Trip, part 2...the rest of mexico

I'd like to start off with a small rebuttal of a comment on the first blog:

Jamie: Jess had no choice on the dancing thing....much like the last time I actually saw him dance, in Edinburgh. He was dragged out there by the superhuman strength of a 136 year old woman. It wasn't his fault. And she didn't actually get her hands into his pockets...it was merely an attempt. Yes, Jess shoulda probably grabbed her arms, flipped her over, and made her tap out to the crossface chickenwing...but he's nicer than me, I guess.

EDIT - I just re-read Jamie's comment, after a few more beers, and I can't stop laughing. Bitch, you really DO get molested by weird people whenever we travel, and you really DO dance with even weirder people. I always think strange shit happens to me....but seriously, you end up dealing with the REALLY fucked up stuff. Man hooker in Ibiza? Check. Obsessive fat girl in Edinburgh? Check. 136 year old in Cabo? Check!

Anyways, part 2!

I left off last time after the hamburgers, at 5:30AM or so. After that epic 56 hours of being awake, bitch woke me up bout 11:15AM or so, and informed me that I had invaded the minibar before I passed out the night before. I took 2 beers out, opened one, took one sip, and passed the fuck out. At 6.50 a beer, this wasn't so brilliant. He managed to replace the unopened one, luckily. What did I do with the opened one?

I fucking drank it when I got up, that's what I did.

Jess was hungover to start with....watching me guzzle a warm, flat beer 5 minutes after waking up didn't help his tummy much. Bitch please....man up! We're in fucking mexico!

We check out....and go to the store to buy beer, of course. Well, I did...I think baby boy bought a gatorade or something. We sat in the vicinity of the beach, and tried to decide to go to La Paz as planned, or stay another day in Cabo. This was cinqo de mayo, after all. After a couple wobbly pops, the decision was made to stay in Cabo. We couldn't afford the pricey resort though. My guidebook described a cheaper alternative downtown, which we had actually found the night before. Sounded like a plan. We took a cab from a resort to...real mexico?

Lobby was nice enough...had a pool, a bar, etc. The room? Wow. No TV...not ONE electrical outlet...foams on top of baseboards...it did have AC, but it was so loud we had to yell at each other from 3 feet away. Oh yeah, free range animals across the street. Welcome to eden.

Jess might have been boasting about his insured laptop and camera in the resort (and, as Jamie pointed out in her comment, the camera was never actually insured!), but he was pretty worried bout leaving his stuff behind in this halfway house...er, hotel. He took them to the front desk, to put in the safe....yeah, no. The safe was the size of a rubiks cube. So he took a chance, and hid them under the foam bed, or something.

Immediately, I hit up the hotel bar (# 5), while Jess hid his shit. I arrived at 1:54PM....2 for 1 happy hour started at 2PM. I couldn't even last the 6 minutes without a beer. I think I need help. Luckily the bartender ladies, Bella (she wasn't), and Veronica (of all fucking names)...well, they hooked me up with the 2 for 1 shit at 1:54. These chicks ruled. Worked out to dollar pacificos. Jess followed soon, and had 2 margaritas for 3 bucks.

As you can guess...he was shitfaced by about 2:23.

We decided to go and check out downtown Cabo during the day. We were kinda hungry, so we went looking for somethin to eat. We found a bar (#6, the name escapes me)...this place had 4 tacos and a beer for 7 bucks, which seemed like a good deal. I get my 4 tacos, Jess gets something similar. These tacos just come with the tortilla and chicken...there's a bar with all the fixins you load up at. I follow Jess up there. I'm new to this taco bar concept, so I ask Jess what the first item was...he says salsa. Don't look like salsa to me, but he's the expert, not me. I load up 2 of the tacos with this fancy "salsa". Grab a couple other things, and go sit down.

Jess, sitting across from me, asks "Did you put that on all your stuff?"

I reply "Nope, just these 2, why?"

"No reason".

I bite in...and he actually managed to keep a straight face, till I said "HOT SAUCE!" Then he started laughing.

For those of you that know me, ketchup is spicy to me...I cannot handle anything remotely spicy. This shit was mexican habanero manatee killing hot sauce. I dunno where the manatee thing came from, don't ask.

Anyways, my eyes immediately started to water, shit came outta my nose, and I was speechless. Now bitch is laughing at me, pretty hard. I just yelled the only thing in my mind at that point:

"I JUST SWALLOWED THE SUN!!"

And proceeded to shotgun my Dos Equis.

