Before we could get into the terminal, we had to go through customs. The man working there was just as I imagined him to be. He had a dark complexion with a short, scruffy beard. There was a musty smell coming from his brown uniform, which I would be smelling for a week. My girlfriend and I followed her parents and sister to the baggage claim. I was starting a week-long adventure with my girlfriend, Amanda, and her family.

As we waited for Amanda's dad, Dwight, to get the rental car, Mexican men in suits tried to offer us a better deal. They were all smiles, handing us brochures and verbal promises of delight. We finally got the car arranged and got onto the shuttle bus to the rental headquarters. On the shuttle with us was a group of four guys, all about 25 years old.

They each had nothing more than a duffel bag. It was a bachelor-party trip. One of the guys was getting married in a week and this was a "last trip of freedom" with his friends. I was jealous of them, very jealous. Here I was, with my girlfriend in one of the best party destinations in the world, and I have to be on my best behavior. Cabo San Lucas has bar after bar, and I am equipped with a good book to get through the days instead of a bottle of aspirin and bottled water for hangovers.

Dwight was the only one who was covered for driving the rental car, which was a small, dull gray, four-door truck. This would have been fine, if he was a good driver. This man had rolled three cars in the last eight years, and walked away from all of them, which was a good sign, I guess. And to make things even better, it was a manual. He had not driven a manual in 20 years. It took us four tries to get out of the parking lot. Once we finally got onto the road, we discovered that the signs directing us out of the airport were in Spanish, and he also could not read Spanish. So Amanda had to tell him which way to go from the back seat. Joyce, Amanda's mother, was turning white because of his driving, and I was not doing much better in the back seat.

The drive from the airport to the city of San Jose del Cabo, where we were staying, took about 25 or 30 minutes. This was my first trip to Mexico, and I have heard that it is dirty. My imagination of this dirtiness was that there were shanty towns with shirtless kids running around, and small dogs nipping at their heels looking for a scrap of food. What I found instead was rundown buildings and actual garbage all along the side of the road. This was not in the towns themselves, but mostly on the roads in between them and on the outskirts of towns, especially along the road from the airport.

The town of San Jose del Cabo is on the eastern end of the tip of the Baja California peninsula. The town is actually the same size, population-wise, as its sister city, Cabo San Lucas, but is less busy. The downtown area is centered around the church, city hall, and main plaza. There are small shops and quaint, authentic restaurants perfect for lunch and dinner. Although the city center is very near the beach, it is not your typical beach town. The lack of a marina seems to have instilled a completely different focus on the city, creating a less hurried atmosphere.

We drove into the parking lot of the Hacienda de los Cabos at about 4:30 in the afternoon. The Hacienda de los Cabos is more a condo than a hotel. We had two rooms booked, one for her parents and one for us, Amanda, me and her sister, Carla. The room had a full white kitchen, with oven, full refrigerator, dishwasher, and microwave. There was a full-size couch with two love chairs surrounding a 28-inch Sony television. Carla had a room that had a queen size bed and a television of her own. The room that Amanda and I were to share had two single beds. The beds were cemented into the floor, so we could not push them together. This was a problem: we had our own room, but no way to sleep together comfortably. Lucky for us there was a bed that folded out of the wall that we could sleep on in the living room.

From our fourth-floor balcony, we could easily see the ocean, which was only a stone's throw away. Below us was a pool, which was shaped like a plus sign, with bridges going over two of the "arms." On the left side was a water bar, only open a couple hours a day, like it mattered. Around the pool there were white lounge chairs, some with white umbrellas to keep out the sun. We definitely were not roughing it.

Amanda and I decided to take a walk along the beach that night. There was a warm breeze coming off the Sea of Cortez, and the sand felt good in between our toes. It had been a long day, and we both needed a release. So we found a little private area in front of the hotel next to ours and had a relaxing time looking at the stars, amongst other things.

Our first day we took the 25-minute drive to Cabo San Lucas, east of San Jose del Cabo along highway 1. The drive, once we got out of the town, was exactly what I expected it to be. The road went in and out of hills, carving a path through the desert bush and shrubs. Along the road were huge resorts, with an oasis of lush plants and green gardens in the middle of the brown, dry desert. As we got closer to the city of Cabo San Lucas, there were more and more green fairways of golf courses on both sides of the road. And then there were small, one-room adobe-type buildings right on the outskirts of town. Most looked like they were abandoned, with holes in the roofs, no windows, and broken doors. But little kids were running around, playing with sticks and soccer balls, running in and out of the houses.

The city of Cabo San Lucas is very diverse. In the middle of town, toward the beach, is the tourist area. The main street was cobblestone, but on the right side of the street was a broken water line, so the streets were always flooding with water. It kind of gave the illusion that it had just rained. There was an array of places to spend your money, ranging from high-end jewelry shops, to men standing on the corner selling cheap trinkets.

