Sun! Sun! And More Sun!

Hola amigos!
We had the opportunity to fly to San Jose del Cabo, Mexico for free! So... naturally we took it. Marty and I spent 8 full days of our spring break on the beautiful sunny beach of San Jose. For those of you who truly know us, we are die hard beach bums. The most that we might do on a given day at the beach is take a long walk. We love the relaxation the warm sunshine gives us. This trip was certainly needed. The both of us feel completely refreshed and ready to finish out the last 7 weeks of the school year. We hope you enjoy the pictures and reading the details of our trip. We hope you enjoy reading about the little adventures we had along the way too.


El Zalate, this was our condo complex and beautiful pool area.


This was our view everyday from the pool deck where we basked in the sun listening to the ocean waves crashing and smelling the fresh salty ocean air.



Love the palms and interesting flowers.



The crashing sound of the quite intimidating waves was a sound we woke up to and fell asleep to everyday.


Ahhhhhhhh! The sun feels amazing!



Strolling the streets of historical San Jose.




We thought we would start one of our beach days early, really early. I am so glad I got out of bed to watch the captivating sunrise.


Our little Villa 3.

Marty and I would like to share some funny stories with all of you about our trip:

1) Went to dinner one night at Zipper's a low key restaurant on the beach playing Jimmy Buffet. Marty grabbed the pesos we had in the wallet and the credit card and we walked down the beach to go eat. As we look at the menu it says "no credit cards". Okay no big deal we have cash. Well... we get our bill and find out we don't have enough money. It would have been a 25 minute walk to go back and get more cash, so we thought it would just be easier to lean back and ask the couple behind us if we could borrow a few pesos. They certainly had a good chuckle, as I am apologizing for my husband's request. Needless to say we then had just enough money to pay the bill and leave no tip (awful I know), so we took off quickly from the restaurant and reached the dark beach before our waiter got to the table to grab the payment.

2) We walked to the grocery store, only a 15 minute walk. We were completely lost in the store, in fact we even tried to get free fish and shrimp (we didn't get a label for the seafood when we grabbed it from the seafood department) and we had several clerks laughing at us. We had quite a few bags of groceries like 6 or 7 including a watermelon and beer. We left the grocery store after 1 1/2 hours and were planning on taking the bus back to the condo. Marty wouldn't ask were the bus stop was so we walked down very sketchy sidewalks as cars flew by us ( no speed limit there), with all our groceries and flip flops that were giving me blisters. We totally looked like a train wreck. We got back to the condo after stopping several times to rearrange the bags and decided to ask where the bus stop was next time.

3) Took the bus back into San Jose one after noon to buy a picture we saw in an art gallery a few days earlier and to buy my sister a birthday gift. We were in and out of the two galleries in 20 minutes. We went back to the street the bus dropped us off at to get on a bus to take us back to the condo. So.. we got on the bus, it took a left into the historical part of San Jose and then... began going down some side streets and some more side streets. Where were we going? We were on the way out of town getting literally the 20 cent tour of San Jose. These busses are not the sweet cruisers with the awesome suspension, they were old school busses with school bus shocks. The bus was pretty full so we had to sit in the back of the bus, and our bus driver was flying through the dirt streets in a school bus! You get the picture...we were bouncing all over the place and most of the windows wouldn't open, so lets just say it was not the most comfortable ride. After a 30 minute drive though the dirt roads of San Jose the bus finally stopped to pick someone up and we saw another bus across the street facing the other direction, so we quickly ran across the busy street and got on the bus heading BACK into San Jose. We felt like we saw the entire town and everyone who lived there. Getting back into town we realized that if we just walked across the street and caught the bus going towards our condo...it would have been a 5 minute ride back to our place.

4) One night we went into San Jose to go out to eat and experience the art walk they had in town (the galleries all stay open late, kinda like our First Friday's here in Carbondale). We were sitting at the restaurant enjoying our yummy food and good conversation and of course people watching. All of a sudden this women comes up to us and says, "Hey I think I saw you on the bus coming to town, I recognize the back of your head (Marty)". We replied, "Yea we took the bus here". "Oh are you with the wedding party?" she said "Nope" we said. "Oh, it wasn't you on the bus, anyways sorry to bother you, and by the way I love your dress (carly not marty) it is beautiful!" "You two are a perfect looking couple, you look so great together." The woman walked away and a minute later her husband comes up to us to say that my dress is causing quite the commotion with the group of people there for a wedding rehearsal. "Everyone thinks you look so amazing, are you two movie stars or something?" Marty and I died laughing and responded nope we are both school teachers from Colorado. "Oh.. really" he says. "Well you both look great, have a wonderful vacation."

Lessons learned... take more money to a restaurant not just what you think you need. Wait patiently across the street for the bus heading out of town not into town and every where else. Ask where the bus stop is to avoid walking down the busy road with 6 bags of groceries including a watermelon and drinks. Always look your best in a foreign country because some American might think you are a movie star!

Our favorite things that made our trip complete:
-several whale sightings
-walks on the beach everyday
-watching the sunrise
-enjoying each others company
-a romantical dinner together in a beautiful restaurant
-no schedule to follow, in fact no need to know the time either
-finding lots and lots of beach glass (one of our favorite treasures to find)
-yummy, yummy mexican food
-not setting an alarm for 8 whole days
-oh yea, so much sun, sun, and more sun! I must say, Marty and I are rocking some pretty good tans right now!
-the fish guy that walked through the pool area every morning with fresh fish and shrimp for super cheap.