The amazing whale slide

This is the Amazing Whale Slide, fast and slippery and dangerous because you can easily hit your head on the bottom or land on top of some moron who is swimming around under it because neither of you can see each other.  But so fun!

Jim and I went down it together and I would say it ranks up there with double bikes as something all couples should do.  Plus it's hilarious.

A visit to Lovers/Divorced beach

The beach in front of our resort was nice enough, but the beaches you could get to by water taxi--Lover's Beach and Divorced Beach--were where the snorkling and spectacular views of the Pacific were.  So, one afternoon, we hopped on a water taxi and headed to Lover's Beach.  As soon as we got off the boat, we were accosted by an American beach bum type, who tried to convince us to buy beer, tamales, umbrellas, and to have our hair put in cornrows.  Somehow we resisted.  Kate, Andy, Cora and Dad were with us and I will be adding their pictures as soon as I get them downloaded to my computer!

The water was pretty cold,  but the snorkling was great, with beautiful colorful fish being drawn to the surface by water taxi drivers throwing tortilla chips into the water.  The glass bottomed boats made things a little dodgy and at some point the cruise ships brought all their people in to snorkle, so it got a little crowded, but it was still fun. Not as good as when we went snorkling in St. Lucia, but still pretty.

Millie stayed back with Mom and Dad, but Evie came with us and was very relieved when we came back on shore again, despite the fact that her Dad is huge dork and her Aunt Kate is a lot of fun. There was even a little Evie and Cora sized ocean pool for her to play in, but she was having none of it since decided that the ocean was her number one enemy:

                                      

Evie running to meet me when I got out of the water:

In addition to American Beach Bums, there were also thousands of ground squirrels, who were eager to get to the lunch that we packed.  We entertained ourselves with seeing how close we could get them to come to us and actually saw one take off with most of an apple, which was pretty impressive considering that they are the size if chipmunks.

Evie agreed to take a walk down the beach with us as long as we didn't touch the water.  So off we went.  She was still mad at Jim for forcing her to go into the water and wash huge amounts of sand off of her...hence the grumpy face in these pictures.

There were spectacular rock formations and caves, but unfortunately the caves had been used as bathrooms, so they were way too smelly and full of trash to go inside of.

We headed through these rocks to get to Divorced Beach, but we never actually made it because we needed to get back and relieve Kate and Andy, who were guarding all of our stuff (from beach bums and ground squirrels).  When I went a few days later, it was pretty amazing.  The waves and current are so strong that swimming is not allowed there, although there were people surf kayaking.  Someone on the whale watching trip said that she had seen whales from that beach.  It's a beautiful beach...especially when there aren't a million people around.

                            Somewhat cheered up and posing on an Evie sized rock:

Mutual adoration on Lover's Beach.

And then we hopped onto our water taxi and headed back to our other love, Millie.

A Mexican Fiesta

After whale watching, we spent the afternoon swimming and eventually wandered down to the resort's market for a pinata (more pictures to come when Jim figures out where he has put his camera's memory card).  The girls were dressed in their Mexican flea market dresses, which reminded me of when I was a little girl and we went down to San Antonio for a wedding.  We went to the San Antonio market and bought colorful mumus--one for each of us and for our cousin Andrea.  Evie was very proud of her "Rainbow Princess Dress" and Cora and Millie looked beautiful, too!  

With the beautiful and stylish Aunt Kate:

                          

                        

 The pinata was a lot of fun, and after the kids all had a turn the adults were allowed to whack it, too (again, pictures on Jim's missing memory card):

 Evie kept all the leftover bits and pieces of the pinata:

We hadn't planned to go to the Mexican fiesta (besides going to the pinata), but after a strong mango margarita and when the Mariachi band started up, we just couldn't resist.  So we headed down to join in the festivities.

Here I am in the midst of my strong mango margarita, with Millie, who was trying to figure out how to eat her pinata candy while it was still in the wrapper:

Mexican fiesta-ers:



Evie met a real Mexican princess.  Millie was scared of her.

 We spent a lot of time eating our faces off while we were in Mexico.  All you can eat buffets were in abundance and we ate and drank all we could. The food was really good.

 Jim enjoyed his tequila shot (worn around his neck).

 Unfortunately, after all the whale watching, swimming, pinata hitting and princess meeting, Evie wasn't able to stay awake for the amazing Mexican dancing that was too come:

 

But Kate and Cora got picked out of the crowd to dance with the "old men."

 There was lots of stomping and swirling of skirts and sword dancing and all the dancers were really good, I thought.  (as a side note, we also saw some other styles of dancing during dinner a few nights before, where the costumes were less demure and the women wore lots of feathers and sparkles.  The men liked that performance better).

 And, the Mexican hat dance! 

After all the eating and drinking and whale watching and dancing, our party began to drop like flies.  Try as we might to keep on going, we ended up heading back to our apartment at 8:30 when they started playing stupid drinking games on the stage.

Mexico adventures continued--Whale Watching!

Well, that whole plan to blog about Mexico in pieces and prevent such a big gap in updates hasn't exactly worked out...but I shall persevere and eventually I'll tell the whole story of our trip to Cabo.

Early on Monday morning we all headed out to the front of the resort to catch a cab and head off for a morning of whale watching. Alas, Jim wasn't feeling well, so he decided to stay back with Millie.  Here is the whole Whale Watching Crew:

 We visited a not quite open flea market on the Marina to get Evie a Mexican straw hat.  There were small children playing the xylophone for tourists. They didn't look very happy and when we were in town and away from the fancy resort we were faced with Cabo's poverty.  Despite that, everyone in Cabo was always very friendly and good natured...a nice break after being in London, where people have a lot more money than people in Cabo, but go out of their way to avoid interacting with each other.

Whale watching is actually a big boat party, with lots of yummy food and all you can drink and booming music and a funny MC.  

                                         

 Finally, after a lot of hanging around and eating food, we headed out of the marina!

 A view of the beautiful beaches we would visit later in the week:

 As we pulled into the harbor, we had our first glimpse of some big, playful sea lions (which you can't see in this picture, but they were there). 

 And, after a while...some humpback whales!  Unfortunately, I never managed to get a good picture of them when they surfaced, but it was pretty amazing to see them.  We kept our distance, because those were the rules, but some of the water taxis who were also taking people out to whale watch were getting very close to the whales.

 In between seeing whales, Kate led Evie and Cora in an on boat ballet performance.

 There was plenty of beer...

 What a fun day, in beautiful weather, to see the whales!  And we had a lot more fun to look forward to later in the week, too.