LEAVING LORETO
As we were nearing the end of our Cabo road trip, we had to make a decision. Add one more night to our adventure to stay and experience La Paz, or continue on and just get to Cabo? We saw a chance of rain moving in on the forecast and didn’t want to risk any issues on the road. The trip was wearing on us and we were anxious to arrive at our new home, so we pushed through one long last day on the road trip.
Waking up with the sun, our room at La Mision had a beautiful ocean view with a sunrise that did not disappoint. Kicking off our morning routine, we packed the car ONE. LAST. TIME.
Up next was a hearty breakfast at Los Olivos, overlooking the malecón (Spanish for a walkway along the waterfront) before climbing back into the car. It was hard to say goodbye to this hotel, as it was the perfect day to be relaxing at their fountain-filled pool overlooking the sea… but onward we went!
On the road again!
We assumed the hard part of the drive was behind us and we’d be cruising down the coastal highway into Cabo. Wrong. Thankfully our friendly road-mates had warned us the night before that the next leg of the Baja Sur dive would be another windy one, to say the least.
After enjoying 45 minutes of coastline views, we started climbing and our route turned into incredibly steep, twisting roads winding through beautiful and lush, green mountains. Despite a few hair-pin turns on cliffs with oncoming semi trucks (#watchyoursidemirror), the drive was truly something unbelievable.
Once we completed two hours of roller-coaster roads, thankfully we hit a long, straight plateau at the top of the mountain range as we went through the cities of Ciudad Insurgentes & Ciudad Constitucion. We drove carefully through both, as they had an excessive amount of red lights and stop signs. We had heard tickets are handed out frequently here and that was the last thing we wanted to occur on the final stretch of our road trip.
Finally we started our descend back towards the coastal beach towns, and we started to see signs for La Paz and Los Cabos! We could not help but get chills as this was the first time we had seen a “Cabo” street sign. The feelings were starting to get real as we were approaching our new home.
LA PAZ → TODO SANTOS
Funny enough, we saw some of our road trip friends Kurt and Margaret pass by us at this point and caravanned with them as we approached La Paz. Who would have thought a happy hour meet-up at The Halfway Inn in Guerrero Negro would turn into a fun experience for all of us travelers along the Baja Sur.
Unfortunately somewhere before entering the city of La Paz, our road trip fatigue was starting to hit us. We agreed we were going to stop “downtown” so we could get a taste of the city’s culture, cuisine, and hopefully grab lunch at a waterfront cafe. We waved across cars to Kurt and Margaret as they headed on.
Needless to say, next we got lost, frustrated and ended up at none other than… Burger King. We scarfed some food in the parking lot and got back on the road. At this point it was time to keep our eyes on the prize. Cabo San Lucas was a mere 120 minutes away.
We hopped on the smooth-and-easy Highway 19 all the way down the Pacific side of the Baja Sur. This was the first time we had seen the ocean in hours. The music was bumping and Kennedy was getting all the pets as we told her “we’re almost there!” (but for real this time).
Once you reach the city of Todos Santos, there are ocean views for days. We saw more and more signs for “Cabo San Lucas”. We obviously weren’t going to stop in Todos, although we wanted to, as we were now down to FIFTY MINUTES. Adding that city to our Mexico staycation list for later.
HELLO, CABO!
We pulled into Cabo San Lucas at 5pm on the dot. We could not help but tear up as we rolled over the hill overlooking Medano Beach, seeing a giant cruise ship and a beautiful sunset starting in the background. These were the roads we knew from riding in taxis for many years, but this time we were driving our car with our dog and all of our stuff, heading to our new home…
After driving through town we pulled into our neighborhood. Parking the car and getting out for the first time felt surreal: did we actually just drive from Denver to Cabo on an 8 day road trip with over 40 hours on the road? Were we actually about to grab the keys to our new home for the foreseeable future?
Our real estate agent was waiting to greet us and give us a tour of the house. She also provided plenty of recommendations on how to make getting settled into our new lifestyle as easy as possible.
Since this was a furnished house, it kinda felt like we just checked into an Airbnb. We were longing to put our own touch and style into it, but for now we soaked in our first Cabo sunset from our living room.
We have a tradition for every move we have done together: order-in pizza and enjoy a cocktail on our first night. We managed to find a spot that delivered, ordered online, and so the tradition stayed alive. We popped a bottle of wine and enjoyed some ‘za unwinding in our first night in paradise.
Thanks for following along on our road trip adventure. Now that we’ve (finally) finished this chapter, we look forward to sharing with you all the stories we’ve been saving about life actually IN Cabo San Lucas.
But for now… adios & hasta luego!
