MEXICO

Baja California Sur

Sunday:
We woke up at 3:45am and hopped on the shuttle for the Oakland airport.  When we got to the airport we did a lot of running around and looking for our tour agency desk. After we got past security we went to get a bite to eat. Once we were done with our breakfast we had to run for our plane. When we got to our gate they had just started boarding people. Fifteen minutes later we were up in the air headed for Mexico. When we looked out the window we could see mountains, islands, and really pretty greenish blue water.
When we arrived in Los Cabos we exited off the plane and went down the stairs straight onto the runway. I could feel a rush of heat run right through me. It was a lot hotter outside the plane then inside. When we got in the airport we found our luggage and found a bus that would take us to San Jose Del Cabo. Once we got dropped off in San Jose we found our hotel. Diana was a small hotel in the middle of town. Once we had settled in we got very hungry and went looking for a restaurant. We found a nice outside restaurant. The people at the restaurant were really nice. It was really hot sitting outside. There was a thatch roof to keep the sun off of us. After we were done with lunch we went back to the hotel for siesta. We had just come to Mexico on the Sixteenth of September, which is like the Forth of July to them. It was independence from Spain.  At night we went to a festival at the plaza. They had food, streamers, lights and other party decorations. We had dinner there and watched the dancers on stage. The fireworks came on late at night when we were already in bed. But, we heard them and saw their light.

Monday:	These are the marching kids.
We wake up about eight or nine to hear drums playing outside. We run outside to find a parade of marching kids. Most likely to be in middle school. After they all passed we went to go get breakfast at the Jasmine's café. When we were ordering, a group of military young men came in. There must have been about fifty of them. They took up all the other tables in the restaurant. They must have been in the parade. After breakfast we took a taxi to the beach. We couldn't go swimming there because there was an undertow. But we could go beach combing and there were a lot of cool things on the beach.We found baleen, part of a dolphin's spine and lots of shells.
This is me with the dolphin's spine.	This is some baleen we found on the beach.

Soon our taxi came back for us. We went back to the hotel and packed up all our things. Then we took a long walk to the bus station. There we got our tickets to La Paz. It was about a three hour bus ride. On the bus they played "Home Alone" in Spanish. I could sort of understand it since I had seen it before.
When we got there we took a taxi to Hotel Lorimar. We got a nice room there for a good deal. Then we changed clothes and went to La Malecan, a nice place to eat and watch the sunset. There were three musicians that came up to play music for us for free. After three songs we gave them twenty pesos to be nice but they didn't want twenty pesos they wanted sixty pesos. We ended up giving them forty pesos and the manager asked them to leave. After dinner we walked back to the Lorimar, and went to bed.

Tuesday:	This is the Lorimar.
We woke up in the morning at the Lorimar hotel. For breakfast we went to a French restaurant. After breakfast we went to go find a place were we could arrange to go snorkeling. There was a place called Baja Adventures just down the block from the Lorimar that sounded like a nice place. We decided that we would go snorkeling tomorrow and that we would have to be there at seven fifteen. They gave us our snorkeling gear then so we could take it out to Tecolate, a beach that was north of La Paz. We had to run for the bus that we were going to take to Tecolate because we had stayed too long to talk to Robin Kelly, the person who would take us snorkeling tomorrow. By the time we got to the bus station the bus was just driving away. We decided that we would take a taxi. The taxi driver wanted twenty dollars for the ride but the person at the front desk at the bus station said it would only be twelve dollars. We asked him if he would take us for twelve but he said no. He offered fifteen dollars. So we agreed. We hopped in the taxi and drove for about forty-five minutes. The drive was on a street in the middle of nowhere. All that was around us was cliffs, sand, and cactuses.
When we got to Tecolate there was a restaurant and little umbrellas and tables outside. We sat down at a table and put on our snorkeling gear. I had never gone snorkeling before. We were just going to swim around and practice snorkeling before we went tomorrow. We didn't see very many fish. Larnie saw a stingray, which was exciting, and he also got stung by a jellyfish, which he said really hurt. We had to get out because the wind was blowing hard and it started to rain, thunder and lightning. We went inside of the restaurant and had lunch and talked with some nice waiters. There were two dogs that weren't allowed in the restaurant. The big dog found shelter under a van. And the other small dog kept on trying to get in. Her name was Karina. Karina was pregnant. Finally after a while when it was only Larnie, my Mom, and I and some other couple in the restaurant they let Kerina in. It rained for a long time. The roof was made of dried out palm tree leaves and it made the whole restaurant smell like wet grass. The water would drip through the roof so they put up umbrellas inside. The water would drip though the roof and run down the sides of the walls. The roof would stain the water and make it look like strong coffee. Since it was raining there were no taxis to take us back to La Paz. A nice man offered to take us back. We had been talking with him for a while and Larnie made good friends with him. We left after we were done with our lunch. The way back was just like before except there were rocks in the road that fell off of the cliffs. The streets had huge puddles in them and the sand was wet.

