My wife and I are relaxing in the hot tub, which is also occupied by a handful of other adults and exactly two children–a pre-teen girl and presumably her younger brother, whom she’s carrying on her hip. The boy is having a fine time, and eager to let his father know it.
“Dad!” he yells, waving enthusiastically. “Dad! Dad! Dad!”
I look up the terraced hill to see if anybody is noticing. Someone is. Sporting a navy-blue baseball cap and a gray T-shirt, a man is gently waving back. Dad.
Richard Gere.
And I settle back into the warm water and think, “This definitely wouldn’t happen in Cancun.”
Which may seem like an odd observation, but part of my mission here in the Los Cabos region is to compare this peninsular tourist magnet with the one on the opposite side of the country. Specifically, is rampaging development and runaway tourism turning this beautiful area into another Cancun?
The short answer: Yup. But Los Cabos has a ways to go before it catches up.
For one thing, Cancun’s coastline is jammed shoulder-to-shoulder with resort hotels, interrupted by the occasional, grudging, public beach access. Los Cabos–which includes the coastal towns of Cabo San Lucas, San Jose del Cabo and the 20-mile oceanfront corridor separating the two –has plenty of beachfront resorts as well. But there’s so much more land here that quite a bit of ocean frontage remains (for now) undeveloped. Driving between San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas, there are long stretches of highway where you can see the beach from your car. That’s almost impossible to do in Cancun’s hotel zone.
And though both areas are overrun with tourists, Los Cabos has always been more of a rich person’s playground, going back to when Hollywood types flew here on private jets before commercial air service began. My Richard Gere moment, for instance, took place within the confines of the ultra-exclusive Palmilla resort, where the junior suites run about $800 per night in high season. I don’t think Cancun has any properties in that price range, whereas Los Cabos has a few, including Las Ventanas al Paraiso, which is the equal to Palmilla in just about every way, price included–and, with but 61 suites, is even more intimate. Palmilla, by contrast, has 172 accommodations (61 rooms, 91 junior suites and 20 one-bedroom suites).
Cancun has some pretty good restaurants, but, as far as I saw, nothing on the order of the high-end establishments Los Cabos claims–including the newest place in town, the Palmilla resort’s C. That’s C as in Charlie Trotter, the other reason I dragged myself here in the middle of Chicago’s winter. (For more on C, see the accompanying story.)
The Los Cabos area is also a golfer’s paradise, not that it matters much to me (I’ve swung a golf club a few times in my life, but never to any real purpose). This tiny stretch of land is home to no fewer than seven world-class golf courses, according to magazines that know about such things, and there are other courses besides. You’ll pay $200 and more to play a round, but serious golfers don’t seem to mind.
“The golf here is outstanding,” raves one visitor, a gent who hails from Louisiana. “This morning I was shooting toward the green, facing the ocean, and just as my shot landed right near the cup, I saw a whale spout. I turned to my friends and said, `Excuse me, I’m having a sexual moment right now.'”
Ah, yes. The whales. Another powerful tourist draw.
Los Cabos occupies the southern extremity of the Baja Peninsula. To the west, the rugged Pacific Ocean. To the east, the calmer Sea of Cortes. From January through March, gray whales (along with blues, humpbacks and others) arrive in the area to raise their young in the warmer, safer and saltier (i.e., more buoyant) waters off Los Cabos. Two hours after we arrived at Los Cabos, my wife spotted her first whale–from her beach chair. We made at least a dozen other sightings in our four days.
Of course, many tourists aren’t content to stare at the sea from the beach or balcony, waiting for that telltale water spout and hoping for a glimpse of whale. They head out to where the whales are swimming. Lots of companies offer whale-watching tours, from two-hour jaunts in pontoon boats (running about $40) to all-day trips that include a quick Cessna flight to Magdalena Bay, reportedly a major calving site (about $300).
One woman we spoke to took the quickie tour and said that a whale actually bumped her boat, and surfaced so close she was able to touch the whale–a thrill of a lifetime. Another man encountered a whale that was so much larger than the boat that it scared him half to death.
