The time has come. No more counting down. The Stay At Home order in Cabo has ended and we start to explore our “new normal”. If you can’t tell by our lack of posting, our city reopened on June 15th and we finally have a bit more to share other than views of cocktails from our roof.
CABO IN THE NEWS
Baja California Sur has moved from total lockdown in Level 6 to Level 5, where beaches, hotels, and restaurants can operate at 30% capacity.
COVID cases have been on the rise since the reopening in Los Cabos and in La Paz, so both municipalities are keeping a close eye on the spread.
Oddly, water activities such as jet skis, parasailing, water taxis, etc. all remain suspended. However, sport Fishing is allowed at limited capacity. From what we understand, you can rent a private boat, but no public boats are operating. For now they are not allowed to reopen until Level 3.
THE HAPPIEST OF HOURS
Baja Cantina was our first restaurant to visit post-quarantine. It is a great spot on the water of the San Lucas marina. We dove into our new normal of wearing masks (until are seated at your table), getting temperature checks, hand sanitizing and stepping into a foot sanitization station… all before we were even in the door. The staff wore both masks doubled with face shields, gloves, and served us our plastic-covered utensils with tongs. The menu was offered via a QR code sticker on the table.
The marina felt a bit eery, as it still was a ghost town due to the lack of tourists. We were the only ones in the restaurant, which ended up being nice, considering we were both still a bit nervous to be out. It was great to be soaking up the views again and supporting the local businesses.
Our First Weekend Out
Ready, set, FREEDOM. Just kidding. Uno problemo before we can escape the walls for our first weekend out of the house. In typical Mexico fashion, we woke on Friday AM to our internet being out. Thankfully, since most places were now open, we popped over to a restaurant on Medano Beach called Aleta.
We were so impressed at how both of our experiences out made us feel very safe. but we couldn’t help but feel bad for all the waiters in their protective gear, especially as the temps are rising. Most places in Cabo have not offered plastic straws for awhile, but now plastic was covering all of our silverware, the side plate of bacon we received, even the mimosas had plastic wrap on top. A “solution” for one problem and maybe adding to another?
Breakfast and e-mails with a view for half the day was a great temporary solve for our internet issue. Luckily we made the most of our day, as TelMex ended up being a no show.
However, on our evening Kennedy stroll, we saw a TelMex car pull into our neighborhood at 7pm and end up at our neighbors. This is like finding gold in Mexico, as we likely would have been out of internet all weekend long. A few peso bribes later and he was fixing our own internet at 8pm. Every time we go through something like this, we have to laugh, because a simple thing like “fixing the internet” ends up extremely complicated (picture Kyle in the dark with a cell phone light in one hand and tons of wires in the other, about 3 houses down, as the TelMex dude, self-named Hector the Connector, takes the other end of the wires down to our house and spools them underground).
Update: When we originally wrote this, we thought this was just a one-time issue. However, this happened FOUR more times, waking up to the glaring red light on our modem ($*%?!). Why could this be happening overnight!? After some analysis with the TelMex crew in broken Spanish and management, we figured out why? Rats. Rats! “Las ratas” were chewing up the fiber optic wires under our sidewalk, causing three houses on our block to lose internet. After the 3rd time, finally the neighborhood management broke up the side walk and resolved the underlying issue. Good times. Adios, ratas!
socially distant fun
Medano Beach was on the approved list of 9 beaches in Los Cabos allowed to reopen, opening at 10am and closing at 6pm to the public. On Saturday we grabbed a reservation for a day bed at our favorite spot, Cachet, with our favorite waiter, Edilberto. 2x1 skinny margs and fresh sushi on the beach was what we’d been craving the last 4 months, and boy did it all taste good.
Local officials made sure that everyone was spread out on the beach, which was comforting. There was one large cruise ship in port, but apparently with just crew on board stopped to get supplies. The beaches were quiet, a nice change of pace as Medano is usually a bit overwhelming. We dug our toes into the sand a little deeper, sipped our drinks a little slower, swam a little longer, and soaked it all in… you don’t know what ya got, until it’s gone.
Our wedding planner, Tammy, graciously invited us over to her house for a socially distant #SundayFunday. She had a mezcal tasting set up with a guy with his own mezcal line. We learned more about the origin of mezcal and the creation process while tasting four very different variations. He followed the tasting with some hand-crafted delicious cocktails. The afternoon ended with a water gun fight, so ya know, a terrible time was had.
AN ITALIAN FEAST
The following weekend, we decided to try our first dinner out on the town (since February!). It’s been a minute since we dressed up, so the makeup went on, the button down came out and off we went to visit Salvatore G’s, a local Italian hot spot with a quaint outdoor patio. Indulging in vino, calamari, clams & linguine, and a ginormous pork shank left us with two food comas and a bed time of 10pm.
SUNDAY FUNDAY
Sunday brunch was the next to-do on our post-quarantine fun list. Given most places are still not open and normally closed on Sundays anyway, we had a hard time finding a new spot. So we stumbled into Outpost, a favorite for evening cocktails, and tried their breakfast. We didn’t have to worry about socially distancing as we were the only diners, which lead to great service and a super tasty meal. Hibiscus mimosas, fruit, brioche french toast, eggs Benedict — we’ll be working this weekend off all week.
Until Next Time…
It’s safe to say, we’re having fun getting back out there and creating new memories, just a little different than before. But the new normal here, not so bad. We just wish we had friends and fam close by to enjoy it with. So for now, a long distance cheers and an “hasta luego” from Los Cabos!