This is the van we were in, and the flood.

When we got back to town the roads were covered with water. Since it rarely ever rains they don't have much drainage for the water to run out. Then he dropped us off at the Lorimar. When we got inside of our hotel room all of our stuff that was on the floor of our hotel room was wet. After we hung all of our stuff up to dry we went out for a small dinner, since we had a big lunch we weren't that hungry. We found a nice place to eat with two men waiters dressed as women serving us. After we were done with our tacos we got some Mexican ice cream and went back to our hotel.

Wednesday:
After we were awakened in the morning by our hotel clerk at 6:45am, we put on sunscreen, got our snorkeling gear, and walked down the block to Baja Adventures. There we had a quick breakfast with the other snrokelers before we left. When we were all ready to go we got in a van that took us over to the docks. At the docks they separated us into different groups. One group would go one place and the other group would go somewhere else. My Mom, Larnie and I were with another couple, Dianne was the wife and Robert was the husband. They were also both from America.
It was about an hour and a half till we reached the first snorkeling spot. The water was a pretty bluish green color and if you looked down into it you could see the rocks below. On the beach we put on our snorkeling gear. I was so excited to get in I nearly fell off the boat. When we got in the water it was really warm. By the time we got to where we couldn't stand, the water was crowded with beautiful fish and sea creatures. There were black and yellow little fish, there were angelfish, and there were all kinds of tropical fish. Parrot fish, sea stars and Larnie found an octopus, which was very lucky. Unfortunately there were also little jellyfish that I got stung by eight times. Larnie found this really cool shell in the water.
Then it started to rain so we got on the boat, wrapped ourselves up in blankets and drove to another beach were we would eat lunch.	This is a shell larnie found in the water.

	When we were done with lunch we went to another place were we got to snorkel with seals. We drove around until we found a nice spot to stop. Our guide Robin Kelly said, "we should find a place to stop where the seals are most interested in us."like what we were doing. Then we put all of our snorkeling gear on again and climbed off the side of the boat and into the water with the seals. When we got in the water it wasn't shallow like before. It was about thirty-five feet deep.
	This is a picture that I found in a brochure that looks like what we were doing.
The pups loved to splash in the water and the bigger seals would twirl underwater if you would twirl. I was a little afraid to get back in the water after I was stung, but after you got in, it was a great experience. Soon it was time to go so we headed back. I slept most of the way back and when I woke up we almost were back. That night we went to Fonta for dinner. We were all exhausted from the long day so we were all happy to get back to the hotel and go to sleep.

Thursday:
We woke up in the morning and headed for Fonta for breakfast. Larnie had a traditional breakfast soup called Shoe Soup. It was like a cheese omelet inside of chile. It was good. After we ate we went shopping for souvenirs. We came to a place called The Mercados. Larnie bought himself a new wallet and we all got delicious fruit smoothies. There was a woman there with her daughter. They kept on staring and saying that me and my mom looked alike. After we finished our smoothies we walked back to the hotel. The clerk at the desk said that there was a swimming pool at a hotel two blocks down that we could use. But only if we bought something from the snack bar. We changed into our bathing suits and headed for the hotel. After we got some drinks we jumped in the swimming pool. There was a swimming pool, a hot tub and this weird area filled with water connecting both the hot tub and the swimming pool. The water in the area was about three or four inches high. It was nice to be in a cool swimming pool and not have to worry about being stung by jellyfish or getting salt water in your eyes. It was weird to be in it though because there were no ladders or steps to help you get out. On the edge of the pool there were tiles that made your hands slip every time you tried to get out and on the outside, there was rough cement that scratched me. When we were there we met some people that had gone scuba diving the same day we did, so we remembered them. They were nice and they talked about what they saw when they went scuba diving. Afterward we walked to the corner store and got chips and soda for dinner since nobody was that hungry. We worked on homework and on journals out on the patio. In Mexico instead of buying barbed wire they use broken up glass.
	This is the glass on top of the wall.
	After, we went to bed because it was late.

The End