“I know they don’t eat meat,” he fretted. “But what if today’s the day he decides to try it?”
My wife would have loved to have taken a tour, but as she was saddled with a husband who gets queasy just seeing boats bob in the water, we did all our whale-watching on land.
And we found a great vantage point in the aptly named Whale Watcher Bar, in the Hotel Finisterra. The Finisterra is built into a tall cliff overlooking Cabo San Lucas, and the top-floor Whale Watcher bar offers a terrific view of the Pacific Ocean. With a decent pair of binoculars (which you’ll have to bring yourself), you can see for miles. Plus there’s no cover and the drinks are reasonably priced.
The other natural wonder to check out is El Arco, or the Arch. The southernmost tip of Baja is called Land’s End, a majestic rock formation that rises from the sea. The third rock in from the end has a natural archway that has become the defining image of the area. Every hour, scores of tourists hop on glass-bottomed boats and ferry their way out there to gawk and snap photos. When the tide is right, there is a tiny patch of sand called Lover’s Beach. Many of the boats will drop off passengers at Lover’s Beach and pick them up on the return trip.
But for the nautically challenged (me), El Arco is a rock with a hole in it, a craggy osso buco without the gremolata, and if I wanted a color snapshot of it I’d just buy a postcard. The way for landlubbers to view the Arch is to do so from one of the open-air restaurants lining the Playa Medano (Medano beach), which fronts Medano Bay across from Cabo San Lucas proper. Or venture a few kilometers east and dine at Ristorante DaGiorgio II, a cliffside restaurant whose terraced outdoor tables offer wonderful views of El Arco (albeit at a distance), the water and Cabo San Lucas.
Other boating opportunities include deep-sea fishing (which to me combines six hours of motion sickness with the thrill of a pre-dawn wakeup call), kayaking (bobbing like an hors d’oeuvre at shark’s-eye level), or jetting across the bay in a rented personal watercraft (the mosquitoes of the boating world). But don’t let me stop you.
At some point, however, you’ll want to visit the towns themselves, not just the geography and fauna surrounding them. Though they’re 20 miles apart, it’s worth making the time to visit both Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo.
According to the conventional wisdom, San Jose del Cabo is the quaint, calm town where you can see the real Mexico, and Cabo San Lucas is the vulgar, over-Americanized, non-stop display of Sodom-with-surf hedonism. These are about as useful as most generalizations; in our experience, Cabo San Lucas is not completely devoid of charm, nor is San Jose del Cabo devoid of commercialism.
San Jose del Cabo
If you arrive here by plane, you’ll actually land in San Jose del Cabo, and taxi or drive from there to your hotel. That first glimpse of San Jose will likely leave you unimpressed, if not horrified; the road from the hotel skirts the downtown and is filled with a series of ratty-looking, utilitarian shops–car detailers, mini-marts, insurance dealers–the unromantic facts of daily life.
Drive but a few blocks southeast (toward the water), however, and you come upon a rather nifty central district of narrow, tree-lined streets filled with tidy shops, charming-looking cafes and a few historic buildings. You can spend a day here and see just about everything, depending on how long you linger over cervezas at lunch (and do linger; more than a few shops close from noon to 2 p.m.).
The shopping, at first, was not as wonderful as promised; it seemed every store we hit was offering the same refrigerator magnets, cheap glassware, serapes, bottles of vanilla extract and vulgar T-shirts. We were just about to give up when my wife spotted a few shops across from the Plaza Mijares. Jackpot, of a sort, as we found three consecutive shops with interesting and affordable trinkets, including lots of interesting Day of the Dead artworks (a weakness of ours). A few blocks west, past the Iglesia San Jose (a pretty, twin-spired church built on the site of a 1735 Jesuit mission), we found a quartet of modern art galleries.
San Jose del Cabo is certainly the calmer of the two cities. The streets are less crowded, it’s quiet enough that when a dog barks a block away everybody notices, and nightlife consists of dinner and drinks at one of the small restaurants. San Jose is getting its beauty sleep just as Cabo San Lucas is getting revved up.
