Cabo: The Hike

To me, this was definitely the most memorable day of the trip. Before I go any further, let me remind you that "memorable" doesn't always mean appropriate, smart, OR safe.

Kim and I had this GREAT idea (input sarcasm here) of climbing up the tallest mountain on the rocky coast of Cabo. We're thinking this has to be a popular thing to do amongst adventure seekers, right? I'm starting to think that everyone that visits Cabo really does do nothing, why can't we follow suit?

So it starts off like this.

Story #1: We tell our resort representative that we want to hike to the top of "that" mountain (pointing to our destination). She says - oh yes - great idea. All you have to do is go to where that white building is in the marina and that's where the trail head is.

Story #2: When we get in the cab, we tell our driver we want to go to the last white building in the marina to meet the trail head to hike to the top of "that" mountain (once again pointing). He says "no no no......the trail head is on the other side of the mountain - located at this other resort from their beach". So we agree to just have him take us to this resort.

Story #3: As we drive into the resort - the security guard stops the cab to ask out business for being there. When the cab driver tells him we are going to the trail head for the mountain.....I can't even describe the look on that security guards face. It was a look of confusion, fear, hesitation, "are they stupid" type of look. However, he let us through.

Story #4: We walk into this new resort and ask the receptionist how to get to the trail head. She proceeds to tell us there is no such thing. We told her we were originally told to go to the last white building in the marina to find the trail head. She immediately came back and said "no no no.....that's private property and they have vicious dogs that run free patrolling it". GREAT! So we ask her about accessing it from their beach. She pulls the same face as the security guard did (nice) and proceeds to tell us they are not allowed to encourage access due to the dangerous climbing conditions on those rocks.

So what did we do..............we forged on.......in search of this trail head. When will we learn? Apparently NEVER!!! So, we headed down onto their beach, thinking....we came all this way, we might as well get some good pics of us on this beautiful beach with the Pacific Ocean in the background.



As we get to the end of the beach - we notice a guy on the rocks sweeping them with a broom. Yes........very weird but that's what he was doing. So we went over to him and asked him: "Is this the way to the trail head leading to the top of that mounting (once again pointing)." He motioned for us to follow him and assured us this was a normal thing to do.

I knew right away this guy wasn't doing this for free, so I warned Jim to have some cash ready.

He led us over several rock piles and we finally landed on a completely private beach. GORGEOUS!! It was then we saw what resembled somewhat of a trail head. There was a sign mentioning Government Reserve Land and a "fee use" area. But there was not box to leave donations/fees so we just kept going.

Our "guide" led us up to the top of the ridge where we came across a fence. There were very large signs stating "PRIVATE PROPERTY - NO TRESPASSING" in all sorts of languages, however, the fence had been flattened and it was obvious that people are crossing this on a regular basis.

We question our guide asking him if we were supposed to be on this private property....asking him if there were any mean patrol dogs around. He waved his hand and said nothing was wrong - people do this all the time. Maybe we were dehydrated and not thinking straight........but we actually trusted this dude.

So, there we are........on the ridge.......on private property. The peak that we REALLY wanted to climb was to our left, and there was a smaller peak to our right. So we went ahead and climbed the smaller peak thinking let's just start off there and feel this whole thing out.



Here we are BEFORE crossing over into private land.

To be honest, the smaller peak was PERFECT. The views were to die for and we were able to get some great shots of the beaches below we wouldn't have gotten at the top of the larger peak.

Jim and I being silly

There is our resort in the distance

A top view of Lover's Beach

Bill and Kim venturing out to the edge

Scuba divers enjoying that awesome water

Jim giving me a heart attack!!!!

Jim's signature pose.......with the help of a little cable iron. What a wussie, right? HA!

Kim's making me look bad. Time to start increasing those push-ups (amongst many other things)!!

This is my favorite shot of the entire trip!!!!

Kim practicing her yoga poses. Thank goodness it wasn't 110 degrees outside, right Kim? Talk about Bikram flashbacks!

T

This pic turned out really great too!

So now what? We have to figure out how we're going to get back down. Do we go the way we came? Do we attempt the private property and see if we can get down the marina. It's so close......you can see it.......it's RIGHT THERE!!!! Going the way we came would have taken 2 to 3 times as long.

So what did we do????? Only what 4 responsible and intelligent adults would do.

Screw the fact that we're in a different country and have no idea what we're doing. Forget about the fact that we already paid off our SPANISH SPEAKING guide as he was told "We've got it from here". And who cares that we have no means of protecting ourselves, much less, really know where we're going!!

Oh yeah.....this was a very well laid out plan.

As we kept hiking through this desert type land....the only thing on MY mind was snakes.

PLEASE GOD don't let me see any snakes. Otherwise, Jim was going to have a companion riding on his back!!! Meanwhile, Kim is over there sweating out the whole "vicious dog" concept. And what is Bill and Jim doing??? Meandering along, chit chatting about life, work, yadda yadda!!!! BOYS!

Not to mention the constant signs we kept seeing stating private property and no trespassing. There were signs that read other things as well, but I have no idea what. Are we blind???? Obviously, we were not very welcome here!!!

As we came across the final ridge before descending into the marina.....Jim stated every so effortlessly: "Wouldn't it be funny if we get up here and there's a big locked gate we can't get past." Seconds later - what do we see? You got it..........a big locked gate. REAL FUNNY JIM! And to top it off........do you know what happened next????? We heard crazy barking and growling of some very ticked off dogs.

It was at this point - Kim and I needed to be wearing diapers. We turned around and hightailed it back into the ravine.......heading straight for the fence line. By this time, we were too far away from the flattened part we originally crossed so we were headed to main fence line. There was barbed wire on top, but we were prepared to take our chances.

Luckily, Jim kept his coolness and focused more on where the dogs were. Much to our happy excitement, they were locked in kennels about 200 yards away. Granted, all it takes is one unhappy land owner to release them so we weren't completely off the hook yet.

Then Bill see's another sign with a pawprint on it and the word "Spot". Nice.

We all 4 realized it was in our best interest to find a spot to get on the other side of that fence and get off this forsaken property. Why it took this long to realize this is beyond me.

Fortunately, this was a small break in the barbed wire on the fence line and it was there we reached "the promised land". WHEW!!!

Granted - it wasn't an "easy" crossing. HA!

Bill and Kim standing on the "better" side of the fence. Those warning signs just aren't big enough!!!! :-) And the sign over the left shoulders "No Cagarse Aqui" means "No Sh#t". HA HA!!!

Finally in safe and sound in the Marina, we had one goal.............FOOD!!! No, we didn't eat at Hooters, but we did take advantage of their sign for some good photo ops. But truly, Kim and I don't really NEED the props!!! :-)

Lucky Jim

Only Jim

We found a great Mexican restaurant and had it all to ourselves. Here we celebrated life and the fact that we still have ours!!!

Reggae street performers

Because we hadn't really hiked enough today (this IS vacation, right?), we decided to walk the beach home.

A new furry friend I made. He/She was so cute I just wanted to pack him/her in my bags. Chase and X would have LOVED that!

We're almost to our resort when we see things just flying out of the water. Originally we thought they were just big fish......but as we focused, we realized they were sting rays. It was SOOO cool and hopefully you can see it in this pic.