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Where to Go in Baja Mexico

 

Todos Santos

Forget all the crowds in Cabo – just fly in to Cabo International Airport (SJD) and then scoot up to Todos Santos for an authentic experience away from the bustling crowds.  Our Active Travel Adventures podcast guest, Arlis Miles, tells us that Todos Santos was wonderful because the locals are just carrying about their business of life and are not there simply to cater to tourists like so many busy tourist sites.  Yes, you’ll see other tourists, but it’s a pleasant mix, because the town also offers plenty of great restaurants, art galleries and shops to wander through when you are not playing in the surf.  This is an easy to get around historic former mission town, established in 1723.  If you go with my recommended tour company, Active Adventures, they will pick you up from the airport.  Otherwise, you can catch a cab and head up Highway 19 for the approximately one hour ride north from the airport.  Like in many places in Mexico, you want to do this during the day.

There are plenty of beaches within a short drive from Todos Santos.  The best are Playas Las Palmas and Playa Los Cerritos.  Be sure to check with locals about others as many area beaches drop off steeply and/or have strong undertows or rip tides (and remember if you get caught in a rip tide to swim SIDEWAYS please and don’t fight the current).

Isla de Espiritu Santo

A boat ride from La Paz, is the stunning island of Espiritu Santo.  A large colony of friendly and playful sea lions live here year round and they love to come check you out and play with you!  You can see them year ’round, but they give birth during the summer, so you can see the pups late summer into fall.

You start to see the whales migrating beginning in mid-January through late March, with February the best odds of see a lot of whales.

Swim with the whale sharks (don’t worry: they don’t eat humans).  They start showing up in November and you can see them into May.

The temperatures are always on the warm to hot side here, since it is so close to the Tropic of Capricorn.  The rainy season is July – September. 

Things To Do in Baja Mexico

• Cooking Class:  Take a cooking class with locals to learn how to make some authentic Mexican favorites
• Glamping:  Think camping means discomfort?  Consider “Glamping”:  these island tents have comfy beds, solar lighting and even a chandelier!
• Hiking:  Hike across the island and see lots of seabirds.  Consider having a boat pick you up so you just have to hike one way.
• Horseback Riding:  What is more enchanting than a horseback ride along the surf?  
• Kayaking:  Explore the nooks and crannies of the coastline.  Maybe you’ll see sea lions or whales!
• Local Delicacies:  Be sure to check out the fine restaurants in Todos Santos to taste the local cuisine.
• Paddleboarding:  SUP, or stand up paddle boarding, is a great way to see the coast AND work your core!
• Snorkeling:  The playful sea lions are likely to check you out as you explore what Jaques Couteau called the World’s Aquarium.
• Spa Element:  After all of this time exploring, take some time to rejuvenate with a spa treatment.
• Surfing:  Think you can’t surf?  Think again and sign up for beginner’s lessons.  You can do this!
• Swim with Sea Lions:  The playful sea lions are year ’round residents and are as curious about you as you are them!
• Swimming:  Cerulian blue seas are a delight to swim in.  It doesn’t get prettier than this.
• Walking:  Todos Santos is an easily walkable town.  Take time to explore the art galleries, restaurants and neighborhoods.
• Wildlife Viewing:  There’s an abundance of wildlife to enchant you:  Sea lions have a large year ’round colony.  The mamas give birth in the summer, so the best time to see the pups is late summer into fall.  The whales migrate to Baja and are residents from mid-January through late March (best month is February).  Want to swim with large and scary looking whale sharks?  Fortunately they don’t like to taste humans!   They hand out in Baja from November until May.
• Yoga Class:  Work out the kinks from all your adventure with a yoga class.

Not Included

• International airfare to and from Baja
• Optional activities as listed in the itinerary
• Meals not specified in the itinerary
• Alcoholic beverages
• Fees for passports, visas, or immunizations
• Cost of hospitalization or evacuation
• Items of a personal nature
• Gratuities for main guide

Even though most of the activities naturally focus on the water, be sure to allow time to play on the shore, whether by taking a super fun horseback ride through the surf, or hiking across the island.  Either way, you’re sure to see lots of shore birds!

On the Active Adventures adventure tour, you take a hike across the island and then a boat picks you up for the trip back.  This pic shows the group wading out to get back on the boat.  Just look at how gorgeous it is!!!  And what DON’T you see???  Other tourists!!!  This tour takes you away from Cabos to less developed areas.

WEATHER IN BAJA

The weather is pleasantly warm to hot year ’round.  The Baja rainy season is July through September.  Don’t for get your wide-brimmed hat and good quality sunscreen!!!

Swim with Sea Lions in Baja!

The playful sea lions live in a large colony in Baja.  They are as curious about you as you are them and think nothing of coming up to play with you as you swim or snorkel in Baja!  This picture is of a sea lion grabbing onto our guest, Arlis!

The colony lives here year ’round.  Mothers give birth in the summer, so late mummer and early fall are the best times to see the pups learn how to swim!

“Glamping” on Espiritu Santo Island

  These high end ‘clamping’ tents [Glamping is an abbreviation of glamorous camping] offer twin size OR king sized beds, solar lights, a chandelier and a chair and small table.  You look out over the water.  What a magnificent way to start and end your day!!!

 b  Arlis said she enjoyed Five Star meals throughout her adventure.  The chef, with him limited English, had difficulty saying “Adventure Women” and he called these ladies his “Amazing Womens”.   And each meal, he went to great lengths to please his health-conscious amazing womens with only the freshest of fruits, vegetables, meat and fish.  Arlis said that Adventure Women was able to accommodate differing food requirements and even arranged for her C-Pap to run off a battery so that she could enjoy this adventure.  SO DON’T LET ANYTHING STOP YOU FROM GOING!!!

