Baja, Mexico: La Paz -> Cabo Pulmo -> Cabo San Lucas (Day 7: 12/27, Saturday, 1 of 2)

The early morning drive to the hotel dock doesn't bode well for Eric's planned dive. I'm to drop him off, then make my way back to the hotel, a day putzing around town, then spent in sun worship at Tecolote, a day gloriously alone.

But, no.

The water's choppy and shark-gray. Eric's not optimistic, though I'm bullishly sanguine, as if my insisting that diving conditions might be okay will make it so.

Nope.

I hide my disappointment and we're off for breakfast. Eric's been obsessed with a place called Baja Biscuits, so that's where we head. There, he has the eponymous biscuits and gravy, and I the breakfast burrito of eggs, potato, avocado, and salchicha, topped with a creamy chipotle sauce and a Mexican-style Minute Maid Orange Juice that is essentially sugar water and orange flavoring that would never fly in the U.S., let alone California.



Eric's eager to be out. I'm less so--a vacation without Rancho Viejo is no vacation at all--but tacos are hardly a (socially acceptable) reason to take up residence in a place, and the man's insistent. As a result, we're migrating south again, down the Transpeninsular, busting a left at Buena Vista to take the scenic route to Cabo Pulmo in the hopes of scallops at Nancy's, essentially the only reason to come to Pulmo, besides the coral reef.

Alas, for the coral reef, the weather's shite, and alas for Nancy's, its lunch hour and the offerings are, shall we say, meager compared to the dinner menu.



The scallops are still soaking in a bowl of water (should I have asked for them though they weren't on the menu? Oh, must we dream our dreams and have them, too?), so Eric and I both settle for the shrimp, which, though nice, are diminished by the stale-ish (or maybe just not freshly made) tortilla that comes with.



While we wait for the check, I manage to break the door window on my way to photograph the restaurant signage. Granted, it's a piece of cardboard propped in the sill that's simply flopped to the ground, but I'm racked with guilt nevertheless. Clumsy American.



I'm still mourning my tacos de arrachera; the dirt roads rumble past, the playas a distant, green-blue.



Finally, San Jose del Cabo, and the corridor to Cabo San Lucas.

The evening's a blur. This is the night a friend tells me, over the internet, about the untimely death (aneurysm, Arteriovenous malformation, AVM) of a guy I knew, fleetingly, in a past life. I'm bewildered and unusually quiet, and attack my meal at Lolita's in a pale imitation of my customary vim and vigor. The chicken mole, the beef burrito, the chile relleno, the chicken taco arranged on my plate go down without photographic archiving, ditto the Pacifico.

Everything's dust in the mouth.

I am, in truth, mostly jealous.