the quick boat trip to the arch we headed out to see the sights.

What's more Mexican than hitting up Cabo Wabo Cantina?

Come on, it's Sammy Hagar's place!  (For those of you that don't know, he's a member of Van Halen.  You know, you know all the words to "Hot for Teacher".  Don't try to fool me!)  It's one of those things.  If you're there, you have to see it.  If not, then you didn't really miss much...lol.

On the walk there we saw various things.  Jewelry shops, tourist-ie stores, the occasional pharmacy selling prescription drugs over the counter.  You know, nothing too out of the ordinary...lol.

Yes, apparently even Viagra has a super hero spokesperson...lol.

Also, if you're ever lost and can't find your way to Cabo Wabo, just remember that it's directly behind the "Titty Bar".  Those were the directions that my brother received from a local...lol.

You thought I was kidding.  I was not...lol.

The atmosphere was cheesy and the food and service were lacking, but the drinks were scrumptious!  So when you go, pass on the food and expect to have less than stellar service, but definitely have a margarita.  Yum!

My fierce supermodel pose in front of Cabo Wabo's red carpet area.  

Next stop, finding some authentic Mexican grub.

Day 3: Off the boat in Cabo San Lucas

After all of the days at sea, we were ready to set foot on some land.

First stop a boat trip to the famed Land's End Arch at Lover's Beach.  (I know!  We just got off a boat.  But it is pretty much the only way to see the arch without having to hike in.  So on the boat we went!)

Lover's Beach.  Beautiful!  Only bummer was so many people wanted to see it.  They drove tons and tons of people out there via water taxi.  Thus it kind of took the romance out of the whole "lover's" part of the name for me.  Now they should call it over-exploited beach.

 There were a bunch of birds circling over the top of the mountain.  Turistas, anyone?  I know, I was kind of freaked out too.  Too many scary movies I guess...lol.

Here it is!  The famed Land's End Arch.  Carved from the land via the currents of the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortez.  According to Destination360.com, pirates used to hide in the arch and ambush passing ships.  We didn't see any pirates, but I do think it would be a cool place to hide!

Here are some of the homes on the hill.  The tour guide told us that those are the homes of various movie stars.  What a view, huh?

Me on the boat.

The opposite view of the arch on our way back to shore.  This is also the opposite side of Lover's Beach.  The water is choppier there because it's on the Pacific Ocean rather than the Sea of Cortez, so the locals call it Divorce Beach...hehe.

The hubby on the front deck of the boat. 
*Teaching moment! 
It was super sunny out and all the photographs that I was taking of him were of him squinting from the sun.  How did I get this one, you ask?  You have to know the secret. 
Since we're friends I'll share it with you. 
Ready? 
You have your subject close their eyes.  Then you count to three.  When you get to three you have them open their eyes and you quickly snap the shot.  Voila, eyes open every time!  Perfecto!

Beautiful isn't it?

Once we made it back to shore, we headed out to have a day of fun and adventure, seeing the sites within walking distance in Cabo.

We look like total dorks in this picture, but hey it's one of us together.  I blame my dad for this one.  It's his bad photography skills, not the fact that we just got off a boat and were totally wind-blown at that point...lol.

Cabo, ready or not, here we come!

I just had to butt in...

Sorry for the interruption of vacation posts, but this is too good not to share.

I was leafing through our vacation pictures and stumbled upon this...

I thought, "Hardy, har, har.  There's my husband being funny taking random pictures of people's butts.  How silly!  Always the comedian.  But why am I in the center of the frame?  Eh, whatever..."

Then I saw this...

Hmmm....now it's only my butt.  But it's a whole body shot.  Maybe he meant to do that!  Maybe it was some kind of artistic shot that he was going for.  You know, me tip-toeing to peer into the water.  The wonder of the great blue sea.  Possibly...I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Finally I stumbled across this...

Ricky, you got some 'splainin' to do!

Day 2: I love the night life...

No birthday would be complete without a fancy celebratory dinner...

 Not the best picture of me, but proof that I was indeed there dining at the French restaurant Le Bistro.

 Tom and Danielle came too.

Here's Zac cheering for being a single guy.  Dork...lol.

Followed by massive amounts of drinking, partying, and we can't forget...karaoke! 

Zac and Laakea doing their rendition of 3 oh! 3's "Don't trust me".

I think that karaoke is the national pastime here in Hawaii-nei.  Let me tell you, we're pretty darn good at it.  So good in fact, we'll even sing loudly while you're at the mic just to help you carry a tune.  I really think we enhanced many people's song choices that night.  How do I know this to be true?

Another guest, that we didn't previously know, at the table in front of us took a picture of us singing.  Yes, I do believe that we made everyone's night that night.  

Also, you can make a lot of friends by helping other people sing.  By the end of the cruise we had a ton of people saying hi and bye to us...it may be because of what happened later on this evening...  Foreshadowing?  I think so.

Our night of karaoke via progressive pictures of Tom and Danielle:

 We start off looking good.  Smiling nicely.  Looking all cute with our jackets on.  (By the way, Danielle, I think that you should totally frame this one.  It's a really cute one of you guys!)

 A few drinks deep.  The jacket comes off.  The blue steel look appears and fingers get pointed.

Then this happens...lol. :)

Here's one of Chardei!  I told you that I had to sneak pictures of her.  Hence, her not looking directly at the camera.  She became elusive when the camera came out.  

Awww, so sweet!  Who wouldn't want to marry this?  Hehe...just kidding.

