Sun, sea and ceviche

I’m baa-aack. Tanned. Rested. Ready to take another vacationrejuvenated. Cabo was spectacular (though let’s face it, anytime we get to travel with passport we’ve never been disappointed). The last 7 days/6 nights of rest, relaxation and “together time” were very much needed. It felt like my psyche (which has been uber-stressed out in the last month) finally got a full-body massage...if that makes sense.

Pictures at bottom, but highlights included:

Swimming in the Sea of Cortez. Me, floating in a tropical blue ocean = two thumbs up; fine holiday fun.

• Ceviche. Lots of ceviche. All day, every day. There’s something so calming about sitting at an open-air restaurant and eating fresh seafood in view of turquoise waters a stone's throw away. The accompanying Spanish guitar music was also a plus. Well played, resort hotel.

• Floating in the pool for hours, pina colada in hand. More than half our days were something along the lines of this:
  
• People-watching. A guilty pleasure of mine, people-watching was taken to all new levels in our resort pool, which was more or less a tepid melting pot filled with people from all over the world. Our favorites? Two couples from Jersey on holiday together. The portly, tattooed, gold-chain-resting-in-a-thicket-of-chest-hair-wearing men would sit waist deep in the pool discussing what “ballers” they were as their wives took thousands of “kissy face” pictures (of MySpace fame) in bikinis on their pool chairs. On the other hand it was fascinating listening to so many conversations in so many different languages, all in one hotel/town and not just at an airport (where it's expected). One of my favorite mornings was spent eating breakfast at a table near a group of old tanned and leathery Italian couples. It was like I was in Italy all over again. Mi piace.

• Food.Once the wristbands were in place on arrival, everything was unlimited and in excess. Let’s just say a certain serve-yourself fro-yo machine near the pool snack bar was a good friend of mine. There was one especially hot afternoon when J and I walked around the pool in our swimsuits for about an hour, each lap stopping to get another scoop of fro-yo. I think we had about five cones that hour. Calories don’t exist when I’m on vacation.
  

• Uninterrupted reading, without social plans/work/commuting/errands/exhaustion from the aforementioned screwing it up. Every single day/night/weekend since we've moved back to CA has been planned and scheduled and I haven't had any downtime to relax. So I bought The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo in the airport on our way down to Mexico and seven days later I was reading through the last few pages. I know this doesn’t seem like a highlight, but I had to include it because the only times I was able to devour a 650-page novel in under one week was a.) When I was in college and b.) The last year and a half I spent writing books myself, when 9 hours of every weekday weren't spent in an office. Freedom: It’s a truly underrated thing.

• Live music every night. The mariachi band (the “best in Cabo”) was spectacular...and I'm really starting to think that when J and I throw our huge anniversary bash (I vote for our 5th, he votes for our 10th) we need to include a mariachi band in the festivities. Something about the blend of trumpets and violins...chills, reader-friends. Anyway at one point they were covering classic rock songs much to my excitement, and I was tempted to request a mariachi rendition of “Light My Fire," but by then they were out of time.

Sea of Cortez

Our sanctuary near the pool.

So now the question is...where should I go next? I get three weeks of paid vacation a year, plus the option of taking a fourth week unpaid so I'm thinking Barcelona for my birthday in April? But that's 8 months away. In the meantime...