DAY OF THE DEAD CELEBRATION 

Hopefully you can time your Baja visit to coincide with the Dias de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead celebration.  This colorful and joyful holiday began as an indigenous Aztec festival to honor the goddess Mictecacihuatl during the summer.  Over time and since the Spanish Conquest and the introduction of Catholicism to Mexico, the dates have been moved to coincide with the Christian holidays of All Souls Day, All Saints Day and All Hallows Eve.  So the dates are October 31 – November 2nd each year.  In the 1960’s the Mexican government made Dia de Meurtos (Anglicized to Dea de los Muertos) into a national holiday.

Day 1:  On All Hallows Eve, the Mexican children (this holiday is celebrated differently in different cultures) make altars, called ofrendas, to invite the angelitos (little angels – spirits of dead children) to come back for a visit.

Day 2: On All Saints Day, November 1, the adult spirits are asked to come visit.

Day 3:  All Souls Day, November 2, families and friends visit the cemetary and bring small gifts, favorite food and drink and decorate colorful altars and tombs to not just honor their dead, but also to support them on their spiritual journey in the afterlife.

The Mexicans believe that death is a natural part of the human cycle.  This holiday and celebration is a joyful family event.  It also helps the younger people connect to their deceased elders.

You will see lots of candy skulls called “calaveras” which represent the human skull.  In fact you will see A LOT of skulls as many folks have their face painted in colorful skulls.  The many marigolds you see are the traditional flowers of the dead.

The Day of the Dead is a joyous celebration of loved ones!

Make Sure That You are Ready for Your Trip!

Get Travel Insurance

Many adventure activities ARE NOT included with standard travel insurance.  That’s why I recommend World Nomads.  They get adventure!  Most every activity recommended on the Active Travel Adventures podcast are automatically covered with their standard policy.  Plus if you ever have a claim, a real live person reviews it, not some impersonal computer.  Click here for a FREE Quick Quote.  Also, please use my links when you buy travel insurance as at no additional cost to you, you are helping to support the program – thanks!

Other Photo Credits

While Arlis Miles may have contributed many of the photos shown above, several of her adventure mates took some of the photos, so I’d like to give them credit here:

Emily Martin shot the photo of her sister, Lucy Bucher surfing (way to go Lucy!!!)

Emily Vaden took the nice horseback photo.

Carol Latimer caught the sea lion nipping and playing with Arlis.

Kate Gridley, the Adventure Women Ambassador took the sleek sea lion showing off his form.

Thanks everyone for sharing your amazing photos!!!

Baja Mexico And The Day Of The Dead Celebration

Kayak, Snorkel, Swim With Sea Lions, Surf, Horseback Ride And Hike Baja

We’ve got a special treat for you. We’re going to go with the Two C’s Meet on a little spit of beautiful sandy beach on the Baja Peninsula in Mexico, but not the touristy area that everybody else goes to. We’re going to a cute little village that you’ll have to yourselves where the people are actually living their lives and not just hanging out and doing things for the tourist like some of the bigger tourist traps are. This is a really cool adventure. We’re going to go to glamping on an island out in the sea, our first time doing that. While we’re out there, we’re going to learn to surf, standup paddleboard, snorkel, play with sea lions and have a marvelous time. You’ve got to have at least one hike. It seems like it’s an exciting adventure. Also because the time you have this particular trip, our guest was able to experience some of the magical Day of the Dead celebration. Not to be confused with Halloween, this is a cool honoring of the loved ones who have passed. I can’t wait to share it with you. Let’s get started.

—

Can you start by introducing yourself and perhaps telling us your age?

My name is Arlis Miles and I’m 62 years old.

Arlis, how did you first get into Adventure Travel?

That’s the question I’ve been thinking about a lot. I would have told you at first that I got into Adventure Travel as a bucket list thing for my 60th birthday. The truth is that my parents started traveling with us when we were little kids. I’m the first of four kids and we did a lot of camping. I think I have always liked traveling, but this stage of my life, I decided I wanted to do an adventurous bucket list type trip. In 2016, I picked out a trip to celebrate my 60th birthday and it was this time that I did my first, what I think of is adventure trip.

What was that? What’d you do?

I did whitewater rafting, camping trip through the Grand Canyon for seven days.

I have a popular episode about rafting the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, but it was a much longer trip. How did yours go?

We flew to Vegas and then we flew into a starting point. From Vegas, we took a small plane to Lee’s ferry. We got on our rafts in Lee’s Ferry and then rafted down the Grand Canyon and then took a helicopter out seven days later.

I‘m going on my first long distance rafting trip myself. I’ll be doing the middle fork of the Salmon River in Idaho. I’m really excited. The longest I’ve ever rafted at one time it was about four hours. That should be an interesting trip for me too.

The best way to start adventure traveling was just to get in and do something wild and it was fantastic. I shared the experience with an adventurous friend. It changed my life and started my need to do it more.

What was the next step? Congratulations on commemorating your birthday in such a fun and cool way. When you got back, how’d you feel? What made you decide, “I’m going to do this more?â€

I felt amazing. I felt like I had accomplished more than I thought I could. It was life changing. I’m a nurse by my profession. I had also been in sales and over the years, I had stopped taking care of myself physically. Before I went on this trip, I had lost 40 pounds. To do something that adventurous that required that much hiking and hanging onto the raft and sleeping outside and doing things was a commemorative experience. I felt emotionally changed. It changed my life. The second thing I did was as soon as I got home, I started planning my next trip. I had to do a lot of convincing of my husband that this was a good idea for me to leave him and the dog and do this because he’s not an adventurous traveler. I wanted to do something with women particularly. Not that I didn’t mind there being men along, but I felt like there was an opportunity to travel with women who wanted to travel without their families. That interested me.

