Spending New Year's Eve with Strangers
A few months ago my partner met a few new people while visiting an old college friend.
He hit it off with them and by the end of the week, they invited him to join them in Mexico over the holidays. We were due for a vacation, so when he came home and asked me if I’d like to go, it was hard to say no.
We flew out the day after Christmas and arrived in Cabo, Mx just after midnight. The rest of the group wasn’t arriving until the next day, so we decided to find a cheap hotel for the first night. Unbeknownst to us, a cheap hotel inland in Mexico isn’t always a good idea. We hadn’t eaten all day, so we found ourselves wandering the poorly lit streets looking for something to eat at 1 AM. I cannot count the number of times I was approached and asked, “are you looking to party? Whatever you want, I got it”. After about a mile of walking, we finally found a small place serving tacos. We quickly ate and then turned in for the night.
The next morning we took a taxi and drove to our Airbnb to meet the rest of the group. We hadn’t planned any of the trip, and so the only information we had about our trip was an address. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the Airbnb was a timeshare at a newly renovated resort right on the beach.
The first day was slow as we got settled in and I got to know the rest of the group.
My partner had spent a couple of days with them, but I was meeting everyone for the first time. We eventually unpacked and then took a trip to good ol’ Costco, where we bought some groceries and booze. When we got back we took a couple of shots, made some margaritas to go, and headed straight for the infinity pool. Welcome to life in Mexico.
The next day we wandered around town, ate way too much food, and walked the beach sipping margaritas and Pina Coladas. At the beach, we were approached and asked if we wanted to take a water taxi to Playa del Amor, Lover’s Beach. Intrigued we agreed to meet the next day at noon.
We took a small boat out with a glass-bottom where we could see an array of colorful fish swimming underneath us. The driver brought us to the famous Cabo arch, and Lover’s Beach, the beach that sits between two oceans: the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California. We spent the day body surfing, bouldering, and sunbathing.
One of the days we took a charter boat out for deep-sea fishing.
We got up before dawn and I was desperate for coffee. When we got to the docks I asked a local where I could get some coffee. He led me to a back alley where I got some questionable coffee from an orange 2-gallon jug, like I said, I was desperate. We took off right as the sun rising and caught 5 fish within the first hour. Our captain took us out further to fish for marlin and tuna, but within a couple of hours the waves picked up and most of the crew got seasick. We turned around and ran into a few whales showing off for us. We watched as water shot out from their spot and flipped their tails in the air. By the end of the day, we had 9 large fish. We took a few fish for dinner and gave the rest to our captain and a couple of locals that filleted our fish for us. A restaurant kindly agreed to cook up our fish for dinner and prepared it for us in 6 different ways.
