Friday - 18 January 2019 - Cabo San Lucas and San Jose Del Cabo

Woke up at 430 and was at O’Sheehan’s by 5 with a cup of tea, updating my log of our journey.  I worked until 545 and then had a breakfast of scrambled eggs, a hash brown patty, the smallest little container of baked beans in a cup, brown toast, and way too salty sautéed mushrooms. I went back down to the room and Margie was just getting up at around 615 so while she went and got her breakfast, I stood in the line by the pool to get tender tickets for us. 

We were tendering into Cabo as there was no pier there for the big cruise ships. Cabo San Lucas is a very pretty city with lots of hotels along the steep beach and shops all around and along the marina.  Our friendly security guard wished us a good day and helped us off the ship and onto our tender. 

Margie and I left with Tender call #3 at 8 am. A short ride to the docks at the marina filled with lots of pretty boats. We found out that our tour would not be going until 845 so we explored a little bit looking for a bathroom that was open. As we asked different people  they would point us in a direction away from the pier and into a nice shopping area with restaurants and bars, obviously for tourists. 

We ended up in a market that was only just opening up and all the booth owners pointed the way out to us while asking if we were looking for anything. Right next t the washroom was a little coffee/pop/bar and I noticed in the cooler there was a gingerale so I bought one and Margie got a diet coke. It was hard to find gingerale on most of our stops. They carry 7 up and sprite which is not even close to gingerale. Will need to contact gingerale and let them know that they need to work on their distribution in the warmer climate locales. We wandered back to the dock and found a spot to sit and wait for our tour.

There were lots of bright red crabs on the rocks around the pier and different kinds of fish in the water. We chatted with the other folks off of our ship and took some photos of the fish and crabs. We went into the very nice jewelry store right there at the waiting area when it opened , and used the washroom there too, just to make sure we did not need to use the washroom again before our tour. One never knows when the next washroom is going to appear so better safe than sorry. It seems that we do use the washroom a lot so was thinking about taking photos of washrooms everywhere we went but then decided not to even go there.

Our tour bus for San Jose Del Cabo loaded up and we were on our way. Through Cabo San Lucas all along the bay and up to a very nice restaurant , the Mona lisa, on the other side of the bay with a spectacular view of the entire bay, Cabo and the Arco, or the Arches. 

We had a free drink there, and you guess it, used the washrooms again. Getting old is so much fun. Margies grand daughter had been to Cabo the year before with her family and Margie wondered where they had stayed. She was pretty sure they had stayed in town but on the beach so we were looking at which hotel it might have been from our vantage point.

The restaurant is layered with many different levels for seating and all with the spectacular views of the bay and the arches. There were several hotel/ time share places around so I figured that the restaurant got lots of business between them and the town too.

Back onto the bus and off to San Jose Del Cabo, about 20 minutes up the coast , past lots of new and being constructed subdivisions. 

San Jose Del Cabo is a lovely town with lots of great shops and a lovely church, San Jose or Saint Joseph, on a very large square with lots of trees and benches. 

We went into the church which was located at one end of the large square. It was lovely and we lit some candles and said some prayers for family and friends. 

It was quite an old church, simple and  plain compared to some of the cathedrals and churches we has seen around the world but it had a charm all its own. Quite warm and inviting.

The story of the church is that a monk was killed by the natives and he became a saint. Quite the story but obviously the people of the area loved it as there was a mosaic of the event above the door to the church.

After the church Margie and I wandered down to the jewelry store where the salesmen had shouted out to us as we passed… 99 % off…. So we went to see what was 99% off. Not much, but I did get some very nice earrings for less than 20$

Back up to the little restaurant on the corner the square across from the church for guacamole, our favourite Mexican dish. We tried the guacamole  everywhere we went and it was a little bit different at each place. 

Kind of like tortierre in Quebec with every household having their own recipe. 

The resturant had fish of all kinds decorating the walls, some of which I had never seen in my life. We chatted about Margies son Dennis who wanted to go marlin fishing. 

Cabo San Lucas is a big fishing town as we saw by the hundreds of fishing charters going out to sea when we were pulling into port. 

After a lovely guacamole lunch we went back to the silver shop and Margie got some earrings too, also for a good price.

We then met up with our group and walked down the street past lots of art shops, some of which I would have really liked to stay and look through, but alas we did not have time.  

I did take a photo of one tapestry that I would like to try and recreate. it was so pretty. We walked about four blocks to where our bus was waiting for us.

At this point I thought that we were going back to the ship but it seemed a little bit early. We drove back down the highway the way we had come and pulled into the glass factory where we watched a glass blowing demonstration. The blower made a turtle with a sombrero and a glass of tequila.  

The show over we were free to wander and shop the glass item that were for sale. I did not purchase the tequila drinking, sombrero wearing turtle or anything else here although I did enjoy the bathroom which was very pretty and the glass room which was very interesting. We could not have a room like this in Canada with our weather unless of course the room was totally inside.

Back onto the bus and back down the highway, back through Cabo to the shopping district beside the pier. Back onto a tender and back to the ship. What a lovely day. The weather had been perfect and it was sunny with a breeze closer to the water to keep things cooler. the big rocks along the shore had some pelicans and cranes hanging out and someone said they saw a dolphin , but I did not. We left a little tip for the crew of the tender and said hello to our security people who always seemed happy to see us. 

 When we got back to our room, we went out onto our balcony to look at the bay some more. It really was a pretty bay. We started to organize our things and go through the bill for the cruise and Margie found that we had some free things still coming to us that they had not deducted from our bill or arranged for us to have yet so we went to the customer service desk and they arranged the free things by deducting from our bill. 

We then went to the internet gentleman and he added on time which we were supposed to get as part of our returning passenger perks.  He said one had to ask for it as it would not be automatically be added on. Interesting. We wondered how many people actually checked their bill that closely to make sure that they got all that they were promised as bonuses for booking the trip.

We now had extra internet time so we added some more photos to face book and checked emails. We kept an eye out for dolphins and whales and were not disappointed. Of course we did not get photos of the really close up ones but did manage to get a few shots of ones that were far away. The close one was right beside the ship right under our balcony and lovely to see. 

Supper was at the Magenta and we sat with a couple. After dinner I called the Moderno, our restaurant for dinner the next night and arranged for a vegetarian meal at a Brazilian meat restaurant. It was interesting exercise in explaining that, yes, I did know that it was meat restaurant. My sister and I had booked a reservation for 6. She ate meat. And yes I wanted a vegetarian meal, no, not stir fried vegetables. Eggplant Parmesan please. I only had to tell this to 4 people to achieve my goal. We went to the show which was pretty good.

Another great day of new places and experiences. We both really liked Cabo San Lucas and San Jose Del Cabo. We would go back to either, although Cabo did have the beach going for it which is a definite plus in our books.