Cabo, baby

We are in Cabo San Lucas, at the Villa Serena RV Park (map).  We had a very pleasant drive down from Los Barriles, including our first fuel stop, where we put in 385 liters, or just over 100 gallons, for 2,000 pesos, or just under 200 dollars.  Less than $2 per gallon is the least we've paid for diesel in quite a long time.

Yesterday was also our first opportunity to drive unescorted -- those that needed fuel were cut loose early to drive the 25 miles to the Pemex on their own.  We did wait for the rest of the group there, after which we became the impromptu tailgunners for the giant conga line of rigs as we proceeded through San Jose del Cabo.

After arriving here and getting settled in, the group gathered to carpool into town for a sunset dinner cruise.  The cruise was great, sunset was beautiful, the food was good, and, of course, all the drinks were included.  By the time we headed back to port, half the group was dancing on the deck -- retirees gone wild.  None of our group opted to do the pour-it-right-into-your-mouth tequila shots, however.

Today is a free day, and we are thinking about riding down to one of the nearby beaches for some swimming and snorkeling.  Home Depot is also right across the street, and I want to walk over just to check it out.  Tonight is an optional potluck dinner, and I've got sausage thawing to make jambalaya.  Tomorrow we have a glass-bottom boat tour, including snorkeling and an hour or so on Lovers' Beach, followed by lobster dinner right here at the Villa Serena restaurant.

In other news, we seem to be having trouble staying on-line here.  Either there have been problems at Hughes, or we are so close to the edge of the satellite footprint that our transmit signal is not getting through consistently.  We are on the Mexican satellite, SatMex5, but our size dish has low thresholds.  Hover your mouse over the 50dBW button on the Ku1-Band tab to see the footprint -- it's very close to the southern tip of Baja.

We get questions over here at Our Odyssey, and sometimes they come in as comments on the blog -- impossible to answer via email, and we never know if the original poster will go back to the comments to find the answers.  Reader "Spyderman's Adventures" asks if we know what the charge was to put Odyssey on the ferry.  The answer is that we don't know what the tour company paid, but you can find the retail fare on the ferry web site at http://www.bajaferries.com (works only with Internet Explorer -- I could not get it to work with FireFox).  On the navigation bar at top, click "Tarifas" and select "Vehiculos" to get a chart of vehicle fares.  You will then need to go back to Tarifas and select Pasaje to find the fares for any occupants, plus the charge for cabin accommodations if desired (highly recommended for the westbound crossing, which is overnight).

By my reckoning, our crossing in Odyssey would be $8,120 Mexican Pesos, which is about $745 US Dollars at the current exchange rate.  (6,000 pesos for Odyssey, 680 pesos each for the two of us, and 760 pesos for the cabin.)  The note about no pets on board, by the way, does not apply to pets traveling in your vehicle -- just be aware that you will not have access to the vehicle or the car deck under way, so the pets need to go it alone.