As far south as we could go – all the way down to the very fingertip of Mexico’s Baja peninsula, got us to the resort of Cabo San Lucas. Right up there in the top 5 places to visit in Mexico and a key destination for our cruise ships, oh yeah, Cabo is a proper party city. And we were there on the weekend, so we were ready to party!

Bars and restaurants and more bars lined the marina, so that’s where we started. Our view as far as we could see was yachts and super yachts, hmmm maybe we should re-assess the mode of transport for our next trip…?

But for now, we’d have to make do with a sunset booze cruise. Us and a hundred or so others. That’s ok, I can share nicely.

So yeah we had to put up with having to share our experience a bit. But it was exactly the holiday party feels we were looking for.

While the service was excellent on the boat and the drinks were flowing, they’d perfected the art of catering for those who only ever drink on a party boat. Meaning they were somewhat cautious on the tequila pouring. Leaving us with a search for the best shoreside margaritas in Cabo.

Outpost restaurant offered a margarita flight – not your average margaritas either. L-R below… Avocado margarita with coconut cream, serrano pepper, tequila and gran marnier. And avo obviously. In the middle you have a black margarita with tequila, chipotle syrup, activated carbon (I have no idea what that is other than guessing it’s what makes it black) and lemon. And last up – a smoky hibiscus margarita with mezcal, hibiscus, ginger and house bitters. Seems you can call any cocktail a margarita providing it’s got tequila or mezcal in it.

After all those margaritas, somehow I made it up for a morning run around the marina. Nothing too hardcore you understand.

And it‘s not often I proper treat myself but I decided to splurge some of my birthday money on a massage. Not just a massage but a full on full body deep tissue thumb, knuckle and elbow massage. I could barely stand up afterwards so I lounged in the hotel swimming pool lapping up the sun instead.

End it did, and next up was La Paz for a week. And here pretty much our Mexico fairytale came to an unfortunate end. Put it this way, this was my view for most of the week…

Yeah I got sick. And then Darren did too. When you think how much traveling we’ve done, it’s kind of surprising we’ve not been more ill along the way. Negative Covid tests when we got home but not felt so fatigued in a long time. Suffice to say, a few days knocked out in bed in La Paz and hence not much to write about.

But there’s always photos. Some from before, some from after. No more of the fan I promise. So here you have it, the last of the trip is a photo summary…

There were two inspirations for our Mexico trip. The first was the friendliest grey whales on the planet. Ticked off on the way down and totally lived up to the hype. The second was a kayaking trip in the aquamarine waters of the Sea of Cortez around the rocky shores of the island of Espiritu Santu. Unfortunately, the lurgi put paid to that. But we did make it down to the beach to see where we would have gone. I guess it just means we’ll have to come back sometime!

The big thing 1,000 miles south gets you… is warmth. We hadn’t been short of sun in Tijuana but it felt a bit like that British sun, you know – the one with not much heat in it. Now we were darn sarf, we really felt like we were on our hols.

The Airbnb wasn’t quite as palatial as the one in Tijuana, but we were smack bang in the middle of the Pueblo Majico of Todos Santos. The town had a vibrant arty feel to it, with striking Mexican skull art adorning the walls and bright colored flags flapping exuberantly in the street, all adding to the fiesta feel.

Todos Santos is on the coast, backed by the picturesque Sierra de la Laguna mountain range. In contrast to the hard-packed sand at Playa de Tijuana, and the seafront esplanade in Loreto, there were no such easy running options in Todos. The terrain favored hiking instead, so hiking we did.

I couldn’t avoid the running forever though. I just had to run the gauntlet past the crazy Mexican dogs. Arriba, arriba. Luckily the worst ones were tethered behind gates or fences but I managed to attract quite a pack at one point. Four or five of them gathered around me, yipping and yapping, leaping and bounding. Quite excitable that they found some poor unsuspecting gringo to take them for a free walk.

There was no shortage of top notch Mexican food in Todos… in particular, they really rather excelled themselves on the taco front.

Meanwhile, the margaritas came thick and fast. As did the ceviche and the molcajete.

Um, not sure how much of a Mexican tradition pizza and salad is, but it was delicious.

