What We Love About Cabo A little adventure is good for the soul. Not too wild, not too tame. Head south and you'll find it in Cabo. Endless Vacation, May/June 2006 By Matt Villano THE NOSE OF MY KAYAK skids into the sandy beach with a scrape. As I push myself out of the cockpit, I hear a youthful scream from the far side of the dunes in front of me. "Tortugas! Tortugas!" I can't see which of the local boys is yelling, but my rusty Spanish is good enough to understand what he's screaming about-turtles, here, on Cabo San Lucas' popular Lover's Beach. I stash my paddle and sprint up the hill, where minions and onlookers have encircled a cluster of marble-size orbs in the sand. The purplish speckles look like blueberries, discarded from someone's picnic lunch. Then, as if on cue, one of the plump little spheres shudders mightily, and a tiny flipper pokes up from the sand below. Gradually, as the crowd of visitors grows to three dozen, a second flipper emerges, then another. Finally, as the critter wiggles sand off its barely formed shell, we can see it in all of its half-dollar-size glory: a baby Golfina turtle. "They are endangered, you know," whispers Edgar Aigief, the guide who, through a local outfitter named Baja Wild, has led me to this spot. "To find a nest like this, so close to civilization, is very, very rare." During the next 20 minutes, we humans "ooh" and "aah" as the precocious little turtle flops its way down the beach. Up and down the sand dunes the creature goes, propelling itself with flippers no thicker than paper clips. When it reaches the waterline, the first wave pushes it back a few feet, and we groan with dismay. Seconds later, though, a new wave sweeps it out to sea. "Maravilloso!" exclaims a total stranger as he gives me a high five admd a cheering crowd. "Bienvenidos a Cabo San Lucas." And what a welcome it is. While many tourists come to Cabo San Lucas for the warm water and fruity drinks, I'm here for a different reason: exploring the playground that comprises Baja California. The desert peninsula hangs like a comma from Mexico's border with the Southwest United States, offering a host of diversions for active vacationers of every age. Kayaking, hiking, parasailing, ATVing-you name it, you can do it here. IT WAS KAYAKING that led me to the turtles. After celebrating the splashdown of the trailblazing reptile, I return to my boat and head for the surf myself. Edgar and I paddle west around a granite promontory to El Arco, a rock arch that forms a natural portal from the calm Sea of Cortez to the tempestuous Pacific Ocean. The arch, chiseled over thousands of y ears by the fury of the ocean, is a favorite spot for California sea lions, who serenade us with barks when we arrive and repeat the greeting when we paddle away. We end our day snorkeling in the Sea of Cortez near a protruding rock formation called Neptune's Finger. Jellyfish ar out in droves, but I hardly notice them between the schools of tropical fish swarming around me. I take a deep breath and dive down about 10 feet in the water column. At this depth, the colors are even more spectacular-fish so yellow they make sunflowers seem gray. The next morning I'm awakened by the crash of a wave outside my hotel window-the kind of alarm I love to hear. After a morning job on the beach, I'm ready to take to the sky with a parasailing trip around Cabo San Lucas Bay. I park my rental car near the marina and hike down to the waterline on Medano Beach, where a number of outfitters have set up tents. Ten minutes and $40 later, I climb aboard a water taxi and race out to meet the flagship speedboat of JT Watersports. The taxi arrives before the speedboat does, so we wait. Bobbing in the four-foot swell, I watch as the speedboat motors around in circles, a purple parachute following close behind, 400 feet above sea level. Instantly, I think of my dad, who is deathly afraid of heights. Luckily, while I inherited his big nose, I didn't get his vertigo. At least I don't think so. Yet. There's no time for fear anyway. The speedboat pulls up and the captain beckons me to jump aboard. Within seconds, he helps me into a harness and leads me to a platform on the back of the boat. I barely have time to zip my wallet into my shorts before he throttles up and off I go. The next thing I know, I'm flying. It's quite in midair; the only sound I can hear is the wind howling past my ears. From my bird's-eye view, I spot El Arco and Lover's Beach, which is teeming with kayaks yet again. To the east, I spy two hulking cruise ships anchored in the bay. I can even make out the silhouettes of pelicans skimming the water below me, which makes me wonder if birds that big have ever been up this high. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a gust of wind rips through my chute and jerks it violently. I clutch the harness tighter. Another gust and I start to sweat. I mutter a curse and look down at the boat, where the captain flashes me a thumb's up. When I land safely on the boat's platform, he pats me on the back and asks rhetorically: "Wind picked up, didn't it?" I can only smile. LATER IN THE WEEK, having explored the air and seda, I decide that it's time to see what Cabo's desert landscape is all about-from an ATV. I pull off Transpeninsular Highway at a place called Desert Park, and the topography dries up immediately. Cactuses abound. Most trees are dead. Everything is brown. I walk 10 paces from the car to the check-in counter and each footstep kicks up a cloud of dust. "You might want to wear this," the girl at the counter warns as she gives me a bandana to cover my nose and mouth. "It gets pretty dusty back there." Looking like a true cowboy, I strut to my fire-truck red ATV and saddle up for a lesson. Apparently, I need all the practice I can muster-in my first three minutes on the machine, I stall twice and fall once. I'm contemplating a retreat to the car when up walks my guide, 19-year-old Raoul Andrade. We exchange pleasantries in Spanish, and he zooms away. Reluctantly, I follow. Even at about 9 mph, the first 10 minutes of our ride are terrifying, as we negotiate sand, rocks, and turns and learn to control the roaring machines. As we drive deeper into the desert, however, the driving gets easier. We descend to the dry arroyo of the El Tule River, where I ignore my contractual promise to keep the ATV under 20 mph and take it up to about 30 on a mile-long stretch of washboard sand. Over the last set of humps, I stand up on the ATV and whoop in exultation: This is fun. Raoul leads the way back up the ravine, and at the top, we stop to drink some water and soak in the view. To the south, the azure Sea of Cortez sparkles like a field of sapphires. Behind us, to the north, the moon has risen and seems close enough to hit with a rock. Just as we're ready to climb aboard the ATVs to head back. A hawk swoops in and settles on a nearby branch to check us out. From here, we zoom toward the parking lot, reaching speeds that make me wonder if I should invest in a better life insurance policy. At one point, Raoul kicks up so much dust that all I can see in front of me is the Honda insignia on his red T-shirt. At the end, about 33 miles later, Raoul greets me with a quizzical smile and a nod. "Todo bien?" he asks, wondering if I'm OK, if all is good. "Todo bien," I respond, reflecting on a great ride and five magical days in Cabo San Lucas that passed far too fast. "Todo es muy bien."