The first day in the hotel I ate a banana and a Mexican cereal bar I got at the tequila shop, but the second day Diane and I decided to try the breakfast buffet. It was INSANE. There was a whole table of desserts.
And tropical fruit.
And beans and meats, etc. So good.
Then Diane and I set out across the golf course to Katy's house. This was a beautiful walk along an easy path, but we never did figure out how to actually get to Katy's street without cutting through someone's yard. The people were outside one time when we were walking along their patio, but after initial confusion they were cool with it.
Katy had these dolls in her bathroom.
Our plan for the day was to spend the morning shopping in Ensenada, about 45 minutes down the coast. We stopped for a photo op along the sea.
Ensenada is the main stop for cruise ships leaving from Southern California, and is quite touristy in a not cute way. Lots of cheap trinket shops and pharmacies selling Viagra.
We managed to find some gems, though!
We did find one very nice store filled with Mexican artwork & crafts, Bazar Casa Ramirez. I could have spent a lot of money here if I'd had a way to get everything home.
We stopped at Hussong's Cantina for a margarita. There are lots of horrible tourist bars in Ensenada, but Hussong's has been around since 1892. Supposedly it's the oldest cantina in Mexico.
We also had some amazing street tacos (not pictured).
After this we went home to change and went horseback riding.
I have not ridden a horse since ... I don't know. Sometime when I was not a legal adult. Like maybe when I was 16. It seemed so dreamy, the idea of riding a horse on the beach in Mexico. Here is everyone getting saddled up.
They had a 1:2 ratio of helpers to riders, which seemed comforting, but most of these helpers were 13 year old boys. I guess they know what they're doing, I don't know.
The problem was, mainly, that my horse was BAD. He kept wanting to eat everything and wander off all the time. Everyone else's horses were so well-behaved!
It turned out that because there were so many of us, they had to get three additional horses from someone else to use on this ride: Mine, and Linda and Sharon's here. They were friends and didn't want to be around the other stranger horses, so we were always at the back of the pack. Fortunately Sharon is a very good rider and offered us tips.
I look so happy! But really, I wanted to murder this dumb horse. I was convinced he was going to kill me.
It really was beautiful, and is something I will never forget. But also, I don't think I need to ride horses anymore. Most of the way back, one of the 13 year old boys had to lead my horse by the halter because he wouldn't stop walking off the path into the bushes.
Anyway, we made it back, and fortunately at the end of the trail is this place to get amazing, cheap food and drinks.
We had a bunch more margaritas. I was so relieved to be alive I probably had more margaritas than I should have.
The food was fantastic, too! This was $4.
Then we went back to Katy's for more sitting and talking and drinking of wine. This is Jack, our unofficial mascot through chemo. I think everybody was as excited to meet Jack as we were to meet each other.
And this is what binds us: the traveling bracelet. We started during chemo - someone would add a charm and then send it along to someone else who especially needed support. It's been all over the world now, and has spent the last several months on the arm of Maryellen, the only one of our group who has been diagnosed with metastasis. Every three weeks, she goes for Herceptin treatments with the bracelet on her arm.
I was the only one in Mexico who had not yet added a charm, so I brought it home to add one and send it back to Maryellen.
This whole weekend was, strangely, filled with singing and dance parties, which is not usually my jam. We had the best time, though! This night got particularly crazy after all those margaritas.
The next morning I felt very terrible. But it was absolutely, completely worth it. Such a great day. Unfortunately, we had to get back in the conversion van and drive back to the United States. I took tiny sips of water and tiny bites of another Mexican nutri-grain bar.
The Mexican border is quite a sight. Trump is, I'm not sorry to say, a total idiot when he says their border security is better than ours. We were through to Mexico in 5 minutes but it took nearly three hours to cross back into the United States. There were people selling all sorts of stuff in the vast sea of cars waiting to get through. You have to think this fresh fruit is not the best.
Once we were through the border, San Diego was only a few minutes away. A few of us were staying one more night, so we got rooms at the Hotel Indigo near downtown. This place seemed like a magical fantasyland after sitting at the border in Tijuana.
When we arrived everyone took a few hours to chill by ourselves. I wandered around to find lunch, and couldn't get over how much quieter San Diego seemed than Mexico - and then I realized the real difference was that I'd been surrounded by a dozen jabbering people for three days, and was finally by myself. It was a little sad! What wasn't sad is this chicken shwarma sandwich.
Those of us in town met up for one last dinner and then hung out on the roof of our hotel for a while, talking and laughing.
This trip was one of the best weekends of my life. All the women in our group are so different from one another, but we all clicked instantly and just had the best time. The connection borne through shared trauma cannot be underestimated. When you've all been through the same sort of hell, differences in politics or lifestyles or economics are completely irrelevant.
Anyone who says there are positives that come from having had cancer is in denial or lying - but I'm pretty glad I signed up for those breastcancer.org message boards.
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