I wake to the gray light of dawn and survey our house in the soft morning light. The house sits a few lots from the beach and it has a 360 degree view of the ocean and the mountains behind. I am able to light the propane stove and boil water for coffee. I packed coffee filters, freshly ground coffee, powered coco, tea and sugar. I also brought along 6 small scones for John’s birthday breakfast. I drink my coffee, rich with the thick cream that we purchased at the tiny Mexican market yesterday. The house has been empty for three years but apart from a bit of dust and sand upon the floor, it is clean. The problematic issue is the lack of water and I wish for a shower and a means to flush the toilet. All three of us have “watered” the cacti behind the house in lieu of working plumbing. Art and John continue to sleep while I read and ponder the day ahead of us.
At 8:30 A.M. an S.U.V. pulls up our driveway and parks. A man steps out, our age, and climbs up the stairway to our house. I assume it is Herb, the caretaker of this house, and I wake Art before stepping out onto the deck to greet our visitor. He is accompanied by a pit bull puppy and I greet both man and dog with pleasure. I am hopeful that he can solve the water issue. Herb is a character, formerly from Santa Cruz, but now firmly ensconced in this expatriac community. We learn that he is in a band, manages numerous properties in the area, and that last night, when we went to bed hungry, he sat eating and drinking with half the community, in an unmarked restaurant, just across the road. The mystery is now solved as to where the people in the neighboring houses disappeared to. I think wistfully, how different last night’s experience would have been had we known about the restaurant. Herb also tells us that we should have driven the well graded mountain road, not the coastal road that was washed out and damaged during the winter storms. John crawls out of his sleeping cocoon, awakened by kisses from the puppy. We share ownership of our daughters Pit Bull and the wiggly greeting from this dog, was one that John welcomed on the morning of his 16th birthday. Herbs’ visit is short, but he promises to order water that may or may not be delivered “manana.” There is also the question of who will pay for its delivery, so the water issue remains unclear. After Herb departs, I serve John a gourmet breakfast of hot coco and scones. Spoiled by the frothy mochas back at home, John shows little appreciation in the drink that I set before him. When I pull out the scones, both Art and John question why I didn’t serve the scones for “dinner” last night?
Getting beyond all this, the three of us walk down to the beach beyond. I have left footprints on beaches around the world, but this pristine beach ranks as one of the most beautiful. Although the shoreline is steep, the fine white sand is soft on my feet and gentle waves wash up onto the beach leaving their foam tipped patterns on the sand. Weathered granite beds, tilted and layered with quartz veining jut along the shore line. Art comments that the rock formations look like an Andy Goldsworthy installation, perfectly aligned with striped delineations. Were we at Disneyland, we might think that they were artificial. We walk a mile up the beach to Punta Gorda, a small mountai
n rising up sharply from the oceans’ edge; the bookend, marking this end of the long curved shoreline. A dozen stylish homes line this mile of beach, several quite architecturally stunning. Most have beautiful gardens, lush with palms and bougainvilleas, and all have stairways descending from terraces, down to the beach. We retrace our steps, greeting a few other beach combers, fishermen, and kayakers enjoying this remarkable strip of sand and water. We pack up our things, cleaning up as best as we can and load them into our tiny red car. As I do the final room check, I imagine that lacking reverse,we will need to coast back down the drive way, and need to push the car to turn it around. I find Art sitting in the drivers seat, reading the cars’ user manual in Spanish. We are all relieved when he comes to the transmission diagram and discovers that there is a ring on the gear shift that must first be lifted in order for the car to engage in reverse. We drive over to the near-bye restaurant to check it out and Angel, one of the owners, invites us inside. She and her husband are from Oregon and just this past October, opened this restaurant to the cheers of all who live in the area. We expect we will return on another night during this trip to enjoy the restaurants ambience, the food and the tropical drinks. Art takes the high mountain road back towards San Jose Del Cabo. Although the road is dirt, it is wide and well graded except for one steep incline. The desert terrain is dotted with an array of cacti, while osprey and buzzards circle the bright blue sky above. I am delighted and amused by the nipple shaped mountains, conical, pastel cut outs, shaping the horizon. Although the drive back into town ta
kes 40 minutes, happily, it is uneventful.