I started doing internet searching and I found that second thing. I have to say, I did another trip. I planned it, but I wasn’t able to go on it because I got sick. I planned my second trip to hike in the Redwood forest in 2018 and I did that with six friends. Unfortunately, the night before we left, I got sick and couldn’t go. My friends went without me and they came back with reports of enjoying each other’s time together as women. We volunteer together, but we had never had the chance to really travel together as women without our partners, our spouses, in our lives. We just left all that behind. Since I couldn’t go, while they were all in the Redwood forest, I got on the internet and I started looking. I must have typed in on the search bar, adventurous travel with women, and the group Adventure Women came up in an internet search. I made a phone call and I got ahold of Emily. Emily and I had a nice talk.

One of the things that I found as I was researching travel, for example, Yellowstone, was you could take and find Yellowstone for $1,500 and Yellowstone for $5,000. I’m like, “What’s the difference? Why is there such a disparity between pricing?†When you look at it, the trip looked similar. Emily and I had a very long talk about that, about the size of the trip, the food that you ate, your accommodations, the different sorts of trips that you take while you’re there, the excursions that you take while you’re there. She helped me understand what I was looking for and I also enjoyed her customer service. I loved the fact that this was a group started by women. Adventure Women had just been sold to another group of women. It was a small group, women only. They only travel in groups of twelve to fourteen and the whole focus was to take women out of their normal environment and give them an opportunity to be adventurous, and I was.

I booked my first trip with Adventure Women probably a couple of months later. One of the women that had been in the Redwood forest without me, she wanted to go and so we booked the Baja California vacation together and that’s how we got on that. We did that on October. That’s what made me decide to pick that company over the myriad of other companies that can take you on virtually the exact same trip. That was one of my dilemmas, was how do you pick a group? I don’t want to travel by myself. I don’t want to figure it out. I want to pack my bags with the list you send me and I want to go on this trip. I don’t care to figure it all out. I want you to figure it out and take me. Everybody’s different. Some people like that part of their trip, doing all the figuring out. Not me. You figure it out, let me pay you for it and I will show up with my bags packed.

I’m the same way. I don’t enjoy planning a trip. Also, I find that adventure ventures are difficult logistically to plan like that. How would you plan the trip that we’re talking about? It would be hard. It would be expensive. You’ve got to arrange all the shuttles. It’s really difficult. On this trip, did you go with your group of girlfriends, by yourself or with a friend?

I went with one friend, the girl that went with me to Grand Canyon. She also went on the Redwood forest trip and then she went with me to Mexico.

How did you pick this trip?

 

It was actually timing. This was my makeup trip since I had gotten sick and couldn’t go to the Redwood forest, I wanted to go on a makeup trip in 2018. I didn’t want to let a whole year pass before I did another travel and it was about timing. We were both available in October and honestly, the trip from Houston, Texas to Cabo San Lucas is so easy. You can go to Hobby Airport, get on Southwest Airlines, and you’re there in two hours. It was so easy to do. Mostly timing and just ease of working a last-minute trip into your schedule. Plus, Mexico is cool.

Some people, when they hear Mexico these days, they’re going to be a little bit concerned safety-wise. Did you ever have any feelings of being uncomfortable or feeling unsafe? Can you talk a little bit about that?

I never had any worries about that. People also said the same thing about the Grand Canyon trip, “Aren’t you worried?†I figured there are these people, it’s their job to make sure that these travelers arrive and depart safely. I never once thought anything of it. That’s another thing. When you’re talking about traveling, if you’re concerned about safety, don’t go by yourself. Go with the group that has a good reputation and has done it many times. They’re familiar with the area and if you’re concerned about the area, don’t go. There are thousands of other things you can do. I was never concerned. Not once.

A lot of times, they’ll pick you up at the airport too. All you have to do is just physically get yourself there. When I went to Nicaragua, Managua was very safe, but they had a driver pick us up. That’s how you get around some of these dicier areas sometimes. Let’s get a brief overview about what you did on your trip and then we’ll dig down a little bit deeper.

When I was scheduling this trip, it was all about snorkeling, surfing and sea lions. We were there to snorkel with the sea lions and learn to surf and glamping on the beach. I love the water and I love to snorkel. I don’t know how to scuba dive, but I do love to snorkel. I have no idea how to surf. Beach, water, glamping and sea lions, I was all about that. They have a complete itinerary. You arrive, you have yoga, go horseback riding, take surfing lessons, cooking classes. We were transported to the site, the island where we were going to be glamping and there was going to be hiking. We would swim with the sea lions. There was kayaking, stand up paddle boarding, snorkeling. After we finished our glamping experience, we were going back into the historic town where we stayed when we originally got there. It was amazing.

Also, you’re not staying in Cabo like most of the tourists do. You’re in a little town or your base town before and after. It was Todos Santos, is that correct?

Exactly. We just flew into Cabo San Lucas and then Adventure Women hires the people to do our group. They are the facilitator, if you will. Eco Adventure people came and picked us all up from the airport. Carol and I arrived from Houston and we crawled into a van full of I think there were six other women in the van that we had never met before. We spent the next hour and a half going to our destination. No one stopped talking for the entire hour and a half we were in that van. It was like we were instant friends the moment we set our eyes on each other. We just couldn’t stop. “Where are you from? What do you do?†It was when you were going to have a good time the moment we met those women.

I think this adventure pre-selects interesting cool people to go on it.