We soaked up the holiday feeling and chilled out with the holiday flow, enjoying sunset from the Skylounge bar. There’s something that feels just so damn decadent about a rooftop bar! I switched out the Tequila for a Hendricks G&T, garnished with cucumber and rosemary, and served in a wine glass. A refreshing change after all that lime. Truth be told, we might have spent a few evenings up there.

The walk we did before work was so enjoyable, we did it again. At the weekend. Only this time we were able to explore a little further without the need to cut short to get to work. So we brought along our old friend the drone, which hasn’t seen much daylight recently. Simple pleasures. 🙂

Ooh, we do love a good roadtrip. Over 1,000 miles was on the cards for us over the weekend, so we took the Friday off to give us some time to play along the way. Our goal was to get to Todos Santos, all the way down in the south of Baja, by Sunday evening to check in to our next AirBnB. And to take in a bit of the Mexican countryside – the real Mexico, along the way.

Countryside is probably not quite the word for it. Wilderness is more like it. Of the desert type. The type of desert with cacti in, not the sand dune type. Lots and lots of cacti.

After leaving Tijuana, we drove through the tourist trap of Ensanada (do not pass go, just get the hell through there) and continued down ‘The 1’ (pretty much the one and only main road down the whole of Baja). After skirting the west coast, our route took us inland past El Rosario, where there was unfortunately no room at the inn due to a large contingent of bikers in town.

We pushed on, realizing that there was a whole lot of nothing for the next few hundred miles. Nothing is maybe a tad unfair to the Joshua Trees and Saguaro cactus, but nothing in the way of civilization.

Until that is, we arrived at the ‘town’ of Catavina. Four side streets, a petrol station and get this, a hotel! That’ll do nicely.

The next day took us past more cactus. I think in Mexico there are more cacti than there are grains of sand on the ground or stars in the sky.

It was a delight to arrive at the oasis that is San Ignacio, a small town (but not quite Catavina small) surrounded by lush date palms, centered around a striking Mission church. They also happened to have a bar offering the best margaritas in Baja.

Next up after a long and bumpy dirt road (somewhat regretting that margarita) was a night on the shores of Laguna San Ignacio, winter sanctuary to hundreds of Pacific Grey Whales and one of the reasons we wanted to do this whole trip. We’d booked a whale watching trip the next morning, and in the meantime enjoyed an idyllic sunset and a few more margaritas.

At this point, putting up the tent in what had turned into a howling windy evening was not seeming like a viable option. So we settled for a night in the truck instead.

Rise and shine was early doors. What with the time zone change as we entered the southern State of Baja Sur and on top of that, there was the change to daylight saving time. So it wasn’t just one but two hours earlier we had to get up. Or so we thought. With diddly squat phone signal, we were none the wiser. But it turned out that the summertime change across the whole of the US didn’t affect Mexico at the same time – they do it on their own terms, a few weeks later.

The combo of sleeping in the truck and the fake two hour time change left us a little bleary eyed. But one look at the choppy water in the lagoon soon woke us up – we were convinced our boat trip would be canceled. The boats they use are kind of tiny and they weren’t just bobbing around on their moorings, I would more say they were careering uncontrollably.

Luckily, a bit of patience helped, as we whiled away that extra hour.

The waters eventually calmed somewhat, miraculously enabling us to board the still vulnerable-looking boat. Well, a bit of sea water spray flying in your face and sloshing into the boat never hurt anybody. We were on a mission: to find the friendliest grey whales on the planet.

The pictures paint a thousand words and I can’t possibly compete.

Suffice to say, we were privileged to have the most amazing whale interactions. Both mothers and babies approached the boats to glide alongside, blanketing us in spray as they exhaled through their blow holes in unison. A little further away, a cheeky whale head popped-up – an inquisitive look-see to check out what was going on.

Overall, this was one of those truly memorable experiences that make it all worthwhile. Yes, even with that rocky little boat.

All that remained was to continue the journey south for our next working week in Todos Santos. Including a night camping on the shore of Conception Bay over on the east coast and popping in to the town of Loreto for a quick hello. Oh and in case you’re in any doubt, yes there were more cacti. Always.