Return to Paradise

Since 2012, we've only missed a winter getaway to Todos Santos twice - once, in 2018 because we had just bought a new house - and of course last year. So after a two year absence, we started planning our escape in August 2021. At that point, it looked like we were seeing the Pandemic in our rear-view mirror and rented a casita, secured a rental car, purchased airline tickets and lined up a dog sitter. Come December, however, the Omicron variant made us wonder if we had been overly optimistic. We kept close tabs on both the virus trends and our friends in Todos Santos. Then, at the end of January, we had our biggest snowfall in the 5 years we've been living here.



While it wasn't the tipping point, it galvanized us to do everything we could to make our trip a success: getting tested a few days before our flight, planning to either cook our own meals or eat at restaurants with outside dining - in other words to do pretty much what we've been doing here on Cape Cod for almost two years now.

Once we gave ourselves the green light, however, the very winter weather we were trying to escape conspired against us. After checking flight status obsessively, our 6:00 AM flight from Boston to Dallas was cancelled minutes before boarding should have started. American Airlines automatically booked us on another flight out of Boston on the following day, but the very same storm that shut down the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport was bearing down on Boston the following day. We scrambled to try to get to Phoenix - out of the reach of the storm - by that evening. We unsuccessfully tried to get there earlier by flying stand-by, but that didn't work out. We considered ourselves lucky to be delayed by one day, with only a 2-hour flight from Phoenix standing between us and the Cabo airport. Unfortunately, staffing issues with American Airline delayed us another 2 1/2 hours, pretty much guaranteeing us a nighttime drive from Cabo to Todos Santos. We arrived after 8 - a day and a half later than expected - exhausted but happy to be there.



"Casa Nova", just north of Todos Santos, is very spacious for a couple, so we were free to stretch out and enjoy the house, the property, the neighborhood of Las Tunas, and downtown Todos Santos. The property featured mature coconut, jasmine and bougainvillea landscaping.



You'll have to excuse the obligatory "Margarita-henge" photo.



Our first dinner outside of the casita was at "5 Tacos and a Beer", barely a mile from where we were staying. Seating was outdoors, staff was courteous, attentive, and masked, and canine entertainment featured very familiar coloring (see my avatar).



Casa Nova had many unique features, but the one that caught my eye the most was the vaulted ceiling in the master bedroom.



Overnight temperatures dipped into the high fifties, but by afternoon, temperatures were in the mid-seventies, warm enough for us to open the door from the living room to the garden.





Given that our 8-day stay was curtailed to 6 1/2, it wasn't long before we had to head into St. Jude's Hospital in Todos Santos to take the required COVID test. Fortunately it was negative. Unfortunately, it meant this was our final Baja sunset.



Needless to say, we are already thinking about our next trip. Major takeaways: try to avoid traveling by air if at all possible. Given that we live in the Northeast, this is going to require considerable planning, but at least we'd be able to avoid airline fiascoes, and we wouldn't have to miss our dog. He seemed pretty happy to see us.

Not to put too fine a point on it, I woke up to this today:

Quote: Originally posted by 4x4abc

David, do you see how bluish the palm tree is?