Cabo Without Uncle Buck is Like Drinking Beer From a Can

It’s good, but it just doesn’t taste right.

I’m tempted to go into my “fear and loathing” mode and begin to reflect tales of drunkenness and debauchery unparalleled in the relatively sane universes of my faithful followers.  It would be satisfying to sit at my keyboard and reflect on the dozens of times we’ve hung upside down at the Giggling Marlin, crashed our Sea Doo’s at 50 miles an hour and walked away without a scratch, or summoned the Mariachis to our room at 2:00AM to serenade our sleeping wives.  Ah yes, that would be tempting indeed; Perhaps another day when I have the time.  Today I must pack.

The past few trips I have made with my darling, and utterly sane, wife.  It is a welcome romantic getaway and much easier on my wallet and liver.  This ends up being a Disneyland storybook vacation filled with whale watching, great cuisine, snorkeling at Chileno, diving at Cabo Pulmo, yachting on a former America’s Cup yacht, and making love on the beach.  It is so wholesome I often anticipate Doris Day or Frankie and Annette approaching us with fresh baked muffins, butter, and honey.

We are trying to eat healthy, will hit the Gym and take long walks about the golf course early in the morning.  Brian Flynn had to give up his bar, but we will probably search the downtown in vain just one more time to see if he has gravitated back to the Cabo Wabo orbit.  Other than that our late nights are now relegated to a rare cigar and a cocktail at Pitahayas before retiring by 11:00.

I have been coming to Cabo since my parents took me on a Mexican cruise in 1968.  I realize that that is most likely before most of you were born.  Things have changed a bit in that time.  When I first saw Cabo there were only three hotels, the harbor was roughed out but no boats were anchored near it.  There were no shops on it.  Bud Parr was the reigning landlord and you could rent a panga for $10 per hour and catch enough fish your first day to eat for a week.

The Office was a thatched shack on the beach, by itself, and  was a common occurrence to have a couple of tequilas with the locals and play volleyball (they cheated) before ambling down the beach to hear the Hispanic version of Hotel California butchered by the locals at El Dolphin as the bartender peddled his little $25 bindles of  10% cocaine to supplement the meager salary and tips left by the gringo ex-pats.

The first iteration of the Giggling Marlin miraculously burned to the ground as a direct result of the lack of proper payment to local “authorities” and employment of a sufficient number of local staff.   The “Trailer Park” restaurant was in the center of town, and there were not 15 other restaurants sporting the same name littering the “corridor turistico.”  Actually, back then it was just a road.

The point of all this is that I will be there this whole week.  Through the magic of technology and incredible foresight rendered me by my mentor Jay Berkowitz and USF, I am able to schedule this blog to mysteriously leap upon your screen even in my absence.   I hoist a tequila in your honor, pray for your continued health and success, and attempt to enjoy the Cabo, and the man that is present now.  It is supposed to hit 25’ tonight in Redwood City.  I will be sleeping with the door open and only a sheet covering me at Hacienda Del Mar.

Vaya con dios

Cabo’s marina was dredged out of a dry mudflat in 1974 and 1975. Until that time, a landing strip and the houses of cannery workers occupied the area shown here. Cabo San Lucas, c. 1970, right, from the construction site of the Hotel Finisterra. Note cannery still in operation, Hotel Hacienda on low sand dune at left, and landing strip where today’s marina is now located. (Reprinted with permission from The Unforgettable Sea of Cortez.)