Cabo,
Baja California Sur, Mexico – Day 1
Baja
California Sur captures you instantly with its tropical charm. It puts you
under a spell of nostalgia; childhood memories of a tropical upbringing
resurface. The place feels like India in the Western Hemisphere.
We disembark the sexy virgin we rode on from San Francisco (I meant the Virgin America flight, perverts!!!) and proceed towards immigration. The nice “Mujer” at the immigration counter called herself Viktoria and refrained from giving us much trouble. The next step was customs, which was very customary, but highly unnecessary; given what it involves is denying a series of alleging questions and pressing a red button which ironically means that you are green to go.
As soon as you exit the airport, you get into a party mood. The weather is captivating and loud celebratory music is playing. There is a bar right there outside the gate and we indulge with a tropical mango drink for Shweta and a banana to alleviate Freyjaa’s untimely hunger. The waiter is a good looking young guy nomenclatured Diego. I confirm with him if he is the honorable Diego from San Diego and he blushes, giving me the assurance that I made his day. He is a product of a French father and a Mexican mother and lives in Brussels, Belgium. He has come to Cabo for a visit and by sheer happenstance, landed this job at the airport bar and somehow finds it too enticing to leave. This gives me a reassurance that I might see a familiar face in this strange land next time I visit its shores. I hand him seven USDs, five for the drink, one for the paltry banana and one for keeping him even more interested in his job; purely for aforementioned selfish self-soothing reasons.
The Fox Rental Company has a shuttle waiting outside, which we obligingly board and reach a Master bathroom sized company office. Cabo, like any other tourism hub, is a highly commercial place. Everyone is competing for the tourist’s dollars and sometimes ethics take a backseat in the due process. I had booked a rental car to drive to my hotel in Cabo San Lucas and had decided to buy Mexican Liability Insurance upon my arrival there. However, I had inquired over the phone about the rates and was told it was going to be $14/day. Not surprisingly, the decent looking poker faced Roberto decided to offer me $22/day for the same level of coverage. I reassured him that I might not be a rocket scientist but I knew my numbers; upon which; he decided to take $16/day. And that was the sign that Cabo will be a place where haggling will encompass a good portion of human affairs. It also shows that if humans are not bound by rules and regulations, they are very likely to cheat, given no consequences of faltering. A human mind is wild and unless you tame it a little bit, societies become interesting but very unpredictable. Author Taleb, a big proponent of antifragility suggests that we should seek out unpredictable chaotic living if we desire to keep ourselves from breaking with fragility but I beg to stay fragile. I would like to live in a somewhat predictable society and don’t mind adventuring into unpredictable lands only for short durations. All of us know that life itself is highly unpredictable and there is value in embracing its nasty yet interesting turns and twists. I am all up for embracing but not convinced about living that way for eternity by seeking out such long term opportunities on purpose.
After this initial education, we reached the next step of looking at the car I was getting. It was a Volkswagen Gol and had a Manual Transmission. Here was my opportunity to show off my fancy folder with all travel related papers filed away in almost an obsessive compulsive way. The paperwork clearly reflected my conviction and my lack of audacity about reserving a stick shift car on my maiden visit to a new country. He tried convincing me unconvincingly and with lack of evidence in abundance that his system shows my enthusiasm for using a clutch again in my life. The conversation turned almost into a brawl since he demanded more money for automatic and I refused to budge and raised my voice far beyond my usual equilibrium levels. He budged and gave me a FIAT convertible. The earlier education has already helped.
The convertible had a horribly small trunk space but the family got together and pulled a “BRR73”. BRR73 was the number of my grandfather’s 1958 Ambassador which our joint family used for many unthinkable number of years. Our grandfather loved to take us to wedding parties and the party of seven would load up in the average sized car for five on several occasions. Hence, I was good at the art of loading up and into a small car. The car was fun to drive and the road and scenery induced a feeling that I was driving from Delhi to Faridabad. We pulled over at Dominos for a late lunch and ordered a medium pizza and two drinks for a paltry sum of 237 Pesos ($13). Post the late lunch, we headed to our Hotel (#1 Bread and Breakfast according to Lonely Planet) in the downtown Cabo San Lucas area and we were charmed yet again. It is an enchanting B&B, tucked away from the all inclusives and has a wonderful welcoming feel. The manager incentivized me to pay in cash (Pesos) by reducing the boarding charges by hundred dollars. I obliged and promised him the sum once I withdrew it from a local ATM.
We
had booked a Honeymoon suite, honey being our sweet Nirvanh and moon being our
beautiful Freyjaa. Both of them make this honeymoon of sorts complete. It was
time to get fresh, grab dinner, relax and call it a day. I got some fresh, same day caught fish from
Neptunos after withdrawing cash from the Santander bank and came back to my
honeymoon suite, where I lay down on my hammock, swinging back and forth; while
my mind swung back and forth between progress and nostalgia, risk and security,
love and fear and all other such mesmerizing dualities of life which make this
truly non-dualistic life worth living in the worldly way.
