Cabo Getaway

Matt and I spent seven wonderful days in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, loving the beach, the sun, the food, and each other. It was incredible. Absolutely the most amazing trip that I have ever been on – France included! We didn’t do many other things besides hang out around the resort, because it was just so amazing, and because everything else was so expensive. We did have some trouble getting there at the beginning, because it was pretty difficult to find out exactly which hotel we were staying at. When we got off the plane there here dozens of timeshare “vultures” waiting to catch people and rope them into buying a timeshare. We walked right past them to the man who Matt had arranged to pick us up. We took a 35 minute bus ride to San Lucas. The land was so dry and desert-like. The buildings all along the road were little beat-up shacks that looked closed and run down. It was sad to see, but the people we passed looked the same. We made our way out of the city to the resort stretch of the beach. The driver took us to a Casa Dorada hotel, but the concierge was not able to find us on their list. That had us slightly panicked, since we were already kind of unsure of where we were supposed to be. She made a call to a different Casa Dorada and they were able to find us at the Hilton. The driver then took us over to the Hilton, which instantly took our breath away. The concierge here was initially unable to find us on her list too, then we really we worried. Fortunately, we were able to pull up our confirmation on a computer and they eventually found us on the list. It was a scary process, however. We were worried that we wouldn’t have a place to stay! When we finally made it to our room we said a thank you prayer for all of the nice people who had helped us and that we had made it safely. Then we began our honeymoon extravaganza! We spent some time every day we were there on the beach, mainly playing catch with a Frisbee. We also spent a lot of time at the pools, which were amazing! There were jellyfish in the ocean so they had red flags up telling us not to go in the water. We weren’t too bummed about that though, because the pools were incredible.

We ate almost every night at El Meson restaurant at the resort. They had free chips and salsa (made by a lady who would make it in front of you on a cart) and wonderful food and desserts. I think our favorites were pastor tacos, tortilla soup, churros with rich chocolate sauce, tres leches with berry caviar, chicken chimichangas, and chicken tacos. They were so authentic and amazing. The one disappointment came with a salad that I ordered, the Organic Mexican Salad. It had jalepenos in it which I couldn’t see because it was dark and the dressing was not very good, which made for an overall bad taste. Our next favorite part about El Meson was their breakfast buffet. It included breads of every kind, pastries, fresh fruit, cheese, meats, pancakes, French toast, eggs, oatmeal, yogurt, cereal, potatoes, stuffed chilies, bacon, sausage, and fresh orange juice. So amazing! We ate until we were stuffed every day. One funny story about the food is that several months prior Matt and I looked at the restaurants menus online to get an idea of how much it all would cost. We saw that an average meal was around $200 and we were so confused and so nervous! We did not understand how tacos or a burger could cost that much. We were pretty worried that we were getting in way over our heads and that we were either going to starve while we were there or leave broke. After probably 15 minutes of panicking, we looked at the bottom of the menu and saw “All prices are listed in pesos.” What a relief!! We were so excited to see that! The exchange rate at this time was about 1:10 so $200 really was close to $20. We still dropped close to $700 by the week’s end on food, but that’s better than $7,000! Over the past few months whenever something has seemed difficult or hard we look at each other and say “Don’t worry, it’s in pesos!” and everything seems a little bit better.

We made friends with some of the workers at the resort. Julio cleaned our room every day and we were very pleased with his work. Estefania greeted us at El Meson and even learned our names. Pablo was the concierge we talked to several times and asked for tennis rackets. Matt was very excited to be able to use some of the Spanish that he has been learning. We didn’t say too much in Spanish because they were so polite in English. The thing we heard the most from them when we told them ‘thank you’ was ‘It’s a pleasure!’ What friendly and helpful people. Matt and I really enjoyed going for walks along the beach, both during the day and at night. We made a heart in the sand that said ‘M+A.’ That was cute. One thing that we couldn’t believe was how empty the resort was the first few days we were there! There were always close to 100 beach chairs set out and maybe 20 of them were taken. The restaurants were empty too. We felt like we owned the place…besides the fact that we were the youngest and cheapest people there. By the time Thursday came around close to 200 people or so showed up for a charity event that happens every year. It became pretty packed after that, with drinkers, smokers, and loud people. Fortunately, they didn’t take away our fun. One night we rented Kung Fu Panda from the Vacation Station and watched it in our room while we ate sandwiches and Starbuck’s hot chocolate ice cream. I really enjoyed spending simple times like that with Matt. We had a lot of fun together.

We put forth a concerted effort to keep doing the things that we should always be doing: we said prayers individually and together twice a day, we read scriptures individually and together for 15 minutes each every day, and we dressed up and didn’t go to the beach or pool on Sunday. I am so grateful for Matt’s righteous example to me when it comes to spiritual matters, and all matters. He takes it very seriously to be a spiritual leader in our family and I am so grateful for it. Anyway, Matt and I had an amazing honeymoon together. I absolutely loved it and I loved being with him all the time. I am really looking forward to all of the time that we will have to be together. I could not have imagined a better trip!