Cabo San Lucas

I’ll set the scene. It’s February, it’s Colorado, it’s cold, it’s snowy. Enough! Time for some warmer weather! These were my thoughts on a Wednesday leading to a three-day weekend. And yes, I pronounced Wed-nes-day in my head as I typed that. Moving on…naturally, as the spontaneous person that I am, I started looking at flights to warmer climates to escape the cold for the weekend. Florida? Nah…Arizona? Flights are how much?!? Domestic flights are not panning out so crazy me starts to look internationally. Note: I have never flown internationally before. Shocking? Absolutely, but I gotta put my big boy pants on at some point (as I am typing this now living in the UK only a few months later).

After a bit of searching, Cabo is the winner for cheapest flight! Congratulations, Cabo! Tickets booked and here we come! Better start planning!

The Planning

What planning?! We are spontaneous! Next section!

The Insecurities

See section, Planning. Need I say more? Guess I should since this is a blog. Gotta keep those three readers entertained, ya know? This is the ripping the Band-aid off approach to my insecurities,  anxiety for traveling, and basically existing. My first time traveling internationally, with little planning, what could go wrong? I was excited for the adventure but stressing out about pretty much everything. Customs? What that? Will I end up on the hotel bathroom floor in the fetal position? Continue reading to find out!

The Adventure

OK, so I was downplaying the planning piece a little bit. We did some “spontaneous planning.” By Wednesday night, we had flights, hotel, and two excursions booked including whale watching and snorkeling. We have never done any of these things! Cool! More things to stress about! Mainly the snorkeling as it is more involved than just sitting in a boat and watching for whales. As soon as we landed, the anxiety hit! At least I am not doing this by myself. Kudos to all of the solo travelers out there! I’ll just say that the point from getting out of the airport to getting our rental car was probably the most anxiety of the weekend. Good to get it out of the way early! Pretty much everybody trying to sell you things with a bit of language barriers thrown in and crowds on top of crowds on top of crowds. But we survived!

We got to the hotel and just decompressed for the rest of the evening. Our hotel was actually in the next town over from Cabo San Lucas  in San Jose del Cabo and this ended up being the way to go. So much quieter and less touristy with people not trying to sell you things at every corner. But if you want a little night life action, staying in Cabo is probably the way to go. We did have to decide on dinner for the night though, which was an obstacle all on its own. After two days, we finally agreed on a place to eat by the hotel. Per the dork code, we both ordered the chicken fajitas. So we sat there and enjoyed our fajitas and sugar cane cokes. And sat there, and sat there, and sat there…are we supposed to do something about paying the bill? Of course, instead of just asking, we observed to see what other people did #introvertsolutions. Turns out, we pay up at the counter. Mission accomplished!

Onto the next day and our first excursion snorkeling in a National Park off of Cabo Pulmo. It was a bit of a drive at about two hours but totally worth it. We did have to do a bit of off-roading for the last 10km but if our beat up Nissan Mach can make it, you should not have trouble with any type of vehicle. We booked our snorkeling tour with EcoAdventures, which is family run. They were great and took any stress out of it. We cannot recommend them enough if you want to do some snorkeling while in Cabo. We snorkeled over some coral, saw a turtle and some sea lions, but the biggest draw was an impromptu jump off the boat when our guides saw a school of fish. Yay spontaneity! It was like a tornado of fish as far as the eye could see into the depths of the ocean. But don’t take my word for it, check out this video we took and make sure to play with the sound on to hear some surprise guests. 

Though we probably won’t make it back to Cabo any time soon, I think we would go back just to experience this again and stay in Cabo Pulmo for the duration of the trip.

New day, new excursion. Whale Watching 101 in Cabo: Do you want more of a booze cruise or an informative session? Both options are available so you do what’s best for you! We went the informative route even though the pirate ship tour was awfully tempting. But the fear of “woo girls” in my ear while trying to enjoy the woos of the whales was tough to overcome. And hey, where else will you learn that humpback whales feed their young through the mother whale’s anus? Let’s just say, I am now ready for Whale Trivia Night at the local pub.

We booked our tour through Cabo Nature. They were a delight and we really enjoyed the tour. It was an intimate session with just a handful of us on the boat led by an actual marine biologist. The first set of whales we encountered were kind of boring, introverts amirite??? But on the way back, we caught a playful family that was putting on a show. We could have watched them splashing about all day, but it was time to move on and complete the tour with a stop by the famous Arch of Cabo San Lucas.

After grabbing dinner and some cervezas at Baja Brewing, we had some extra pesos to spend so we ended our day with some souvenir shopping. What do introverts do when being heckled to buy goods from every store in town all weekend long? We find a nice shop that is not out on the streets telling us they have the best stuff and spend our money with them instead. They even had a nice lady that brought me a basket to put things in as we were browsing. Not pushy at all and let us do our thing. Take our money!

I could continue by ranting about our trip back home, connecting through snowy Utah, but I’ll save you the drama and just say that the word of the day was patience. The main thing is we made it home in one piece, and I survived my first international trip.

The Aftermath

So when it was all said and done, I think I preferred the ripping the Band-aid off approach to my first international adventure. Less time to think about all the things that could go wrong and just do it. Thanks Nike!

The main takeaway is that I am now addicted to snorkeling. That was so much fun and would recommend everyone visiting the area to take the trek out of town to experience it themselves. Even though the bombardment of people trying to sell you an excursion on their glass bottom boat was a bit much for my liking, the overall experience was amazing and a good trip to lose my international travel virginity. As is mostly the case, the stressors were irrelevant by the time we made it home and this experience will help build my confidence for other trips in the future.

Will we do a spontaneous trip again? Definitely! Sometimes the body and mind just need to get away for the weekend for whatever reason.

Onto the next adventure!

What have been some of your best (or worst) spontaneous trips? Share your story for a chance to be featured on our site and social media! Email us at introvertingadventure@gmail.com or share in the comments.

Don’t forget to check out our Photography page for more pictures of our trip!