This is a pretty good one of the hubby and I. 

I was told that I had to give my husband a birthday kiss.  Really I was egged on by a bunch of semi-drunk friends, chanting "Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss!"  I thought, 'Why not?  It's his birthday.'  He was beaming after that.  Coolest wife in the world points scored there!  :)  

Then we headed over to the theater to see a show.  The show that night was a hypnotist show.  You know the ones where they pull a whole bunch of people from the audience and hypnotize them, thereby getting them to do all kinds of crazy things that they would never normally do.

A show where I can laugh at people willingly doing completely crazy things?  I'm in!

What I didn't count on?  My ham of a brother running up towards the stage to be a volunteer.

You know what?  It was even funnier because he was in it!  He totally made the show.  Full on dancing and power-sliding as a member of the band KISS.

Was he actually hypnotized?  He says no, but you never know...

 You can kind of see Zac in this picture.  He's the tan guy standing next to the guy in the white shorts.

After that everyone on the boat knew us.  "Hey you guys hang out with Zac!  He's the man!"  Yeah I know.  He's my brother. :)

We ended the night at the night club.  It was just okay, probably because La'akea and I are not big dancers.  So we ended up dancing for a bit and then calling it a night in the wee hours of the morning.

Happy birthday to the best husband ever!  Hope it was the best celebration to date.

Day 2: Three cheers for the birthday boy!

The next day it was the hubby's birthday.  We decided that we had to do it up right.  I mean we were on vacation, which already means that the rules of daily life don't apply, but it was also a birthday!  So all caution was thrown to the wind!  (Including my diet.  By the end of this day I really didn't care about calories any more...lol.)

Happy birthday, darling!

We decided that the best thing to start the day off would be a wine tasting.  Everyone should start their birthday off with a wine tasting, right?

La'akea and Zac waiting for the wine and cheese to be served.  They had the yummiest cheeses to pair with each wine.  My new favorite cheese?  Caraway cheese.  It's creamy and nutty and oh so delicious!

Zac and Tom.  Tom wasn't really feeling the wine, which was perfectly fine with me because I got to drink all the extras.  Thanks Tom for not liking the wine that they served.  :)

Next on the list, head to the casino.  I didn't take any pictures there because I thought it might be weird.  I know, I should have just taken some.  Oh well.  We did learn how to play craps though.  Well...they told me how and I nodded indicating that I understood, but it really made no sense to me.  Yeah, yeah.  Put money on a number and roll the dice.  Got it!  Ummm, no...  

Take this money and go shopping.  Now that's something that I understand completely.

After the casino and a few of the free drinks that they were passing out there, we headed out to the deck.  I thought it would be nice to get a few shots of just the guys.  

This is what happens when you ask three guys to smile at the same time...

You get no real smiles, just hams...lol.

By the time we were finished messing around on the deck, we had just enough time to headed back to our rooms to get changed for the night ahead.

After dinner drinks, anyone?

We ended up having dinner together at one of the "free" restaurants on the ship.  (If you wanted to go to a fancier restaurant the price range was between $10-$25 per person.  Not bad for a three course meal!)  The food there was just okay (Keep in mind that the hubby and I are somewhat snobby when it comes to food.  Personally, I want to eat something that is both tasty and aesthetically pleasing.  I want to be wowed by food and have it be an experience in itself.  This food was not an experience.  It was just to keep you full...lol.), so La'akea and I decided to forgo this restaurant and try the other restaurants as the trip progressed.

Honestly, there is only so much that one can do on a ship.  You can go swimming or lounge at the pool, gamble, read, play board games, eat food, see a show, dance at the nightclub, sleep, or drink.  Most people chose to drink...lol.  (Those who didn't choose to drink chose to eat food.  I have never seen so much food in all of my life!  The buffets alone were large enough to feed a third world country for a week and that was only what was served for breakfast.  I wonder what they did with all of the food that didn't get eaten...I'm not sure that I really want to know.)

Also, there was the ever popular drink while doing an activity.  Like lounge by the pool with a drink, eat food with a drink, dance at the club with a drink, go to a bar to get a drink, etc., etc.  I think that you could have actually succeeded at being drunk the entire cruise if you really tried.  I wasn't, but I'm sure that I could have pointed out a few people running for that title...lol.

So after our somewhat lack luster dinner, we decided to drown our food sorrows by bar hopping.  First stop Red Lion Pub.

Tom and Danielle with their first drinks of the night.  One of many...lol.

Another passenger told us to try the Guinness because it was the Foreign Extra, which has a higher alcohol content than regular Guinness and is also more expensive.  On the ship it was the same price as all of the other beers.  Score!  It was yummy.  Slightly heavier than a normal Guinness, but still very good.  

Mmmmmm, beer.

Danielle was drinking Patron Marga-tinis.  If you haven't had one, you totally should.

Next stop, the Beer Garden.  Did I mention that it was on the top deck of ship?  The open air, top deck of the ship.  Needless to say, we didn't stay long.  We ran back indoors where it was warm...literally ran.  That's how cold it was.

Zac left his jacket in his room.  I've never seen him run so fast before...hehehe.

Yes, it was that cold.

We stumbled across yet another bar, when we made it back to the warm indoors, called the Star Bar.  

I have no idea why Tom is giving me the blue steel face...lol.

My cousin, Chardei.  She really didn't want me to take pictures of her, but I caught a few anyways.

After a few more drinks there, we decided to call it a night.  I mean we had a whole other sea day tomorrow to do it all again...lol.