That’s exactly what Emily told me because one of my questions was, “Will I like the women that are going on this trip with me?†She said the same thing. Now that I’ve done it twice, it’s true, both with my first adventure and with this one. People who go to this much trouble to travel like this are going to be your kind of people. Did I want to know everybody and stay in touch with all of them forever? No, but I loved, respect and admired them all for very different reasons. They wanted to be there as bad as I wanted to be there.

They all had the whole spirit of adventure because I imagine none of them were expert surfers, yet you learn how to surf. Talk a little bit about some of the activities that you did.

The morning we got there and woke up at Todos Santos, which was our first accommodations and were beautiful, we were overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I had never seen the Pacific Ocean from that point of view. It was just beautiful. We had a morning yoga, fantastic breakfast, then we were transported down to the Pacific Ocean in another location for surfing lessons. There were fourteen us. They get us all outfitted in our gear and gave us on-the-beach lessons and then start pushing us out into the water. One of the lessons that the guy taught us was whatever you do, don’t let the board get in front of you because it will flip up and hit you and could cause harm. I go out the first time and I get up on my knees and flop over. I head out to the water the second time, I get up a little further and flop over.

As I’m headed out for my third pass at it, my board went right in front of me a little tiny way. I was in ankle deep water and I was bending over to move my board away, in a small way, grabbed my board and it hit me in the face. I knew immediately I had broken my nose. I’m a nurse. I knew I had broken my nose. I heard it. I knew exactly what had happened. I get out of the water and the instructor comes running over to me and he said, “I told you not to let the board in front of you.†I said, “I know. I know what’s happened. I need to get out of the water.†By then, I was bleeding like crazy. The Adventure Woman ambassador, Emily, was there and the Eco Adventure people were there and they start taking care of me like crazy.

I was up on the beach, I was in ice, I had my head back. They had a doctor on the phone they were calling because I was laid up with the broken nose and I was bleeding like a football player had gotten hit. I wasn’t that worried because I can tell I still had air passages and everything was okay. The only thing I kept saying was, “Don’t tell Carol that I’m up here on the beach like this. She’s my travel partner.†I didn’t want anybody to get out of the water and stop surfing. You could see the women out in the surf. They were going out and standing up. By then, they’ve had five or six passes at it and these women are standing up and surfing. The women on my trip were from age 30 to age 70. There were fourteen of us. Only six of us knew each other. Carol and I knew each other. There was a group of three women who knew each other, then Emily and her sister knew each other. There weren’t that many of us that knew each other.

There were single women traveling without their children. There were single women traveling, left their children at home or had traveled with siblings or sisters. It was just fantastic. Back to the surfing and the broken nose. They discussed taking me to the hospital and I said, “No, my nose isn’t broken that bad. The blood is already stopping.†They were doing a wonderful job of giving me immediate first aid. By then, some of the other people had realized what was going on and one of them was a doctor, a gynecologist. She came up and I said, “Lucy, they’re talking about taking me to the doctor and I said I don’t think I need to go.†She took a look at me and she goes, “You’ll be fine.†I loved it.

That’s a good way to start your adventure.

It was the first day. I still don’t know how to surf. It annoys me that I still don’t know how to surf.

It looks like you’re going to have to go back.

The point is that things happen on vacation. It was an accident. They had immediate first aid. We had a doctor on call. Both the Adventure Women ambassadors and the people who are running the trip all were taking very good care of me. I never felt in harm’s way or like there was a problem. I didn’t continue to surf, but we had adventures going on the rest of the day and I participated in all the adventures the rest of the day. It didn’t stop me. After that, we stopped on our way back and they took us to a roadside area where a couple and their family prepared homemade ceviche. I ate myself some homemade ceviche. It was so good, broken nose and all. Right there, fresh out of the water. I’ve never tasted anything like it. It was so good. We went horseback riding after that. That night was cooking lessons. That was so much fun.

 

Not bad for just day one.

It was very relaxing. The nice thing that Adventure Women did for us is that they had coordinated all of these activities so it’s not so touristy, but you’re there to learn and to see the surroundings. We got to talk to the woman who was running this organization for the horses. She lived in this area for many years. She knew a lot about the history of the area and what was going on. Half the fun was listening to her talking about the area that we were horseback riding through. It was beautiful. The sun was going down and it was just extraordinary.

It looked like the horseback ride, you’re riding along the surf. That sounds like a lot of fun. It sounds like they packed a whole lot in that first day too. The cooking lesson, what were you learning how to cook?

We were cooking and traditional Mexican dish. The gentleman that was our chef, he had his mother sitting there with him helping him prep, so these were his mother’s traditional dishes. We all got a cookbook at the end of it. We had chicken mole with traditional Spanish rice. We learned how to make guacamole. I’m from Texas. I eat a lot of avocado. It was lovely to learn how to do it with tips and tricks about how to use your knife correctly. We made our own chips. In between, there’s a lot of Margarita swirling in the background. I think as the Margarita were consumed, the food got better and better. The party got louder.

I’ll bet you are really bonding with your travel mates too as well.

It was fun. I will say that not everybody likes Margaritas. Not everybody drinks. One of the things you do when you get ready for these kinds of vacations is they send you a checklist. If there is anything that you need special accommodations for, then you let them know and they absolutely accommodate it. There were two of us who don’t drink on this trip. For every Margarita they were making, they were making a non-alcoholic beverage for us. Don’t feel like you can’t go if you have issues that you think would restrict you from going. There’s always a way. That’s one of the things I’ve learned about these two trips that I’ve taken. There’s always a way. For example, on the Grand Canyon camping, I sleep with a CPAP and I can’t travel without it. When I was sleeping out under the stars, I had a car battery right next to my cot and my CPAP hooked up to that car battery. There’s always a way.

