Los Cabos

When Annie called me up in May asking if I’d be interested in accompanying Kevin on a surf trip to Los Cabos for a long weekend sometime in summer – her Father’s Day gift to him – I only had to think about it for as long as it took me to blurt out, “Lisa, can I go to Mexico for four days with Kevin on a surfing trip?!” With summer camps, soccer schedules, a visit to see my parents, a few trips to the cabin and the oncoming ripening of grapes it took a bit of calendar juggling to make it happen, but we pulled it all together this last weekend with the unwavering support of our wonderful wives!

We stayed at a magic little spot called the Cabo Surf Hotel a short drive out of San Jose Del Cabo, our room overlooking one of the hotel’s beachside infinity pools with a birdseye view of Old Man’s and La Roca surf breaks from the balcony. The hotel had an excellent quiver of boards which guests were able to rent – at a cost of about a quarter of what the airline would have charged to check a board in the hold – and came with the added benefit of being able to swap boards in and out during our stay. We were in the water within an hour of hopping off the plane on Friday, both having a blast riding the slow rollers offered up by Old Man’s until the sun was off the water. It was a fitting name for the perfect break to warm up old men like Kevin and I! I was exhausted after a couple of hours in the water and my ribs were definitely feeling it after being rudely reintroduced to the stiff fiberglass of a surfboard deck, but it was a hell of a lot of fun being in the 88°F/31°C water in nothing but board shorts.

San Jose Del Cabo was a short 10 minute drive from Cabo Surf Hotel, the lively tourist-oriented town center a collection of high-priced restaurants and cocktail bars. I’ve been to Mexico a few times over the years, cheap eats and similarly-priced stiff margaritas often feature high on the list of attractions, but these were nowhere to be found in San Jose Del Cabo: in spite of not being able to drink the tap water and the dilapidated state of the town’s infrastructure prices were on par with (or in some cases higher!) what we’re used to in the San Francisco Bay Area. That aside, the food was excellent everywhere we ventured, especially the handful of roadside fish taco and carnitas stands we stopped by during our surfing adventures. Also of note was an exceptionally creative restaurant called La Lupita (thanks Jarrid for the hot tip on that one…), where they had pretty much every one of the globe’s cuisines captured across their smorgasbord of tacos. I could tell Kevin wasn’t so sure about dining at the fish taco and carnitas huts on the side of the highway on our way to Todos Santos one morning, but we were rewarded with some scrumptious Mexican fare, well worth a roll of the dice.

Our two full days at the tip of Baja ended up being mirrors of each other: up early with an adventure to a surf break, roadside tacos, back to the hotel for a rest, afternoon surf out front of the hotel, another rest, another surf out front, pool, beers, dinner, margaritas, and finally liter beers on the deck back at the hotel overlooking the moonlit waves… Tough life. On Saturday morning Kevin had his sights set on Cerritos, a popular and punchy beach break a short drive just south of Todos Santos. We cruised Highway 1 to the unmarked dirt road turnoff leading through the cactus down to the coast, through a bunch of half-finished resorts and hotels towards the picturesque sand covered in surfboards from the local surf schools. The color of the water off the west coast of Baja was pretty incredible, a stunning turquoise blue with some of the best clarity I’d ever seen. The waves at Cerritos were too fast for me, but it was nice just being out in the water, especially when we were encircled by schools of thousands of herring flapping their tails on the surface. Carnitas Machin in nearby Pescadero was a notable post-beach stop of the morning.

Sunday we headed the opposite direction: east towards the Gulf of California, along the remote coastline stretching away from Zacatitos. It reminded me a lot of some parts of southern Australia, with the dunes rolling into the ocean, coarse yellow sand juxtaposed with the stunning blues and turquoises of the ocean. We passed Shipwrecks along the way to our destination at a point break called Nine Palms next to Playa Santa Elena. Such a remote stretch of coastline, the pavement ended suddenly near Zacatitos and the next half hour of driving was along heavily corrugated and rocky stretches of dirt. I’m glad the rental car held together, to be honest! Nine Palms was a hell of a lot of fun: steeper and faster than Old Man’s and La Roca in front of the hotel, but a slow enough takeoff for my old bones to get my feet set and take the waves all the way into the beach. Amazing to be able to look down when riding the head-high waves and be able to see the reef underneath the board as clear as if looking through a window. Also quite memorable to have a small turtle pop its head up about three meters away to check me out while I was waiting for a wave.

Like I said: thank you very much to the ladies of the Valtenbergs and Taylor households for holding down the forts back in Sonoma County for the weekend. Was a great little adventure for Kevin and me. I can still taste the roadside pastor tacos. And those bathing suits… Yep.