A few people laughed, I'm sure. I was in too much discomfort to care. That shit seriously took 2 years off my life. I somehow managed to eat all the tacos...my mouth was on fire for at least 3 hours. And this is why Jess and I are friends. If I had thought of something similar, I would have done the same damn thing to him. Dammit.

Anyways, after that, we continued to explore. Marina was cool, some crazy boats...walked through a mall, laughed at liquor store prices...then decided to head back to the hotel.

Take a guess who thought he knew where he was going.

15 minutes later, we're in the fucking hood. No gringos for miles. Taco stands even mexicans wouldn't eat at. Even the chihuahuas were homeless up in here.

*Insert Jess pointing at me and yelling "STUPID!"*

We turned around after 12 or so blocks and retraced our steps, without running into anything too scary. Back to the hotel, chilled for a bit, then went looking for a bar to watch the De La Hoya/Mayweather fight. The internet bar was fully reserved, so we ended up at the Giggling Marlin (bar # 7). It ended up pretty packed for the fight, but it was pretty lame. You could hang your friend upside down from a rope, and make them do a shot while people took pics. Woo. They did the chicken dance with volunteers. Woo. I think I would have had more fun at church with Oklahoma's Finest. We ditched that place, but it was so late, there wasn't really anywhere else we could get into. We even attempted Cabo Wabo, but it was super packed. Hey, I just wanted to see if church lady and the metamucil queen would show up, okay? So...at 11:30PM, on cinqo de mayo...we went back to the hotel and passed out. Aren't we the cool kids.

Should we have gone to La Paz instead? We got that answer the next day.

Wake up, pack up, off to the bus station. For those of you that don't know, La Paz is about 2.5 hours north of Cabo, on the Gulf of Cortez. Anyways, bus station chicky don't speak english. I say La Paz, she said "Diez?" Now I know basic spanish, but I totally blew this one. I kept saying "Today" and she kept saying "Diez?". We went back and forth like a really shitty rap battle from 8 Mile. I eventually just said "Si", cuz, it sounded good. Managed to buy the ticket, no biggie. Bout 5 fuckin seconds after I get the ticket, I realize diez means TEN. She was just asking if we wanted the 10AM bus. I guess her pointing at the schedule on the wall might have been a clue. Go fatty. Jess just stood there the whole time, staring at her boobs. Maybe not, but typing that out made me laugh...so it stays.

Anyways, we're the only whiteys in the station. I'm at least 2 feet taller than everyone there. Everyone is also staring at us, which is...well, unpleasant. A bus shows up at 9:55AM that says "Mexicali". Based on my superior geography knowledge, I know Mexicali is north of La Paz...this means this bus must go through La Paz...so this must be our bus. I say to the driver "La Paz?" He says si, and ushers me on. Just as Jess gets on, another bus shows up...that says "La Paz" on the front.

Umm.

We've already had our ticket ripped...and the driver said SI!! to me when I said LA PAZ! Are we on the right fucking bus or not? Somehow I didn't think Hector, Angel, Jesus, or the rest of the motley crue (totally lame, but had to be done) on this here autobus are gonna give us any answers without a translator. Plus, all these people are talking to each other like they're at a family reunion...very odd.

We agree to stay on this bus, for some reason. Magically, after 2.5 hours of cactuses, dust, and...well, more cactuses and dust...we end up in La Paz. And, to my gleeful surprise, we are dropped off at the beachfront bus station, which saved us a long cabride. I woke Jess up (as soon as a vehicle starts to move, bitch passes the fuck out), and we walk out of the station, into...

Paradise.

This place is fucking COOL. The bay is shaped roughly like a semicircle, with a palm tree-lined boardwalk from one end to the other (called the malecon). I'm guessin it's about 5km long, but I could be completely off. Beaches. Sand. Palapas. Marina to the left. A pretty big stage set up to the right. We'd discover the stages significance later.

We walk 3 blocks to the hotel we thought would be cool...first restaurant we see? An applebees. Yeah, we were a lil weirded out too. What the fuck is an applebees doing in the Baja? Anyways, we carried on to the hotel....pretty pricey...so we choose an alternative up the hill from said applebees. Like 37 bucks...no TV, but outlets! AC that doesn't drown out a locomotive! A block to the beach!

"Up the hill" was very odd though. There was no sidewalk, just stairs...but they were all uneven. 3 up, 1 down...flat ground, then a stair that was 3 times as high on the left than the right....then 2 steps down, 7 huge ones up, then a driveway, and 2 more down....it was very odd.

Anyways, we got settled, and went exploring. Okay, I lie...we went to the applebees. Jess ate, I drank...story of our trip. Jess tried to take pics of a homeless furry chihuahua, but he was too quick.

