| August 2014 - Cabo Pulmo, Mexico
This was another "Kumi call". A friend told her about this place in Baja called Cabo Pulmo.
It's a small, secluded resort where pretty much the only things to do
are dive, snorkel and fish. She was trying to get a few people
together to go. I said yes. It ended up being five of us
going. I Left Sacramento at O-dark-thirty. Arrived in LAX for a surprisingly longer than expected layover. Followed by an approximately 2 hour flight to Los Cabos International Airport. Interesting thing about the airport, all international travelers do not arrive at the same place. This makes for fun times when trying to meet friends flying in from other places. Eventually I met up with Kumi, Midori, Kelly, and Logan at a rental car place. After quickly loading the minivan, off we went to “Mega”. Mega, a huge store where you can buy food, clothes, etc. Think Walmart Super Center. We ate. Then we bought a few groceries because it seems the place we were going to, Cabo Pulmo, is a tad secluded. Cabo Pulmo is isolated. Roads getting here are fine (not including the washed out part outside of Santa Cruz) until you get a few kilometers outside of “La Ribera”. Then the road becomes potholed. After potholes, it becomes a dirt road. It is passable by car, but a SUV would definitely be a better choice. It took us about 2 hours to get there. The town itself is small. In my blog I said it had approximately 200 residents. But it's more like 100. There are 5 solar powered street lights. All the homes, apartments, villas, etc. are solar powered. Some do have a generator for extra power. We were staying at Baja Paradise. We had the "El Nido" villa. The villa itself is very nice. 2-story, 2 bathroom, kitchen, living room, 4 beds upstairs, and 1 bedroom downstairs. There’s also a patio and a sun terrace. It’s also about 50 yards from the beach. The next day, Kumi and Midori went diving. Kelly, Logan and I decided to check out the area. We drove to a place 12 kilometers from Cabo Pulmo called Castillo Arena. We found a private community and a very nice beach where it appears turtles come to spawn. After Castillo Arena, we drove back to Cabo Pulmo, then continued back to La Ribera. We didn’t do much in La Ribera but shop at a mini mart and eat at a little roadside place. Then back to the villa. Kumi and Midori returned shortly after we did. We decided to eat at a restaurant called “La Palapa”. It was very good. La Palapa became my favorite restaurant there. Unfortunately Logan had a medical emergency. He had to return to San Francisco. He scheduled a shuttle and left the next day. Day 3, diving! All of us went diving. The dives were very good. Good visibility and excellent water temperature. We saw a LOT of sea life. We didn’t have an underwater camera, but Pilu, our dive master, did. Here are some of the photos she took: Diving photos. Pilu manages Cabo Pulmo Diving. We did all our dives with them. They were very good. After diving/napping/hiking stuff, we found out what happens to our solar powered villa on a cloudy day… We lost power. To be honest, we weren't sure if it was because it was cloudy or if we were using too much power. (Our maid said we were using a lot of power.) It did come back on later. We ended the day on a good note: We ate dinner at Coral Reef Restaurant. The next day, more diving. Again, the dives were very good. I don’t think I can adequately describe them. We again had good visibility and warm water temperatures. More sea life. On one of the dives we swam through a reef canyon. Somewhere in the canyon there was a little cave, which, for some odd reason, I decided to follow the dive master through. After diving, we ate at La Palapa again. Day 5, Kumi and Midori went diving. Kelly and I decided to see more of the area. We jumped in the minivan and took the (dirt, changing to pothole riddled asphalt) road to La Ribera. We stopped in La Ribera at our favorite mini-mart for juice, then continued on. Our destination was Los Barriles. Pilu told Kelly about a dirt road route to get there. It was quicker and more scenic than going the highway route. We found a dirt road and it did get us there, but we’re not sure we found the correct dirt road.... Los Barriles is a coastal resort town. It has lots of little shops and restaurants. After walking around a bit, we stopped and ate at one called “El Viejo”. Side note: I should mention there is a lot of remodeling going on. It seems to be everywhere. Shops, banks, restaurants, all being remodeled. I found out my favorite Cabo Pulmo restaurant, La Palapa, closed for remodeling. After Los Barriles, we drove back to Cabo Pulmo ahead of a thunderstorm. (You don’t want to be on many of these roads when it’s raining.). We got back in time to go get something to eat with Kumi and Midori. (The storm missed us BTW.) We went to Caballeros. Good food, good prices, slooow service. Day 6, Kumi, Midori, diving. Kelly, me, snorkeling. Except for visibility, the snorkeling spot Kelly and I went to was pretty good. There were a couple of times when we were surrounded by fish. I did take pictures, but the visibility was so poor you can barely tell that the "cloud" is actually a lot of fish. After snorkeling, Kelly and I went to lunch at Nancy’s Restaurant. It was around 11 AM. They were closed. Lunch isn’t served until 2 PM. But Nancy and her daughter were there and they were very nice enough to cook something for us. I had a chicken quesadilla with scrambled eggs, beans, rice, and a banana. Day 7, the “Do nothing
before travel day”. Which was pretty much what Kumi and I
did. Midori and Kelly went snorkeling. Kumi and I ate;
Slept; Made a visit to Pilu and Henri’s place; and slept some more. We arrived at the spot we were worried about. It was a river. A few vehicles were already there on both sides. One truck was stuck in the river. A tractor eventually arrived and pulled it out. For a while, people on both sides stood there looking at the rushing water. (Think, nature show where gazelles, wildebeests and zebras are standing at a river. They know there are crocodiles there, but they have to cross to get to the other side.) Eventually, one truck decides to go for it and makes it through. Others decide to follow and also make it through. We do take note that these were all at least SUVs and 4x4s. We had a minivan. However, the tractor guy had a trailer coming and offered to pull us across on that. That worked. After that it was a relatively uneventful trip to the airport. We all made our flights. My first class upgrade made for an enjoyable trip home. Things to note about Cabo Pulmo:
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