Day 1. For real this time.- Día 1. Ahora si va en serio.

And we're back with the actual first day of the trip!
Y regresamos con el primer día real del viaje!

We had decided to try to leave on Sunday the 3rd of November. That way, riding out of San Jose del Cabo wouldn't be so awfully hectic and we wouldn't have to worry about cars, people or scary looking random things spooking the mules (seriously, we have one mule that has this thing about funny looking rocks.... litophobia?). Nevertheless we found out once again that nobody, not even three fervent wishers such as ourselves can change the paths of nature; especially not nature disguised as tropical storm 18-E, later renamed Sonia.
Habíamos decido partir el domingo 3 de Noviembre. Así, saliendo de San Jose del Cabo no seria tan horrendamente difícil y no tendríamos que preocuparnos por todos los carros, personas y objetos azarosas que espantarían a las mulas (neta, tenemos un machito que tiene un problema con piedras ligeramente extrañas... litofobia?). Sin embargo encontramos que nadie, ni siquiera 3 mujeres deseosas de partir pueden cambiar los planes de la natureleza; mucho menos naturaleza disfrazada como la tormenta tropical 18-e, posteriormente Sonia.

As we ran around buying tamales and AAA batteries in the drizzle that morning we thought: "Ah, this isn't so bad, we can ride in this". Then it hit 1 pm and we had to go down to the corrals/rodeo grounds where we were keeping the mules to get blessed by a priest; a parting "bless y'all, hijos mios" is traditional down here when you start out on a cabalgata and even if you're not catholic it doesn't hurt to have people wishing you well in whatever way they like best. Anyway at 1 it really started in for a good spattering and that's when we decided: "You know what? We can leave tomorrow, no problem".
Mientras andábamos en círculos en la mañana comprando tamales y pilas AAA en la llovizna pensamos: "No esta tan mal esto, podemos salir aún". Pero a la 1, cuando bajamos al lienzo charro donde teníamos las mulas para la bendición del padre realmente empezó a llover bien: como por una hora solamente. Pero bastaron esos primeros 5 minutos para decir: "Saben? Podemos salir mañana, no hay problema".

So we got an extra afternoon of extra worrying and extra packing. Chris (my boyfriend, he's driving our 1st-week-support vehicle) and I had been staying at the lovely little hostel called Sr. Mañana a lock of the square. It's tropical, jungly feeling and the host is awesome but it also involved carrying ALL our gear back and forth to the hotel where the rest of the group was staying. And no we were not hiding out, it's just that at Sr. Mañana we got to keep the dogs. But that is a story for another post... :).
So that Sunday night we decided to stay at Hotel Colli, along with the rest of the group. We had a lovely papa rellena and repacked some more to make sure everything was just right. We went to sleep early too, because we were all sure we would have an early start tomorrow! Yeah right.
Y lo que obtuvimos fue una tarde extra para extra preocupación y extra cosas que empacar. Chris (mi novio, el que va manejando nuestro vehículo de soporte-de-la-primera-semana) y yo habíamos estado quedándonos en el Sr. Mañana un hostelito medio hippie bien padre a una o dos cuadras de la plaza de San Jose, particualrmente porque ahí se puede tener a mascotas bien portadas (tenemos dos perras: historia para otro día :), pero ea mucho cargar TODAS nuestras cosas de ahí al hotel donde estaban los demás. Entonces esa noche nos quedamos en el Hotel Colli. Cenamos una rica papa rellena y nos dormimos temprano porque estábamos seguros que saldríamos a primera hora el lunes! Si como no.