Here, just below the Tropic of Cancer on the southern tip of Baja California, the contrasts and contradictions are almost as overwhelming as they are seductive.
Known chiefly for its great sports fishing, spectacular beaches and nesting whales, the peninsula is a desert, noteworthy for its harsh disregard for mankind in general. The Baja is a largely unpopulated moonscape, where tourists cling to the coast and marvel at its mountainous backbone only from a safe distance.
Cabo San Lucas is 2 1/2 hours by plane from the sprawling urban corridor formed 800 miles to the north by Tijuana, San Diego, Orange County and Los Angeles.
The indigenous population of the area around Cabo San Lucas is only about 5,000. But that number easily can be squared during the vacation season when the once-sleepy fishing village bustles with activity. Only 15 years ago, though, this area was so underdeveloped that the local power plant shut off electrical service after 10 p.m.
Unlike Acapulco and other high-rise resort meccas, there is no central wall of high-rise hotels lining the beaches. The promenades, shopping and revelry are concentrated in two or three small towns, but the best hotels and beaches are scattered–almost hidden–along the highway that shadows the shoreline for about 20 miles.
Everywhere, even within a whisper of the sea, magnificent organ-pipe and cardon cacti stand tall, their spires beseeching the azure sky for moisture. Roadrunners flit in their shadows, while buzzards hover overhead.
For centuries, Baja California has served as a harsh home for Indians, a refuge for pirates, a launching pad for plunder by conquistadors, a holy challenge for missionary zeal and fashionable hideaway for Hollywood’s Golden Age stars. Only recently has Los Cabos become a no-hassle haven for tourist hordes.
Still, it is very much a work in progress.
Flying into the Los Cabos airport–a modest, but efficient, facility, etched on a valley floor several miles from the peninsula’s eastern coast–passengers with window seats can readily anticipate the extremes they will encounter further along in their journey.
A hurricane had passed by the region less than a week before our visit, yet, from the air, it was obvious that the arroyos and river beds below were bone dry. The sparse growth in the hills appeared almost lushly green, while the ground below remained a dust-brown carpet.
Waved through customs, usually with little more than a nod by uniformed authorities, visitors are immediately confronted by a phalanx of casually dressed young men hawking time-share deals, hotel rooms, fishing trips and rides into town. Familiar rental-car companies are represented, as well, although their vehicles often are something less than what’s available comfort-wise at El Norte airports.
Promised, in advance, a Nissan Sentra–with only the possibility of air-conditioning–we instead were offered the company’s only available automobile, a 3-year-old Jeep Wrangler, stripped of everything but the stick shift. A momentary setback but, aware of the terrain outside, it provided a logical alternative to hitchhiking.
After a final time-share pitch from an otherwise accommodating employee of the rental company, we were off.
It should be noted that driving in this part of Baja California is quite a bit less daunting an ordeal than it might be elsewhere in Mexico, where aggressive motorists rule the roads. There are relatively few vehicles on these well-maintained highways and speed limits seem to hold some meaning for natives and intruders alike.
Yet, in this land of dramatic contrasts, it is almost impossible to avoid being dazzled by the geography. The mountains, hills and chaparral of the interior shortly give way to a hypnotic panorama of turquoise waters and ruggedly picturesque shoreline, where crashing waves test surfers, and sun bathers risk melanoma.
The first town one encounters is San Jose del Cabo, a charming Old World outpost that exists in quiet contrast to its more familiar and brash neighbor, Cabo San Lucas, about 18 miles to the west. The hills overlooking San Jose are being built up with expensive residences, but the central business district offers an older, less-hurried atmosphere and several restaurants where the fish on your plate might be only hours removed from the sea.
In between the Cabos–or Los Cabos, a distinction coined by the national tourist board–the coast is dotted with dozens of resort hotels and time-share complexes in various shapes and stages of development. Contrasts in lodging opportunities are visible here, too.
The nearby Hotel Palmilla is an atmospheric hacienda-style resort that has been welcoming and pampering guests for decades, long before the highway from the north was completed in the mid-’70s. Its white walls and colonial architecture harken back to when this area was known chiefly as an outpost for such celebrity fishermen as John Wayne, Bing Crosby and Ernest Hemingway. The mood is relaxed and understated, yet clearly luxurious.
Only a couple of miles west of the 70-room Palmilla, also removed from the road by a long and winding driveway, the year-old Westin Regina stands in astonishing contrast to anything built here in traditional or Mediterranean formats.
While brashly modern and arranged in distinct geometric patterns, the 243-room Westin also pays homage to the surrounding terrain, whose contours it mimics, and the bold colors of the sky, sea and earth. Conical columns support the hotel’s long rectangular blocks of rooms, and huge empty spaces are carved into the buildings.
Viewed from the spacious marble-floored reception area, nestled on a hilltop a short distance away, these angular cut-outs provide a dramatic frame for the Sea of Cortez’s artistic undulations. It can be a surreal visual experience, as well, looking from the beach below–back through the holes–to the barren hills and hotel walls painted in bright layers of red, blue and terra-cotta.
Most of the resorts along the coast provide freshwater swimming pools, as well as access to beaches (some that are too treacherous for swimming and snorkeling). Many house excellent restaurants, whose specialties include grilled seafood and Mexican items that gringos will find compatible to their tastes.
