Lefty and I were invited to a function in Cabo San Lucas on Friday. Yahoo! A chance to meet and greet some of the natives...well actually a lot of ex-pats and tourists, but nevertheless, new faces. So we hit the open road. We found a wonderful hotel with a fantastic courtyard and pool and small rooms surrounding them...and cheap...via friends in TS. Inside the hotel entry was a restaurant...Spencer's...advertising a great breakfast for $2.50. We go to our function, have a great time, return to our room and settle in for a long winter's nap. In the morning, off we go to Spencer's for our breakfast deal. Since the breakfast is so inexpensive and there is no juice or bacon included we order sides of each. When we got our "la cuenta" we discovered the side orders came to $14.00, coffee $5.00, bringing our inexpensive breakfast to near $25. Lefty, being very sensitive about being taken advantage of, swallowed a lot of anger, paid the bill and let me leave a tip...he wasn't up for tipping...I figured "don't shoot the messenger.
OK, so we are going to do a little shopping on our way home and we started our return trip early. We leave the hotel, take a right and then a left and find we are on a one-way street, going the wrong way. Fortunately there is no one around other than a car a block away who is already doing some "gesturing" and yelling...in Spanish no less!...to let us know we have made a big boo-boo. We immediately corrected our error and are now facing the correct direction on the correct calle, when from behind we see a white truck coming speeding up behind us and flashing lights. We're pretty sure there is an accident ahead and the truck is headed to it and sowe pull over...and so did the truck. From the truck comes....Barney Fife! He's all smiles and very polite, asking for Steve's driver's license. He tells us we have made a grave mistake and the fine is going to be $50 AND he wants to keep Steve's license. Somehow Lefty gets his license out of the fellow's grip and tells him he cannot keep his license. Barney wants to take us to the police station...something we do not want to do. At this point Barney's compatriot...you got it...Gomer Pyle, comes to join in on the negotiations. Somewhere along the long the line we managed to convince them we were just ignorant yanquis and could we pay them a fine...and not $50...that they could take back to the police station for us and allow us to go on our way. Apparently that was more then acceptable since they lowered their cost of the fine to $20 and sent us on our way. Later, we were telling our tale to a friend. He pointed out in the states we would have paid a larger fine and would have had to go to court...obviously he doesn't know about being a young woman and crying...that can take care of any ticket for free! :-)
All of you islanders, BooBoo and Julia have arrived! BooBoo is driving a very large Suburban which causes lots of chuckles since she hasn't found a comfort level with this vehicle...backing up, turning...those sorts of things.
Well, we are down to a week left. I have discovered a formula:
One week to travel
One week to come down from the drive
One week to get things done to achieve your comfort level in your surroundings
One week to slide into really not having to worry about anything
The rest of your time to truly become what you came here for.
So, we didn't have enough time....I'm ready for retirement!
2 comments:
I can't stand it when I get extorted in paradise. That's the way it always happens to; just when you think you're not going to get scammed and you let down your guard BAM they get you.
A good strategy is to carry a "Chicago bankroll"; this is a cash amount of around $15 that you keep in your wallet; the rest your cash you keep in another hidden area on your person. Then when you are being extorted by the police you can show them your empty wallet and get away with just a $15 payment.
Also starting a "domestic dispute" between a man and a woman in front of the police officer is another good strategy. For this one you need to do some good acting; one of the two of you has to play the rational and trusting person while the other one plays the opposite role of someone who is ready to seriously lose it. The police will immediately not want to get involved and likely try to expedite this situation by accepting your $15 payment or less.
This worked great for us while in Bali.
Check out this Washington State ferries video I found on youtube.com
http://www.desticam.com/_forums/headline_news_for_the_san_juan_islands/washington_state_ferries_ridiculed_on_youtubecom-t373.0.html
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