We walked up the main street, past the bars and Mexican restaurants. The bars, even in the middle of the day, were full of people. Music came pouring out the doors, and there were tables set for the upcoming night of heavy drinking. But instead of venturing into these wonderful watering holes, we kept walking right past them. There was a pharmacy where you could get anything that you wanted.

It reminded me of a 99-cent store that I would find in Northern California. The aisles were randomly cluttered with odds and ends; shampoo, toothbrushes, straw hats, towels, bug spray, and sunscreen. We walked farther down the street, and the farther we went, the smaller it got and the dirtier it was. After a few blocks, we were on a one-lane road. There were tiny shops that were made from blankets and straw roofs and dirt floors. Entire families were sitting in these little huts, selling authentic ponchos, shot glasses, Cabo shirts and anything else they could get cheap. Dwight was getting tired, so we had to start heading back.

On the way, we passed a group of Mexican boys who looked to be younger than me. As we passed them I made eye contact with one and he said something under his breath. I could not understand what he said, so I stopped and asked him what he said.

"Marijuana? You want some marijuana?" he said under his breath.

"No thanks," I said, shocked.

"Come on, it's the best stuff in Cabo, some for you and your girl."

"No really, I'm good."

"OK, OK."

As we walked away, I looked back at him. He and his whole group of friends were staring at me, laughing. I have to admit, that was quite an enticing offer. But of course, I was here with my girlfriend's parents, and what kind of impression would I be putting out then?

During most of the days, we would lay out and work on our tans. The condo was right on the beach, and it had its own "private" beach. It was a 25-yard by 50-yard roped-off area. Every morning someone from the condo would go out and rake the sand to give it a manicured look. It felt like I was out in a sand trap at one of the golf courses. Every day, a group of people would come up right to the ropes selling jewelry, shawls and T-shirts. They would sit there for hours, trying to make a deal with anyone who was within hearing range, and often making sales. I must have witnessed about a dozen and a half middle-aged women buy shawls to cover up their pasty, white thighs.

Every night we would go out to dinner, and every night was the same thing. The five of us would sit at the table and I would have nothing to say. And it was a given that at some point in the meal Amanda would get up to go use the bathroom, leaving me alone with her family, in silence. Actually, Carla and I got along all right, but I struggled just to say more than five words to her parents. Every conversation was basically the same. They would ask me about our day, if we were having fun, and what we wanted to do tomorrow. And every time I answered the same: "We read on the beach, oh yea, we're having fun and whatever." That's about the extent of our conversations.

On the third day Amanda and I took a walk down the beach, but this time we went the other way, toward the town. We walked about a half a mile, and came across a stable. She and I wanted to ride a horse on the beach, so we talked to the guy who was there. Miguel looked like a Mexican cowboy, with hat, chaps and a big knife on his hip. We went back to the hotel and he came and picked us up with the horses in about an hour. He gave us a quick lesson in his broken English on how to ride a horse, and then we jumped on and rode off. We trotted up the beach, side by side, trying not to fall. After about a mile up the beach, we took a turn and started up a dried river bed that went back into the desert hills. The horses kicked up dust from the dry river bed and gave us a light dusting of brown dirt on our faces. Before we went through an underpass, we stopped at a little liquor store, and Miguel got off his horse, telling us to stay on.

"What would you guys like to drink?" he asked.

"Ahh, a water I guess," Amanda said.

"OK, how about you?"

"I'll have a Dos Equis, please," I said. This is great. I am actually getting to drink. This is so cool.

He returned in a few minutes with our drinks, saddled up and we ventured into the hills. We followed the dry path for a while, seeing straggling cows here and there, slurping from the stagnant water gathered in a couple of spots. We came up to an old ranch, abandoned and all but gone. The guide's grandfather had run this ranch and he used to go out there when he was a kid and ride the horses. Now he brought people like us there to show them what it used to be like before the hotels and theme bars came in. We really got a good look at what it used to be like for the Mexican ranchers, and also got to see what an industry like tourism can do to a town, both good and bad.

And that was about the most exciting thing that we did the whole trip. The rest of the time was mostly spent lying on our "private" beach, reading.

In that five days, I read a 400-page plus book, "On Secret Service" by John Jakes with time to spare. It's a book about the origin of the U.S. Secret Service, which is ironic because when I did drink, it was secretively. It usually takes me anywhere from two months to a year to read a book, depending on how good it is and how much time I have. Instead of sleeping in and waking up to a headache in the mid-afternoon, I was waking up at 8 in the morning and grabbing my book to read on the balcony. And that's about how we spent the whole trip.

After the last night there, which was uneventful, we packed up and headed back to the airport, leaving behind an undiscovered world of joy and excitement.