Cabo San Lucas
Every condescending remark directed at this tourist-clogged town is true–if you stick to Avenida Lazaro Cardenas, the main drag. Here’s where you’ll find bars offering all-you-can-drink tequila shots from 4 to 6 p.m. (plastered by 6:15; there’s a goal), and several “Tourist Centers” that are actually fronts for time-share pitches (if you’re offered a free tour, breakfast or round of golf, keep moving). The hot bars, which stay open until 3 a.m., include El Squid Roe, The Giggling Marlin and Cabo Wabo, the last one owned by rocker Sammy Hagar (who, they say, performs several times each year). Allegedly, this is where young people go to liquor up and practice their “Girls Gone Wild” moves.
There are several other clubs with obvious names that feature “showgirls” and offer dancing of a different sort; one features “all-Mexican showgirls,” presumably targeting visitors looking to expand their cultural horizons.
But a block over is the Boulevard Marina, where you’ll find a couple of upscale shopping malls (Plaza Bonita and Plaza Las Glorias) and the marina itself, which admittedly is clogged with tourists but is very pretty, especially if you like gawking at fancy boats (hey, I love boats, I just don’t want to ride on them).
It takes a little while to wander through the marina, because you’ll be stopped every 20 feet by restaurateurs pitching their wares (with a menu in one hand and a platter of food in the other, they’re easy to spot), tour- and fishing-excursion touts, local peddlers selling necklaces or sticks of gum and, yes, more time-share opportunities.
A few blocks in from the water, however, and things get considerably calmer. Suddenly the streets are more narrow, the shops offer more interesting goods, and the cafes are smaller and more appealing (if you want to taste tequila, not simply chug it, check out the wide selection at Pancho’s). The shopping still isn’t at the level of the best San Jose del Cabo stores, but it’s at least theoretically possible to spend a few hours in Cabo San Lucas without hearing a single war whoop.
Because, a few frenzied nightclubs and hyper-aggressive marketers aside, Los Cabos is about relaxation and low-key fun.
Sipping drinks on the outdoor terrace at DaGiorgio, the sun shining brightly, the water and Cabo San Lucas stretched out below us, my wife turned to me and sighed, “This is my idea of a vacation.”
I smiled. “This is my idea,” I corrected her, “of work.”
IF YOU GO
GETTING THERE
San Jose del Cabo (Los Cabos) is a 4 1/2-hour non-stop flight from Chicago on American Airlines; all other airlines require a connection. Air fares range from about $450 to nearly $1,000, but most fares are under $600. We found non-stop flights on American; because we bought a little late we paid $598 round trip, but with advance planning the fare would have been $524.34.
Handy tip: Give yourself plenty of time at the airport for the return trip. We got to the airport nearly two hours before our plane’s scheduled departure to find the check-in line backed up to the entrance. All bags were being checked by hand, to the consternation of some goofs who’d wrapped their souvenirs in tightly taped boxes that now had to be cut open for inspection. It took 75 minutes to check in, by which time our flight was boarding. We and our bags made the flight, but it was close.
LODGING
There are lots of hotels in San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas; the fanciest resorts are along the 20-mile corridor separating the two towns. We stayed for three nights at the Westin Regina Resort (Km 22.5; 888-625-5144 or 624-142-9000; www.starwood.com/westin), a gorgeous property with magnificent architecture, looking more like an extension of the surrounding cliffs than a scenery-hogging resort. The Westin has seven pools, each set to a different temperature (the one with the swim-up bar is warmest, which is unfortunate only in that it also attracts the most kids), two tennis courts (free loaner rackets available), a nice stretch of beach (not really swim-mable, owing to a multitude of rocks in the water), spa, fitness center and several restaurants. A golf course is next door. You could spend a few days here without leaving the property. We booked the hotel through American Airlines vacations; our spacious room with an ocean-view balcony was $288 per night.