It is past noon and we are all hungry when we pull into the new marina, intent on reserving a fishing panga boat for tomorrow. We are approached by several different “booking” agents and we inquire about the sizes and pricing of the various boats. The choices are confusing so I tuck several cards into my pocket and we defer making our decision until after lunch. After an unmemorable lunch at the marina’s Barefoot Cafe, we drive the short distance into San Jose Del Cabo with the intent of exchanging money. 4 years ago, we were here with my parents and the lay out of the city is familiar but new jewelry shops have sprouted up, most of them selling Mexican fire opals. John and I are quickly absorbed in looking at opals, but Art quickly glazes over and agrees to go to the bank on his own while John and I continue to shop for the perfect stone. There are thousands of opals within a few block radius and the pricing and quality is all over the place. Almost every shop has a handful of remarkable stones, plus trays of clear
orange opals and opal doublets. These unexciting, tourist quality, stones are of no interest to us, but the struggling merchants, judging us from our crumpled appearance, do their best to interest us in these mundane opals. Art returns with pesos and we tear ourselves away from the eye candy opals and return to the Marina to secure a panga for the morning.
It’s after 4:00 P.M. when we walk into the courtyard of Gorda Banks Panga, intent on giving them $270.00 to reserve a fishing trip on one of their 25 ft. super pangas. We are disappointed to find that all of their boats have already been reserved so we drive down to the marina in search of Arturo. I spot him quickly, a tall, thin man with weathered features and crooked yellow teeth. He flashes us an eager toothy smile, and we walk along a line of pangas moored in the marina. He makes several hopeful calls, but all of the boats are reserved. He suggests a smaller panga, but John has his heart set on a larger one, and with three of us aboard, the super panga with a steel railing encircling the boat gives me the illusion of being more stable and sea worthy. After several failed attempts at finding us an available panga and captain, Arturo is successful and we seal the $275.00 reservation with a $20.00 bill and a handshake. He promises me his best hot coffee in the morning when we will meet, at 6:00 A.M.
The La Playita Hotel sits steps away from the marina. We checked their rates earlier today and now walk over hoping that there are still rooms available. A smiling Kelly, welcomes us back and checks us in. She is a cherubic woman in her late 40’s with a sing song voice. Her wavy dyed blond hair is perfectly coiffed and she wears a full, white embroidered cotton dress. John notices a photo of an iguana in her office and we inquire about the photo? She beams and we are soon meeting her pet, Charlotte, a juvinel green iguana. Our spacious room is upstairs, overlooking a courtyard, a small pool below. The room has two queen beds, a terracotta tile floor and high ceilings. Best of all there is hot water with good water pressure and I am the first of us into the shower washing away two days’ grime.
After resting we drive into San Jose Del Cabo for John’s birthday dinner. He gets to choose the restaurant and we spend an hour wandering the quaint back streets before he picks Morgains, an upscale restaurant with candle lit tables clustered in a courtyard. We are seated upstairs on the balcony overlooking the courtyard and although there is an open fire place beside us, our table is too dark. We share a mussel appetizer and John, true to form, orders the most expensive item on the menu, filet and shrimp. Although the food is 
reasonably good, it’s quality doesn’t match the prices, so we are all somewhat disappointed in the birthday extravaganza. After dinner we poke into a few stores and John and I educate Art on some of the finer points of Mexican Fire Opals. In one of the better shops, John spots a smallish green and orange stone, blazing with fire and the zealous sales man takes it out to show us. It is breathtaking; 7 carats and $7,500. Art begins to catch the opal fever and to understand how challenging the
search for these Mexican Fire Opals can be.