We braved the tap water, ice cubes and lettuce made available in restaurants and bars–a practice normally discouraged for tourists–and survived. Less foolhardy diners will find plenty of safe culinary options at the hotels and local restaurants–and bottled water is readily available at reasonable prices.
From the Westin, it’s about a 12-mile drive into Margaritaville–Cabo San Lucas–where a decidedly hang-loose, no-problema attitude prevails. Here, tourists can stroll among dozens of casual bars and restaurants, ranging from the garishly out-of-place Pizza Hut to the overtly hip Carlos & Charlie’s to marina cafes with postcard-perfect views of the city’s trademark rock formation.
The wave-carved stone arches, known as Cabo el Arco, represent the point at which the Sea of Cortez meets the Pacific Ocean–warm water meeting cold, if another contrast is needed–as well as Land’s End. From here, it’s south to Easter Island and west to Hawaii (although only a short jump east to Mazatlan).
Boats pass by this landmark constantly, carrying fishermen out for trophy marlin, sailfish and swordfish as well as more skillet-sized yellowfin, dorado, snapper and grouper. Excursion craft filled with scuba divers, snorkelers and naturalists also pass by the arches, under the watchful eyes of pelicans, gulls and frigate birds.
Tourists here naturally spend most of the daytime hours on the water or stretched under the sun, but at night, the streets of Cabo San Lucas come alive with pedestrians and several varieties of genial street barkers and purveyors of local handicrafts. As if to tempt the strollers, patio-style restaurants and bars fill the air with tantalizing smells and music from both sides of the Mexican-American border.
In the off-season, at least, it’s quite easy to wrangle a free round of drinks from a sidewalk host, who practically begs for your business (a knowledge of Spanish isn’t a necessity to enjoy most activities in Los Cabos). The food usually is fresh, well-prepared and reasonably priced, while the domestic beers and margaritas are excellent.
Stay too late in town and your ride back to the hotel can turn into an adventure. In Mexico, livestock generally isn’t fenced in and cows and burros often act as if the highways were built for their convenience.
Beyond the two Cabos, but still hugging the coast below the Tropic of Cancer, is the highway north to Todos Santos.
About an hour from Cabo San Lucas on the Pacific side–following a mountainous landscape, resembling a backdrop for a Sam Peckinpah western–Todos Santos is a quiet cultural outpost that boasts a world-class restaurant and one of the most recognizable inns on the planet.
Legend has it that Eagles’ drummer and singer Don Henley, during a period of rock-enduced dementia, holed up in this quiet village’s Hotel California. It is a small, comfortable hotel just off the main plaza and a few dozen yards from the Cafe Santa Fe, where superb European-style dining and excellent reproductions of Frida Kahlo paintings reward visitors for their persistence.
Henley’s stay in Todos Santos–among the expatriates, hippies and accommodating natives–inspired him to write a song that seemed to sum up the downside of fame during the coke-fueled ’70s. It gave the Eagles a platinum record or two, and put the Hotel California on the official tourist map here.
Maintaining a northerly course, and nearly completing a 200-mile circle, one also can visit the picturesque harbor city of La Paz–so named because it offered a place of peace for bygone buccaneers–slip into countless secluded beaches hidden along the highway or even attempt to navigate the dirt roads that lead into the mountain villages. Such detours are advised only for the most adventurous and adequately prepared, however–overly sensitive types likely will become depressed when confronting the debris and garbage that are never far from the shoulder of the road (as are crashing examples of poverty that might be less visible here than in other parts of Mexico).
Below La Paz, it’s possible to rejoin the main route inland and drive south to Los Barriles and Los Cabos or, in winter, grab a boat that might lead to whales and other migrating sealife. The roads are decent, but hardly as teeming with commerce as, say, I-94 between Chicago and Milwaukee.
Motorists are advised to keep a good supply of gas in their tanks–stations away from the cities are few and far between–and plenty of bottled liquids on board. The sun definitely will raise a thirst.
Don’t be surprised if, during the course of a visit to Los Cabos, you run into a bronzed, leathery-skinned old-timer who can remember the good old days before the highway was completed and bemoans the changes in the region. Progress usually comes at a price and, in Los Cabos, many see that cost reflected in skyrocketing property values that rarely benefit natives, chain restaurants and an end to the kind of privacy afforded by anonymity.
Certainly, the much-vaunted “unspoiled beauty” of the region–and bargain prices that went with it–have been negatively affected by a steady stream of condo commandos and junketeering tourists, not only from the United States and Canada, but also Japan and Europe.
This current crowd surely represents only a trickle of what business will be like when all those seaside construction projects are completed, the grass grows in on the golf courses and the time-share market picks up. “Land’s End,” a new syndicated TV series filmed entirely in the area, could inspire a flock of new tourists if it becomes a hit.
Will the land be able to support such growth or will it resist the invasion of tourists? Already scientists have noted that whales, at least, are reacting negatively to the increase in sightseers in their watery winter homes.
Newcomers who visit and fall in love with Los Cabos, naturally, will want to shut the door behind them and discourage future growth. The genie is out of the lamp, however, and this work-in-progress probably ought to be seen now–before Margaritaville becomes Franchise Heaven.
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For more information, contact the Mexico Tourist Office, 800-44-MEXICO.