This sounds like such an amazing adventure. One of the highlights is witnessing the Day of the Dead celebration. When does that all play in? I know that Adventure Women has been changing up the itinerary a little bit.

The Day of the Dead was the last night of our trip and I almost didn’t go see it because it wasn’t the focus of our trip. The next day we headed to the private beach for the glamping. That’s when we went to the Sea of Cortez. They took us by boat to the Sea of Cortez. As we were getting there, we travel up and you see this beautiful island and all these beautiful tents waiting for you. We slept under the stars on Isla Espiritu Santo for three nights. That was where we did the snorkeling with the sea lions, the paddleboarding and hiking. We did kayaking. That was the price of the ticket right there. It was beautifully done. The food was extraordinary. The accommodations were romantic and beautiful. The things that we did at Isla Espiritu Santo, that was what I had gone for.

Apparently, the wildlife there must be incredible because Jacques Cousteau called the Sea of Cortez the world’s aquarium. He just loved it, like the Galapagos of North America.

It was something that I don’t get to see. I live by the water, but I don’t get to see that. First of all, the water is extraordinary. Camping on the beach, that was just beautiful. The people that were managing the camping experience treated us with amazing dignity. With a medical issue that I have to accommodate with, they had a solar-powered battery to run my sleeping device, my CPAP. I reiterate again and again, don’t let things like that stop you from going on adventurous travel. The swimming with the sea lions, that was actually day four. They take us all out to this rock formation where the sea lions are raising their pups. The adult sea lions are swimming around and the little baby sea lions are out learning how to swim. We all get our wet suits on, our snorkel gear on. We jump off the boat and we’re bobbing around.

All of a sudden, the sea lion came out of nowhere and just dive bombed us. Every woman in that group raised her head up out of the water and squealed and laughed. It was so hilarious because then he started playing with us. I say he, it could have been a female sea lion. They would come in and they would grab our fins and pull on our fins and they dive bomb you in and out. It was magnificent. I had never seen anything like it. I doubt I’ll ever see anything like it again. They take this same trip during whaling season. If you can’t go in October and see the sea lions, you can go in the winter. I think it’s February and they see the whales, which would be amazing.

I think also sometimes too, the whale sharks, they don’t like to bite humans. That’s also something else you might be able to see. Were you able to see any on this trip or is that something that it’s a hit or miss?

That’s a different season. That’s what I was just saying is our season in October was for the sea lions, but they take the same trip in February when the sharks are coming through. We didn’t see any whale sharks. You can take the same trip in February and see the migration of the whales in the Pacific Ocean.

They took us just around the corner and we snorkeled into a cave and you could see the baby sea lions diving and swimming. Our guides were telling us that they’re back there learning how to swim. You float on the water and watch these little sea lion pups diving back and forth. Some of them will be adventurous enough to come up and look at you. They come right up to you and look at you. It was something.

You can touch them. Not the babies, they wouldn’t come up to you, but the adults would come up to you and you could touch them. It was just extraordinary. I’ve never done anything like it in my life. By that time you’re exhausted and you’re ready to go back to your area. We all go back and take a shower, get in our comfortable clothes, relax in our glamping tents, read books, write in our journals and look over our pictures. That’s the fun part of this travel to me, is at the end of the day when you decompressed with your new friends. You talk about the day and the things that you’ve seen and it’s just fun to share all of that with like-minded people who are as excited about this as you are. That was that day.

Can you try to describe the landscape for us?

The coastline to me looks very rocky and if I could use the word desolate because it’s very dry and beachy. There’s lots of sand, lots of rocks. We also took a hike. On day three, we took a hike all the way across the island. The boat dropped us off on one side and we hiked all the way across the island. The boat picked us up on the other side and took us home. That was interesting because you got to see the cactus. Our guides talk to us all the way through about what we were looking at, what these cactus were, how long they’ve been there, what the wildlife was like, what the rainfall was like. It was very dry. It’s very hot. That was another thing. You have to be in shape too. Be prepared for a hot hike, but it was amazing. That was the landscape there. The landscape in Todos Santos where we started was very luxurious. It had lot of palm trees and looking over the Pacific Ocean. There was big breeze going all the time. Isla Espiritu Santo, the island in the Sea of Cortez, was warm, breezy and dry.

It looks like you’re actually hiking through the water because you’re in a road. Was that part of your hike?

That was the end of the hike, yes. We had hiked all the way across the island. To get to our boat, we had to go through the water. My friend, Gail, was leading the way because there are a lot of stingrays in the water and you have to shuffle. You can’t just step or you’ll step on a stingray. They teach you that all the time. When you go out in the water, that beautiful white sand underneath there, you have to shuffle your feet. You have to scoot so the stingray that you cannot see will scoot on out of there if you happen to disturb one. We were at the end of our hike, that water felt very good after being out in that warm sun as we had been for several hours, and we’re on our way back to the boats so we could get back to our glamping area.

 

For people unfamiliar with glamping, describe your accommodations.

Glamping is a shortened version of glamorous camping. There are a lot of people in this world that said, “I don’t camp.†I love to camp. If you don’t like to camp, this is the way to camp. Our accommodations were a beautiful white tent. Inside it they had a rug down on the sand, so there was actual sand underneath you. There were either king-sized beds or two twin beds. My roommate and I had two twin beds. They had solar lamps, a chandelier hanging from the top of the tent. They had mirrors, bedside tables, towels. It looks like the inside of a spa, I kid you not. You face the water, so you go to sleep at night with the sound of the waves. It was fantastic. They had clean soft sheets. It was a beautiful chair in your tent for you to sit there and relax.

