We had originally planned at going to the 4th of July event at our resort, but after seeing the debacle of the Latin Dance show, and that the food was a nightmare, we didn’t bother planning for that. We just headed into town for the day and figured that something would come up in the evening. Something usually does.
It was hot. Not much wind either. We walked into town via the Camino Real instead of the beach, which was actually easier, as there was a bit of shade and our feet didn’t slide all over the sand as we went. We didn’t have much of a plan, so we started at a cheap tourist shop to get some hats, as it was really getting hot, and then we figured that we would walk in through the tourist shops that were a couple of blocks off of the marina.
The town is actually pretty cool. The pushy salesmen on the marina front turn into some interesting shops scattered among the standard tourist stuff. The buildings are older and with a lot more character than the rebuilt marina. We walked into a small covered flea market, and Yulia found a vendor with some pretty cool silver jewelry, and started bargaining for some nice items. I stood by like a sweaty guard while Yulia worked the guy over on price.
I should point out that Yulia lived in Turkey for a year, so the Mexican never really stood a chance. She once worked a vendor in Turkey over for a leather jacket for months, coming back each day. She talked him from $500 to $30. But that was pretty much just to make her go away at that point.
We didn’t have months to work on this guy, so it largely was for the principle of the thing. After a bit of preliminary chatter, the guy showed Yulia the difference on the table between the “tourist” items, that he could let go for really cheap, and the actual jewelry. She had already figured this out, and eventually they settled on a price for a bracelet and a ring, and I just stood, smiling like a dope. I really don’t haggle well. So I just kept my mouth shut. And then I sweated some more.
A street down or so we found a shop with some nice linen shirts, and I found a nice one my size. Yulia haggled the lady down in price, naturally.
We wandered through the shops, Past Cabo Wabo again, and hit the marina front for some lunch. We went to a restaurant that we ate at on our last rip to Cabo, which is attached to the Tequila Museum. When we were here last, the Tequila Museum was a sop that has a little presentation and tour about the making of tequila, with interesting murals and such, followed by a tequila tasting. Now it is just a part of the restaurant, with boxes in front of the murals, but the food is really great.
We were really sweating from the heat at this point. Yesterday had a bit of wind to cool us down, but today was almost perfectly still. We got some water and Margs to cool off. Even though they had a nice deck, we sat inside to take in some of the AC. As an appetizer, we had a melted three cheese with tequila. This is basically a Mexican Fondue, but wow. They bring out a Carved Stone Pig Bowl, red hot, and start dumping cheese in. the thing sizzles and smokes. then the light some form of flammable Tequila, pour it around to be artsy and shit, then add that to the cheese to the whole thing catches fire.
At this point I wanted a cigarette.
And that pig-bowl.
This is scooped over Corn Tortillas, and you fold into Quesadillas. They serve with sauces and salsas, and holy crap is it good. I then had Chile Relleno, which is peppers stuffed with more cheese. (I should note this was fresh Oxaca cheese, truly amazing) Yulia had a Cactus leaf salad, and Sasha had a curried fruit salad, that was great, but a bit strange.
I don’t think I have ever eaten more cheese in my whole life.
Once we were able to move again, we headed down the beach back to the hotel. This put us through the gauntlet of the growing party in front of The Office and Mango Deck who were getting ready for the night’s festivities. As we pushed through the crowd, a whistle blew. As we looked over a woman in a lifeguard outfit ran up, blew her whistle again, and promptly poured a shot of something orange from a Grey Goose bottle down Yulia’s throat. She blew here whistle and the crowd behind her cheered. She stuck a shot glass into Yulia’s cleavage, blew her whistle, and instructed me to drink. Not wanting to argue with authority, I did my best, when she grabbed the rest of the shot, poured it in my mouth, shook my head and promptly charged me 10 bucks.
Ah yes, Mexico.
I paid so we could quickly leave and have enough time to take antibiotics in the room for whatever she gave us. At least I had stopped sweating.
We got back, cleaned up, and rested on the patio for a bit. I got my call confirming our Snorkeling reservation for the next day, so that was good news. It felt like it had cooled down, so I took a rest. I woke up cold. I looked around, it was still hot out, but I was shivering. The first thought was poisoning from the orange shots, but Yulia was fine. It took me a second for my Boy Scout brain to kick in – High Temperature, No Sweat, Shivering.
I had Heat Exhaustion.
The pretty resort may fool you, but this is still a desert here. And if you don’t respect the desert, it will bite you in the ass. Today’s score was Desert:1, Mark:0
I put something on since I knew I was losing heat at this point, and was severely dehydrated. We had four bottles of water on our walk today, but with the heat it was not nearly enough. The girls were fine, but I was a wreck. Hell, I kept telling them to drink up as we walked, but obviously didn’t take my own advice. I started re-hydrating right away, and things started to get back to normal by the time we had dinner.
We got a table at the restaurant on the corner of the resort, it has a full view of the bay, and we found out that there would be a full fireworks show over the bay at dusk. I had more water and a few light beers to keep rehydrating over dinner. We ate light, and over dinner we ended up seeing three fireworks shows , one at each end and the middle of the bay, each at different times. It was an amazing show. 
Cognitive Dissonance 