Ran into our friend Doyle at the hardware store yesterday. Mel told him about starting her own travel agency. We started talking travel and places we like to go and have been. Doyle and his girlfriend went to Cabo San Lucas recently and stayed at an all-inclusive time-share place for two weeks. Doyle mentioned that it was too long. I asked if he was just too type-A, and couldn’t just hang on the beach for two weeks. He said that the food started to taste all the same (“lobster, steak, it all came off the same grill.”). He said he is not interested in going back to Mexico.
Then he started telling a story about a different trip he had been on to Mexico – sailing on a friend’s boat down the Pacific coast of Baja towards Cabo. He liked that trip. He told a story:
I got up and went for a run on the beach. Nobody was around and the turtles were hatching and running into the ocean. At one place some people had built a big sand castle. They did not know it was on a turtle nest. These little turtles were emerging from the turrets and walls of the sand castle. I’ll never forget it!
This is a valuable experience, the sort of thing we are looking for in our travels. I think you can have these valuable experiences on any sort of vacation or trip, but I think the chances are increased if you get off the beaten path and find your own way. That increases the risk of some, lets say, trying experiences. But I also think it increases the chances of those memorable ones.
-Steve