Solar lights, solar batteries, for those of us who needed special sleeping equipment to use and it was just magnificent. The bathroom facilities are outdoors. There isn’t traditional plumbing. They have outhouses that were very clean. They teach you how to use them. You use the bathroom in a sawdust thing. We learned how to clean up after ourselves. The shower was a solar shower. They fill up a big bag with water. It stays out in the sunshine all day long. At night when we were done with our adventure, what we were doing, everybody took their soap and their shampoo, which we all came with our biodegradable stuff and the stuff that’s good for the earth. You get under your solar shower and you have a nice solar shower and clean up, put on your evening outfit and get ready for dinner. Your clean flip flops is what I mean by your evening outfit.

You said the food was good.

The food was good. They had these chips. They had a whole team of men and women that were there to basically serve us and meet every need we had. All of this was done without electricity, with solar power only. We had fresh food, fresh meat, fresh fish. We had vegetables and fruit and it was a jump because when you wake up in the morning, you get first breakfast and your first breakfast was your yogurt, fruit, juice and granola. You go out for a morning hike or something and then you come back for a second breakfast and that’s when you have your hot food, whether it was your eggs or your meat or whatever. You go back for another adventure, then you come back for lunch. We got to thinking we were hobbits. First breakfast, second breakfast, eleven z’s. That was a joke in our group because they feed you a lot of food. The chef on the island was just delightful.

One of our inside jokes was the name of the company is Adventure Women but he didn’t speak very good English. He called us the Bravest Woman and we just adored him. He would serve your food and then chef would come out and he’d say, “To my bravest womans, I serve you.†He would launch into a beautiful explanation of what he had served you for the day, the meaning behind all of it and how he prepared it. It was so fresh and the food was magnificent. We had vegetarians on our trip. We had people who did eat or didn’t eat meat. All of that was accommodated for beautifully. It’s presented like the five-star restaurant.

Any other favorite memories or things that you want to tell us about your time staying out in the island?

The island stay was, number one, quiet. One of my favorite memories is the fact that nobody had cell phones that they could use. There was a television. My favorite memory was at the end of the day, we would come home. We would all clean up and sit there in front of our tents and we would write in our journals, read, take another walk or some would take naps or take this time to spend some alone time. It was just at the end of the day as the sun was going down, looking at your friends and thinking how lucky you are to be there.

You got to get back to the real world. They take you back to the mainland. It’s peninsula. They call it a mainland.

We go back to Todos Santos after having kayaking and stand up paddleboarding and more snorkeling. That is when we had the opportunity to go to see the Day of the Dead event. They even gave us the option to not go. My friend Carol and I looked at each other. We were exhausted at that point in time because in Adventure Travel, you’re usually going and doing all the time with some downtime for breaks. She said, “Would you rather go back to our room and pack or do you want to see what this is all about?†I said, “Let’s just throw our stuff in the kits tomorrow morning. We will never get to see this again.†We had another cooking lesson and we went to the cemetery where they were having the Day of the Dead celebration. I’m so glad I went because I didn’t know what Day of the Dead was.

In Texas and probably all of the United States, people think it’s a version of Halloween. It is not. It is not anything like that. I would never have known that if I didn’t go to the area where they were having the celebration and see for myself the joy and the kids running around having fun. The bands playing and the food being cooked and the decorations, I would never have known that if I hadn’t seen it for myself. I’m so glad I went. I think future groups, they make this the event of going. They’ll have bands and they have all kinds of daytime celebrations. The town is beautifully decorated for the event. We did some shopping. I wouldn’t have realized that it’s not a mournful celebration. It is a joyful celebration. It’s a beautiful celebration. I just had never seen anything like it. I’m so glad I saw it.

For those that are not familiar with the Day of the Dead or the Dia de Los Muertos, I believe it’s called, it’s a remembrance and a celebration of their past loved ones. They also will make little altars and put little presents to help support them in the afterlife. They consider death just part of the cycle of human life. Family, friends get together, often decorate themselves in these fanciful skull-like painted faces and all that. It’s truly a fascinating cultural experience. I’m so glad you were able to see it.

Yes, it really was. We were having dinner before that. A gentlemen, his wife and their little baby, they were our hosts for the evening. He took us over to his altar and explained all of the things that represented his parents and grandparents and loved ones that had gone on. His wife was from America and she had made an altar for her parents and her grandparents and the things that represented their past life with her in the United States. They’re all very elaborate, fresh flowers, fresh fruit, pictures, mementos of all kinds. What I loved about it, because I love being around kids being a grandmother’s age these days, how the little kids interacted with it. They’re taught to love their ancestors and what their ancestors mean to them, which gives you such a historical meaning to your life, “These people did this so that I could have this wonderful life.†It’s an incredibly beautiful celebration. I was so glad I saw it.

It was originally from the indigenous people who were doing this and that was a summertime event, but then the Spanish conquering and all that in Christianity brought there. They moved it over time to the Halloween period, the All Souls Day and All Saints Day. That’s now when they hold it around that same time frame. They are two distinct celebrations.

Yes, very distinct. In fact, I came home and my husband said something about Halloween and I just turned and looked at him and I said, “That has absolutely nothing to do with this.†There are costumes, sure, but it’s not the point. The costumes are an afterthought almost, although they are very elaborate. One of the women in our group sat down and had her face painted. There are people sitting around that will paint your face. People who were participating wear flowers and they do their hair up. You could sit or stand where we were and look up the hill. All the graves are illuminated with candles. Some of them you can look in. They’re beautifully decorated inside. They’re painted. Just the magnificence hearing the music and seeing the candles light up the graves on the hillside, it will bring a lump to your throat. It’s quite lovely. It’s quite beautiful.