After that, we explored...walked all up and down. Found out that there was a 4 day "founding of the city" celebration on that long weekend. Basically, a huge street festival. The biggest day was....cinqo de mayo, of course. The night BEFORE. Dammit, we shoulda come up here! Oh well, apparently there was still stuff goin on later that day (a sunday), so we were hyped. We walked forever along the malecon, watching people set up for the night. The whole area is beyond nice. It's everything that a resort city should be...without all of the resort headaches.

Anyways, after stopping for a drink at a bar in a courtyard area (bar # 8), we decided to just grab some booze and go chill in the hotel for a bit. Go to store, buy beer...5.70 for a 6 pack...and a 3.60 deposit. 60 cents a bottle! And you only get half back when you return them! That shit's crazy.

A few drinks later, we go exploring again. Somehow, it was hotter at 4PM than it was at 1PM. It was CRAZY hot. Jess wanted to find a liquor store to buy a fancy bottle of tequila, so we went exploring off the malecon, up into town. First thing I found? A Scotiabank! There was one in Cabo too! Fucking right, saved me from gettin raped by service fees! Anyways, we never found a liquor store...we found some cantinas (mexican men-only bars where gringos are reportedly less than welcome)...we declined to enter. We found supermarkets, and restaurants, and street vendors, and lotsa other interesting stuff. It's a really cool city.

After all that excitement, we returned to the malecon, and the same courtyard bar as before. I get a beer, Jess orders a margarita. I get a beer, Jess gets...2 margaritas. There's no 2 for 1 on the sign...so this confuses us. I ask for the same thing....Jess receives 2 more...I get nothing. Not even a beer. Dammit. Anyways, they had many internet terminals. We each used the net for an hour or so, and I managed to get another beer. So...4 margaritas, 2 beers, 2 hours of the internet? I think it was 9 bucks. I LOVE THIS PLACE! Oh yeah...Jess is now shitfaced.

After a return to the hotel to chill till sundown (and finish our beer), we go check out the festival. Kickass dollar hot dogs, vendors everywhere, tonsa street performers, and people all over the place. It was crazy. Eventually some mexican band climbed up on the huge stage we came across earlier in the day....there were easily 4000-5000 people standing around watching, singing, and dancing. We decided to chill at a sidewalk bar close to the stage, and some clubs (# 9)....a bucket of beers (6 pacificos) was 10 bucks, I think. Jess was pretty drunk, and I wasn't far behind....so after admiring the women of La Paz, we stumbled back to the hotel. No wait, I insisted we stop for more booze.

Same store, no beer though. For some drunken reason, I bought a 3/4 liter bottle of Boones, a wine cooler thinger, and Jess bought some frilly wine cooler thing too (which I ended up drinking anyways, cuz he passed out like a lil girl). That came up to 4 bucks, or somethin. I drunkenly attempted to watch V for Vendetta on Jess's laptop...and passed out right near the end. Dammit.

Woke up, surprisingly not hungover....cab to airport....and onto a land called Tijuana.

Trip! Well, pre-trip/Cabo. I write a lot.

I've been home for over a week now, so I think it's about time I wrote a blog or 3 about my Mexico/Cali trip with Jess. I'm not drunk, so it might not be that witty...but I have 3 beers and this vodka/energy drink thinger to help me along, so we'll see where we end up.

It all started a few months ago, when Jess told me he had a work conference to go to in Long Beach. It was about batteries. Yes I know, he's a nerd. Anyways, he had the week off before the conference, and suggested a trip in that general area. I agreed, of course, since I'm a travel addict, and beer is cheap in these parts of the world. We decided upon Cabo San Lucas and La Paz, in Mexico...and San Diego and Sacramento in California. Tickets were bought, hotels were booked, authorities were alerted, and we were on our way.

Our initial flight was outta Bellingham...at 5:45AM. I know, who came up with that brilliant idea? Me, unfortunately. Jeff and Melissa were nice enough to put us up for a night in Birch Bay, and Naomi was nice enough to drive us to the airport in the morning on her way to work.

I should point out that, after a strange night of drinking the night/day before, I arrived at Jeff's awake for 19 hours already. At that point.

Anyways, as soon as we got to Birch Bay, Jeff had to take his daughter Olivia to T-ball in Lynden. We tagged along. As soon we got to the field, with people all around, I dropped the obligatory "Jess, doesn't your parole state you're not allowed within 100 yards of parks with children in them?" YES! And we were off and running.

