Friday, April 5, 2013

Biking The Marina

We had a fun afternoon renting bikes at the marina and biking around it for hours. There's a huge biking path that takes you first to a sculpture garden. They had the sprinklers on, so we rode through them which felt great in the heat of the day! We even met one sculptor at work on a new installation. There was art everywhere along the path and they have really put money into developing the marina environs. We felt like we were on an art walk, but on bikes! The next stop on the path was of a huge cactus nursery where they had over 1500 varieties and 750,000 plants from every part of the world you can imagine. You know you're in for BIG excitement when you are on a cactus plant tour in 90 degree heat! Hahahaa!!! Our guide Juan was actually very funny and made it amusing. Our favorite cactus was one I dubbed "cousin it" and you can tell from the photos why. Brad is actually in both of those white cactus photos below... Can you find him in the photos? He even tried some little cactus flowers. What a riot!!
We then biked to El Ganzo hotel on the water and had a drink to cool off. It was a nice hotel with an artsy vibe.. Apparently there are artists in residence who play live music nightly and / or showcase their art.

For dinner we embarked on another "organic foodie" gastronomic adventure in the mountains of San Jose del Cabo at Los Tamarindos. This restaurant was down a long rough & dusty road. We bounced around in the taxi & for a second I thought we were in the Baja 1000! The road was literally in the middle of a dried up wash. Too funny! We arrived at the 17 acre farm at 6:30pm to find that we were the only guests. Ha! We cracked up and decided to just see where the evening took us. We met Enrique the owner who said the farm was originally an old home on a working farm from 1880 and that it had been open a year. He gave us a tour of the kitchen and wood burning ovens which was quite charming.

Brad luckily laughs at me and my culinary adventures and is always such a good sport. The menu looked great and once we recovered from the shock of being the only ones out in the boonies with them, we placed our orders. What came out of their rustic kitchen was a fantastic meal!! We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and had a romantic dinner overlooking the farm under a veil of candlelight. Luckily our taxi driver Romero knew where to find us out there & scooped us up after dinner. A memory we won't soon forget.

The next day we headed to Cabo San Lucas. We were so happy to be back in a lively city that the only way to celebrate was to spend the entire afternoon parked at table at The Office with Margaritas in hand. And boy...did we ever see some hilarious sights! Spring break was definitely in full swing!! We made it back to the boat at the end of the day and a water fight ensued. You can see below who the loser was..HA! Dinner was at The Hacienda...such a nicely redone hotel that I suggest is a must!







































Thursday, April 4, 2013

On The Hunt!

For fish...we departed Frieles this am about 7:30. I was hardly awake and heard Danny's "call of the wild" fish whistle and ran to the back deck to see what was on the line. Then a second later another pole went out and we were both reeling in two fish at the same time. Such fun! We headed down east cape and out to the "grandé banks" outside of San José del Cabo to where the BIG fish are supposed to be. However, they were once again elusive! After 4 hours of fishing & a marlin that got away, we arrived in the San José marina. Brad & I headed into downtown to see what was going on...the old city center had been redone and quite well I might add. They have their own arts district similar to Puerto Vallarta with an immense amount of galleries. It was a hot afternoon, so we cooled off at a local watering hole.
For evening, we saved the best nugget for our first night back in civilization! A chef we used for a company dinner in Cabo last year suggested going to Flora Farm here. What a treat it was!! An incredible foodie experience... Organic farm to table food that we absolutely loved!!!!! Of course I told them it was our anniversary (everyday with Brad is like an anniversary) haha!!, and I truly surprised him when they showed us to our seats and the "happy anniversary" sign was on the table. Hilarious! He knows how I love to do that all the time. It's a very special place where all of the food is raised on their farm. Just beyond delic and I could hardly stand it. The ambience was perfection. We were even given a farm tour and learned about all of their organic methods. They have a cute little store and an organic grocery on site. I could have stayed there all night!