I’m going to do a couple more notes on the celebration. On what we call Halloween or October 31st, All Hallows’ Eve, the children help make the altars and they’re inviting the Angelitos, the spirits of the dead children, the little angels to come visit that day. It was a three-day celebration. The next day is what Christians call All Saints Day, an indigenous ceremony. This is when the adult spirits come to visit. On the third and final day, which is All Souls Day in Christianity, the families then go to the cemetery to decorate all the graves and the tombs. It’s a three-part event or a three-day event and it sounds really cool. I like that Adventure Women is now shifting the tour that you went on so it is focusing quite a bit more on exploring that whole celebration, as well as doing all the activities on the beach. It sounds like a cool tour. Just to clarify, the indigenous Day of the Dead celebrations, those three days have now moved to coincide with the Christian fall holidays of All Souls Day and All Saints Day.

Woman and man, the husband and wife team that the place where we stayed when we arrived to Todos Santos, they are very supportive of that town. They’re like town elders and they sponsor the stuff that happens in there. The night after we left, the celebration was really happening. There was a big well-known band coming in street festivals. Three of our members stayed over an extra night so they could see that. Of all the things that I’ve ever done, one of the things I would tell you that I wish you had asked for advice about what would you wish you had done differently? I have been on two of these trips and both times I wish I could be there longer. If you can, and if you have the wherewithal to stay an extra night or two, I have so far never been ready to go home. I wanted more before it was all over. I was very envious of my three friends who got to stay an extra night. The owner of the property got them tickets to go see the festival and see the band the next day and they got to participate in a bigger way. That’s my one advice. You’re not going to want to go home.

I’m tempted just to go to see the face painting. It’s extraordinary. Are the locals welcoming to tourists?

 

As far as we knew, yes. We were escorted around where we were. That goes back to what we talked about in the beginning, did I feel safe? We were always taken places by our guides who were locals and we always felt safe and welcome. Wherever we went to eat, our guides were there. They were the people who made the food for us and took care of us on property. They were locals and were kind, thoughtful and very friendly. They were very friendly both on the island and on the peninsula where we were on. The Baja were just kind and generous people and very glad to have us.

From what I read, Todos Santos, that little village, has gone through a real big rejuvenation now. It’s filled with art galleries and cute shops and cute places to visit. Tell us about that.

Todos Santos, the town where we stayed the night we got there and the night before we left, there were art galleries. There are a lot of places to shop, but many of those places, it’s not like going to Cozumel, Mexico where there are 6,000 passengers that are there. Most of the people that were there that I saw were there to participate in the town’s activities. Unlike some other very touristy destinations, not that there’s anything wrong with Cozumel, but they’re there to serve us doing what we want to do when we’re in their touristy areas versus being at Todos Santos. They’re carrying on with their lives and celebrating and enjoying their lives. We are observing and participating in their culture and in their history. I very much enjoyed that. The town was beautiful. It was clean. There are beautiful art galleries, beautiful places to shop for clothes. It’s easy to walk around. It’s easy to get around. It was very easy to move around. We broke off in small groups. Again, all women never once felt unsafe. There were a lot of Americans that had moved down there and started businesses and shops.

Their population in 2015 was under 7,000, so it makes for a nice size little town.

It’s a nice town. It’s not being from Houston, the third largest city in the United States. It was a very beautiful small town with historic buildings and just very friendly people.

I usually like to rate the difficulty level or the activity level on a scale of one to five, with five being super hard. Where would you put the exertion level or what kind of fitness level out of this scale of one to five, where would you place this adventure?

This was not hard. It was adventurous, but it was not hard. The difficulty level, it was probably a three and that was because you needed to know how to swim. You need to know how to snorkel and you need to be able to hike. That’s one thing when people are picking out traveling, ways to travel. I have to be careful with this because I live at sea level, so I can’t just decide I’m going to go hiking 7,000 feet or 15,000 feet. I can’t accommodate that right away. If you can walk three miles, if you can swim, you could do that. It was not a difficult trip. It was adventurous, but it was not difficult. For example, paddle boarding. I didn’t know how the paddleboard. I know I live on the water, but I didn’t know how to paddleboard.

We had two women who were in their 70s and they got up on that paddleboard and tried. You have to want to try it. It’s not hard, but it takes some practice. That’s one of the things I always tell people is don’t let age hold you back. Paddle boarding wasn’t something I’d ever done before, but I want to try new things, which is the point of adventurous travel. Before “I can’t do it,†get up there and try to do it. We had women from their mid-30s to their mid-70s and we were all snorkeling. We were all paddle boarding, we were all kayaking and some could do it better than others, but we all gave it a good try. It was not hard. Three or less and that’s because of the long hike.

Is there something you wish you’d known before you went?

Not really, but I will say this to others. I wish I had known on the two that I have been and the one that I’m going on. You need to know the level of fitness that will be required of you. The first adventurous trip I went on that was not with Adventure Women, I was not as fit as I could have been. The second one I was ready for and the one I’m going on, I have been working on for six months. I’ve been working very hard to be fit for this. Make sure you know the difference between adventurous and rigorous and work up to that. The thing I wish I had known and I would impart to others is you will be very surprised with Adventure Women, the relationships that you will build while you’re there. The women that go on this trip and the women who own this company are there to make sure that we are not only just immediately entertained, which does happen, but enthralled with the experience of this. You will come away wanting more. You will have friends that you will have for life and you will feel strong. You’ll feel like you could conquer the world, regardless of what age you are. Be prepared for that emotional aspect of it. It was very hard to leave.

Any final advice that you’d like to give people that might consider this adventure?