The rest of the night involved jack in the box, Olivia deciding I was a jungle gym, and me staying up all night due to energy drinks. 4AM rolls around, and we're ready to go to the airport. Tim has been up for 30 hours at this point.

I had the usual interesting convo with Naomi on the way to the airport. I told her beforehand Jess was big, hairy, and tattooed. When she found out he was "little, pudgy, and tattooed (my words, not hers), she almost seemed disappointed. Almost. And she told me she really really loves Canada, and everything about it? Right Naomi?

Anyways, we arrive at the smallest airport in the free world, check in, and go to our gate, after getting the full treatment from security..."randomly", of course. There were only 2 f'n gates. Hard to get lost. There's one plane on the tarmac...and it has a flat tire. Oh joy. So we line up, back out at the checkin counter, to find out if we're gonna make our connection in Seattle or not. Jess just kept pointing at me and saying "STUPID!", since, as we've already covered, the Bellingham thing was my idea. Everyone in line found this funny. Dammit. We come up with about 40 different scenarios that would be cool with us, if we missed our flight and ended up with a flight credit. Vegas? Check. South America? Check. Shanghai? Fuck, Jess had a free apartment there. Hey, leave us alone, it wasn't even 6AM yet.

So, after 80 minutes in line, we are told there is a 7:35 flight we're on. After getting "randomly" molested by security again, we get on the Pinto of planes...aka Worst. Plane. Ever. (copyright, Tucker Max, 2005). I was surprised I wasn't sitting next to chickens. Not a big fan of turboprops, thanks.

Get to Seattle, have an hour and a half or so to kill. Can you say bar? Ironically, bar # 1 on this trip was bar # 21 on my last trip...in other words, the final bar on my last trip. The Alaskan bar, in SeaTac airport. After 1 drink, Jess was shitfaced...commenting on every person that walks by, talking about molesting chihuahuas in mexico, that sorta thing.

Time awake - 35 hours.

Easy flight to cabo. I bought 'I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell', by the one and only Tucker Max, which made me laugh so hard I almost snorted orange juice out my nose. We arrive, find our arranged ride, and enter....what I thought was the wrong fucking part of mexico. Dirt roads? Shacks? Chickens? MEXICANS? I thought this was a resort town! Did we just land in Guadalajara or Bolivia or some shit?

After 30 minutes of driving (where Jess pointed out the dentist, cuz he speaks spanish....you know what dentist is in espanol? DENTISTA. Good work, dipshit), we cross over into resort central. The soccer fields are still dirt, but the hotels are lined with gold, bitches! Okay, maybe not, but it was better than stick huts and free range animals. And there was a Costco, Home Depot, and Saab/Hummer dealership. Go figure. Get to the resort, for our whole 1 night. Check in.

Time awake - 42 hours.

The beach is nice. Joyous. It's hot. Hit up bar # 2 (hotel bar)....5 dollar beers, and 11 dollar margaritas. One of each, and I'm poor. Off to the market in the resort, where beers are 1.70 a piece. Buy, consume, blah blah. Jess finds a beer that has tequila in it...this leads to hilarity. 11% alky content beers. Jess buys 2. We go back to the hotel room for a bit, and chill on the patio (which is directly above the entrance to the hotel). After one of these tequila beer thingers (and the 2 margaritas he had at the hotel bar), he is...well, drunk. He starts telling the world how he has a laptop worth 3 grand and a camera worth 1500 in our room, and he doesn't care if anyone steals it, cuz it's INSURED, BITCHES! And we plan a trip to Iceland, and the moon! Shut up, it was funny at the time.

Total time awake - 46 hours. Don't ask me how, I don't know.

We decide to go downtown and hit up some bars. Shawn told me that it's about a 20 minute walk, so we attempt this. After a few stray cats scared the shit outta Jess (don't lie bitch, you didn't see the other 2), and 20 minutes of walking...we're lost. I might be brilliant, but my sense of direction blows. Jess starts yelling "STUPID!" and pointing at me....again. But...one 6 dollar cabride later, and we're in party central. We end up in a bar (# 3) with internet terminals, and decide to have a beer and play on the net a bit. Shut it, we're both nerds, okay? The bar walls were littered with pics of the owner and various UFC fighters, and even him with Dana White. Very cool. After that, we end up at Cabo Wabo (bar # 4). The "world famous" Cabo Wabo, apparently.

For those who don't know (and I didn't), it's owned by Sammy Hagar, of Van Halen fame. It's really nice, huge, and plays rock music. We were there fairly early, so we got a pretty good table (this comes into play later) and got some beers. 4 bucks US, not so bad. After a few of these, and more tequila for Jess, we're both fairly liquored. Van Halen every 3rd song got a little trying, but oh well.

