02 December 2012

The Cabo Journal


Here are the rest of my journal entries from our Cabo trip this year.

Nov 4, 2012

We woke up bright and early this Sunday morning still not adjusted to the new time zone. We had our coffee and sweet bread and enjoyed the sunrise from the balcony. The day before we scheduled a timeshare presentation for this morning in exchange for a car rental credit, a dinner cruise, and free breakfast. We were told the presentation would be 90 minutes. In the end, it was more like 5 hours from the time we got in the car to head to San Jose del Cabo (about a 25 min drive) to the time we retrieved our car from the valet. We all felt like we had been beat up and remembered why we don’t sit through these presentations. Our salesperson, Debbie, was great and gave us a fairly good expectation of how long everything would take. When we got down to the end and said “no thank you,” she went and got her manager, Alex. Alex, of course, came over to give us his “best offer.” When Jimmy continued to explain why we were not interested, Alex very abruptly said, “Well, this is by best offer. If it works for you great. If it doesn’t fine.” And then he turned to Debbie and said “tell them this is my final offer,” got up and walked away. This is when Jimmy started to morph into his alter ego: Mr. I WISH A MF WOULD DISRESPECT ME! As soon as Alex disrespected us all, any chance of them making a sell went out the window. Instead of recognizing this and letting us go, in walks a second manager to again give us their best offer. When Jimmy gave him the “I would not buy anything even if it were free” speech because Alex disrespected us, this man still continued to talk. This enraged Jimmy, and all of us quite frankly, and we started to zone out. We were finally sent to what was supposed to be our final stage where we were given a survey. Can you believe they were still trying to sell us a vacation program. At this point, I had to get up and wait outside because I couldn’t listen to anymore sales pitches.  What’s crazy is that the original price they gave us was approximately $125,000 and by the time we made it to the 5th person, it was $3000. True, it wasn’t for exactly the same product but that price swing is insane and leads me to believe that some folks are being ripped off and are actually agreeing to a $100,000 plus price. Crazy!

When we finally got out of there, we all felt like we had just done battle. We were exhausted, hungry, and desperately in need of an alcoholic beverage. We had already missed the Colts/Dolphins game and were on the hunt for a sports bar where we could enjoy the rest of NFL Sunday. Thankfully, we found a cool rooftop bar in downtown San Jose del Cabo called Shooters where we enjoyed a good lunch and several cold beers and margaritas. We headed back to Cabo San Lucas after the day games, parked the car, and headed back out to catch the night game at a sports bar in walking distance to our condo. We stopped at a bar with only one person in it so we thought we would enjoy the game in peace. Little did we know, this one person, who we called Island Eddie, talked more than all of us combined. His eyes lit up when he saw us come in and he gravitated to us immediately. He was clearly intoxicated but thankfully he was a happy drunk and provided us with a lot of laughter and two rounds of shots.

We made it back the condo a couple hours later, climbed into bed and called it a wrap for day 2 in Cabo.

Nov 5, 2012

Antwain (Jimmy's cousin) had his mind set on playing golf and was even considering going on another timeshare tour to get a free round on a $300 per person course. After hearing no other takers, I reluctantly agreed to play with him but qualified that since I haven’t played or even swung a club in several years (5 or 6 to be exact), I would probably only be good for 9 holes. I convinced him we should just pay the money instead of subjecting ourselves to another timeshare nightmare. He made the reservation for 1pm and we were set. Because I hadn’t planned on golfing, we had to make a quick run to Walmart so I could get a collared shirt. I grabbed a purple one to match my sneakers (If I sucked, at least I would be cute) and we were good to go. $288 later we were tee’d up at Hole 1. I won’t take you through the play by play but let’s just say that I performed way better than I thought I would. I even got a couple of bogeys and double bogeys. Antwain was shooting for at least one of us to get a par but it didn’t happen. I think at some point both of us had a chance on a par 3 but our short game (namely the fact that neither of us have any accuracy with the pitching wedge which by the end of the game led me to using my putter if I was anywhere close to the green) killed us. I also felt more confident about my game when after the first 3 holes, Antwain had lost about 4 balls. Who knows where they went. I guess the dessert sands and bushes needed them more than he did. 