Do it. One of the things I do want to point out, and I wanted to make sure we get this point across, is I had traveled a lot in many different ways. What I liked about traveling with this particular company was that I felt like their customer service was above and beyond. They had worked out the kinks for all of this adventurous travel. All of this is taken care of so you can just go in and enjoy yourself. When you leave, you will be so glad you had done it. You’ll immediately start wanting to book your next one. Be prepared. Start saving your money now. Start working out now because you’re going to want more. I can’t recommend Adventure Women enough for this. It’s an amazing company and I’m excited about my next trip with them.

Where are you going?

My friend Carol, who I’ve traveled with three times, and the other four women that are coming along with us, we’re going to the Canadian Rockies. We’re flying into Calgary. Adventure Women is going to transport us to Banff and we’ve got cave spelunking, whitewater rafting, glacier hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, all of that in six quick days.

To me, one of my favorite things about this kind of travel is not only do you get to anticipate, like you’re anticipating your Rockies trip, then you get to actually do it. For example, I finished my New Zealand series. I went some time ago, but I had a blast reliving my adventure. That’s the one good thing is you get to relive it for the rest of your life. It’s really fun.

There’ve been a couple of times, Kit, when you and I have talked about it, and I’ve been reliving this experience. I would get a lump in my throat when I think, “I had forgotten how much that meant to me and how much it meant to me when the chef would call us his bravest womans.†We would smile. He had such a beautiful accent. He would say, “Tonight, because I know my bravest womans, they like the vegetables. Tonight’s experience, they were scallops and zucchini.†He served many things with the balsamic reduction and he’d call it a balsamic reducion. When I left that last night, I looked at my friend Carol and I said, “Who’s going to cook my scallops and make my balsamic reducion? I don’t know what to do. I want to take him with me.†He was a beautiful man. They took very good care of us and wonderful memories.

Thank you so much, Arlis. It’s been great.

Thank you. If I’ve left out anything, forgive me. My memory may not be as good as it used to. I’ll remember this forever.

Before I let you go, I forgot to talk to you about the time of year to go. You went in October. What would you say about the weather? What recommendations would you give us there?

The one thing about Adventure Women is they only take you when the best time to go. When you’re examining other types of trips, you need to know what weather you’re expecting. For example, I live in Houston. If you take me to Yellowstone in winter, I don’t have the clothes for that. I haven’t done that. You need to know what that is. That’s one of the nice things about Adventure Women. They go when it’s a good time to go. For us, in October, it was still very warm in the area. When you’re glamping on the beach, there’s not an air conditioner. You need to be aware of that. It was warm, but there’s water around you and a cool breeze blowing all of the time. When we were in Todos Santos, I don’t want to call it a hotel, but it was like an individual casita’s they call them.

We all had our individual casa and you get up in the morning and you’d go on the roof of your casa where they had the coffee ready and they had a beautiful Pacific Ocean breeze. It was warm, but it was very pretty. What made it special was the women. There were only fourteen of us, two of whom were Adventure Women employees that were our ambassadors. What made it special was just being able to travel with women of all ages who were there for all kinds of reasons. Coming home, feeling restored, feeling refreshed, feeling like you could get back to your life and feeling strong and powerful. That’s one of my favorite memories was I came home and I felt relieved. I take care of my elderly parents. I needed a time away to get my head back in the game. It was wonderful.

To do something for you for a change.

Exactly. There were a lot of women on this trip. One was going through a divorce. One was also caring for her aging parents. One was becoming an empty nester. There were several of us in our 60s and 70s and going through the transitions that a woman does at this age, and you begin to think, “I’m old and I can’t do that.†What I love about traveling at this age is I’m 62 years old and there were ladies there who were 72 years old. That doesn’t mean you have to stop. You push through this, “I can’t†mentality and decide that you can. It’s so beautiful to see somebody who is a little bit afraid of jumping in the water with the sea lions and they jump in and the look on their faces when they can do it is magnificent. A woman is in her 70s get up on a surfboard, what a joyful thing to see.

—

I’m really grateful for Arlis. I’ve got a couple of takeaways. Number one, notice on the very first day, very first event, the broken nose did not stop her adventure. The adventures sometimes doesn’t start until something goes wrong. People that do this trip roll with the punches and you learn to roll with the punches more and more the more you do these things. Also, she said something very interesting. I asked her, since her husband’s not doing this, what does he think about her now taking all these adventurous trips? She said at first, he was fighting, kicking and screaming and putting all sorts of obstacles in our way. He did not want her to go on that rafting trip on the Colorado River. When she got back, he realized after a while, “This actually works out well for me too because I get a better wife. My wife comes back to me a better person, a happier person, a more fulfilled person.†Now he’s all gung ho about her going and doing these adventures and ask what’s next.

Also, notice too how all it took was one adventure and then Arlis is hooked, just like I was, like everybody else I’ve interviewed. If I do nothing else with this, I hope to inspire you to lead a bigger life through Adventure Travel. It is so cool, so amazing and so empowering and I love sharing with people. If you’re not sure where to go, what to do, you need some help there, email me. I’ll try to help you if I can. Go to the website ActiveTravelAdventures.com and you can find all sorts of adventures based on your proclivity, what you’d like to do, your budget that time of the year. I have it broken out all sorts of different ways so that you can find a cool adventure. Be sure to write me at Kit@ActiveTravelAdventures.com and let me know what you did. I’d love hearing from you. I hope you’ve enjoyed our feature on the Baja Peninsula of Mexico and celebrating the Day of the Dead. Don’t forget on alternate Thursdays, you can listen to The Adventure Travel Show podcast, which teaches you the how-tos of adventure travel. I encourage you to check that out and hopefully subscribe both this and that podcast. Thanks for reading. Until then, adventure on.

 

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