Then the fun started.

A woman at the next table starts talking to us...I'm not even sure about what. Somehow, the subject switched to religion quickly, and she was verrry Christian. Nuthin wrong with that...but she found it utterly unbelievable that Jess and I weren't. I cannot understate how shocked this woman was that we didn't believe what she believed. Once I told her what I did for a living (ya know, when I had a job), she was speechless. These people didn't exist where she was from.

Namely, Oklahoma.

After a couple more drinks, her OLD friend joined us at the table. Like Estelle Getty old. Google it, you'll get it. In the middle of all this intelligent convo, the waiter dude said someone wanted our table. That's nice. So what? Then he offered us 2 free beers for it. Well well well...Jess was in the can, and came back in the middle of this bargaining session. He yelled "3 BEERS!" at the waiter....and we got 3 beers for our table. And moved....to the next table, where these women were sitting.

Things went right downhill from there. We kept trying to come up with stuff that might offend this woman, and she became so offended, I think she started enjoying it in some fucked up way. Then old timer dragged Jess to the dance floor somehow, after telling him 56 times that "AC/DC IS ON!", and managing not to spit out her teeth. Then randomly, Gods child started making out with me, for some reason. Hey, I was drunk, she wasn't horrible looking, leave me alone. This carried on for...God only knows how long (GET IT!), and Jess came back to save me. Then I was stupid and started TALKING to her again. Oh so retarded.

How old was she? 40. Strike 1. Did she have kids? Yup, two. Strike 2. How old was she again? Still 40. Strike fucking 3!

While I'm asking all this, she's still trying to kiss me....I'm gettin more and more sober by the fucking question. So I did what any man would do in that situation.

Nope, I didn't take her back to her hotel. Nope, she didn't come back to mine. What did I do, you ask? I faked being sick, promised her I'd meet her there again the next day, and ran outta there like a little girl.

Hey, fuck you, she was a 40 year old mother of 2 from Oklahoma who wanted me to go to church with her! I'm not Shawn or Len! Cut me some slack here! It wouldn't be one of MY stories if I actually got laid, right? Plus...I had to save Jess from the senior citizen who forcibly tried to put her hands in his pockets (which he promptly removed Jamie! I swear!)

Total time awake - 51 hours.

And you think we're done, don't you? Come on now. Show some respect.

Back at the hotel, we decide to take our remaining beers to the beach and chill. No one else is there, so it's relaxing. Eventually, some dude from Cali comes down and sits down next to us. We give him a beer, chill, and talk about lotsa different shit. He wants to return our generous beer offer, so he runs back to his room and grabs a case of Tecate. That's shitty mexican beer, by the way. He comes back, and I open the only 2 bottles we have left...a pacifico...and tequila beer # 2 for Jess. Wow, he had started to sober up around then....and tequila beer # 2 plunged him right back into the drunken abyss. Between his tequila beer and the 6 tecates I practically shotgunned (ya know, since they were free n all)...yeah, we got fuuuuuucked up. And anyone who knows me and Jess knows what happens when we get really drunk...

We argue! About realllly intelligent issues! And totally butcher them!

Argument one was about global warming....he won, quite easily. Argument 2 was about ethical economics (or the lack thereof)...I sooo won that. We didn't have an argument 3...cuz those two took close to an hour and a half. EACH. The Cali dude had a fair amount to contribute, but he basically just laughed at us a lot. 5AM rolls around....we say our goodbyes (after I smuggled another Tecate out of his case while he wasn't looking), and went back to the room.

Yup...I went from making out with a cowgirl to arguing with a homo, in the course of an hour or so. Welcome to Mexico.

Time awake - 56 hours.

Hunger has set in...so we decide room service burgers are the most brilliant idea in the world right about then. They're 19 bucks each? SOOO WHAT. Before they come...Timmy falls asleep. And Jess takes a picture of Timmy,...sucking his thumb. Beautiful. Just fucking beautiful. Timmy wakes up, eats burger, and passes out again.

EDIT - Bitch, if I missed anything, mention it in a comment. And don't try to defend your nerdiness/drunkenness/fear of stray cats. We all know it's true.

That's the end of round 1. Don't worry, you'll get the rest soon. It will involve: prison cells doubling as hotel rooms, hot sauce antics, south central Cabo, autobus de wetback, applebees, the joys of Tijuana cabs, Jess destroying various fast food places, meerkats, and a whooole lot more. Stay tuned.