The course was beautiful and for a quick second almost renewed my enjoyment for the game. I felt like those lessons I took at the Lansing Country Club when I was 8 were finally paying off. Then we got to hole 15 and like clockwork my enthusiasm had passed. I don’t know what it is. Once I get to about the 3 hour mark of hitting and chasing after a ball in a golf cart, I’ve just had enough. I’m sure Antwain could tell when my interest got lost because that’s when I started the serious conversation...marriage, kids, life, etc.  He teased me for it later but I warned him I was only good for 9 holes. I was actually proud of myself for stretching it out for a few more. It was getting dark by the time we got to Hole 17 so we turned on our speed golf skills and decided to skip Hole 18.  On the car ride back to the condo we were hoping that our respective spouses had prepared us a delicious meal but were sadly disappointed when we walked in to a scentless kitchen. Shawntee informed us that Jimmy had just left to watch Monday Night Football and that she was waiting for us to get back with some food. So the three of us headed out to find Jimmy so we could eat. Once we finally found him, he was finishing up the last of his tacos and beer. “You didn’t wait for us” I proclaimed. He showed no remorse and suggested we get the 4 taco + 1 beer special for $7. Typical. We ate while watching the Saints demolish the Eagles and then walked back to the condo and called it a night.

Nov 6, 2012

Election Day! I couldn’t wait to get up this morning and turn on election coverage. I planned on staying glued to the tv. Unfortunately, the only news station we had in English was Fox News. Boo! But I guess it’s better than nothing. We kept it on mute for most of the day so we could read the headlines. When the polls started closing around the country we turned the volume back on and gathered on the couch to see the results unfold. The strange thing about Fox News' coverage initially was that they were very quick to call states for Romney and register his electoral votes on the screen but in the same scenario where Obama was clearly the winner of a state, they would not give him the check mark. Using this tactic, they skewed the results in Romney’s favor for as long as they could; until they couldn’t. Then, after they finally announced that Obama had won Ohio, Karl Rove, who was one of their commentators for the night went on a 20 minute rant of how he thought it was too soon to call Ohio and that he would err on the side of caution after what happened in the 2000 Election. Dude, give it a rest! When your co-commentators say it’s over it’s time to let it go. The fellas went to bed after the results were announced but Shawntee and I stayed up for the speeches. Although, I kept dozing off during Obama’s speech (due to exhaustion not disinterest) I went to sleep thinking happy thoughts. 4 more years!

Nov 7, 2012

We spent most of the day at the pool (and by we, I mean me because the blazing sun sent the others back inside within an hour). I love heat and sunshine! That’s what inspired me to apply to virtually every law school in Los Angeles. I knew the odds were in my favor and I would be accepted to at least one of them. I couldn’t take the dreary gray days of Michigan and 4 months with no sunshine. I don’t think depressed fully explains how that type of weather affected me. But I digress. So, while at the pool, we started talking to a couple of retired guys visiting from Canada. Turns out they were subjected to the same “5 hours in purgatory” timeshare presentation we were. We shared some laughs about how they wouldn’t take “no” for an answer and how they sent all the failed attempts out the back door to get on a sketchy van to pick up our prizes.

Later in the evening we claimed one of our timeshare prizes by going on a Sunset Fajita Cruise. At first we were skeptical because there were more people in line than the boat appeared to be able to hold, but it all worked out. We took some great photos of Lovers’ Beach and The Cove and it was neat seeing how developed the coastline was from a panoramic vantage point. After the servers dolled out the fajitas and bottomless drinks, we headed to the top of the boat where the dance party had begun. We did the Cuban Shuffle, The Percalator, The Wobble, and a couple other line dances I don’t know the name of. In the end, it was a lot of fun (which is usually the case when an open bar is involved). We de-boarded and headed back to the condo for more rounds of margaritas and Uno. I was sleep by 9:30pm. It must have been all the sun I soaked up.

Nov 8, 2012

Thursday came so fast. Including today, we only have 2 full days left. On Monday, it seemed like we’d been here for longer than 2 days but now it feels like we just got here. I can already tell today is going to be a chill day. Jimmy is nursing a hangover after drinking way too many margaritas last night and Antwain and Shawntee are sleeping in. Every morning so far, Jimmy, Antwain, and I have gone for a morning run. By the looks of things so far this morning, I think we’re taking the day off. I was planning on going to the beach today but I might just opt for the pool again. We’ll see where the day takes us.