We spent one night at the One&Only Palmilla resort (Km 7.5; 866-829-2977 or 877-472-5645; oneandonlypalmilla.com), which has been part of Los Cabos since 1956, and just completed an $80 million expansion and renovation. Each room and suite comes with fabulous amenities, including elaborate “wet rooms” (walk-in shower/bath area), walk-in closets, telescopes (for whale-watching and stargazing) and butler service. The honor bar is chock-full of gourmet goodies, a complimentary tequila service is waiting when you arrive, and towels, linen and furniture are of the sort that make you loath to return home. Through a travel agent, we got a room rate for one night of $604.80, including all taxes. It did not, however, include the 15 percent room service charge (in lieu of tipping, before taxes), bringing the total to $685.80. But we lucked into a free room upgrade to a junior suite, which gave us even more space. There is a casual restaurant in addition to C, two pools (one with an infinity edge and a zero-depth area for children) and hot tubs. The health club has every piece of gym equipment you’d ever want, and the attached spa has a list of services the size of a wine list, from simple manicures and pedicures to a “sublime lime and ginger ritual,” which sounds like the beginning of a first-rate margarita but otherwise confounds me.
We also toured, but did not check into (no availability), Las Ventanas al Paraiso (Km 19.5; 888-767-3966 or 624-144-0300; www.rosewood-hotels.com). Set-up services are extraordinarily similar to those of Palmilla (maybe not so surprising; Palmilla hired away Ventanas’ managing director), including the in-room telescopes and welcoming tequila tasting. Las Ventanas al Paraiso (Windows to Paradise) is an all-suites property, and even the junior suites are spacious and stunningly appointed. Over-the-top serv-ices include poolside butlers who clean your sunglasses, 24-hour room service for your pets, a computerized telescope that locks into requested constellations and plenty more. In-season nightly rates begin at $575.
GETTING AROUND
If your hotel is in San Jose del Cabo or Cabo San Lucas, you’re fine on foot. Within towns, everything is a short walk from everything else. To get from one town to the other, you’ll need to take a taxi (expensive, at least $30) or bus ($3, but buses don’t run after 8 p.m.). If you’re staying along the Corridor or plan to hop around, get a rental car. Just about all the major rental companies are in town, many with desks inside selected hotels. We rented a Nissan Sentra through Hertz (within the Westin Regina property) for $65. An employee told me other places had better deals, but that employee was trying to talk me into the vacation club sales pitch, so who knows.
Driving between Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo is easy. The Corridor is a well-maintained, four-lane divided highway with a 75 k.p.h. (about 45 m.p.h.) limit that nobody obeys. Traffic signs are in Spanish, but it’s all pretty intuitive. Driving at night is considered risky because the highway isn’t lighted, sudden potholes can show up owing to the sandy nature of the terrain, and animals are known to wander onto the road. We drove one afternoon and saw three large cows meandering by the roadside, with absolutely nothing to prevent their stepping onto the highway.
For those and other reasons, paying extra for collision-damage-waiver and Mexican liability insurance are considered very good ideas. Gas is more expensive down here; doing the math in my head and converting liters into gallons and pesos into dollars, I believe I paid $2.13 per gallon.
Parking at any of the hotels is a snap; complimentary valet parking is the norm. There’s plenty of street parking in San Jose del Cabo, less so in Cabo San Lucas (more accurately, there is more competition for parking spaces). Parking is free at the Plaza Bonita mall, but if the lot fills up (it will on weekends), you can park in an adjacent lot, or in the Plaza Las Glorias lot, for 10 pesos (about 91 cents) per hour.
CURRENCY
ATMs are plentiful in the area, and you’ll get the best dollars-to-pesos exchange rate from these. But in reality, you don’t need pesos. Most stores and restaurants and tours take credit cards, and the few places that don’t will happily take dollars–you might even get your change back in dollars, but don’t count on it. Even the Pemex gas stations, which don’t take plastic, accept dollars, and even post their exchange rate by the pumps.
DINING
Dining in Los Cabos is probably more expensive than anywhere else in Mexico; entrees priced at $28 and beyond are quite common among the high-end restaurants. Happily, the food quality is correspondingly high.
At our Westin Regina Resort, we dined at Arrecifes, the hotel’s fine-dining restaurant, perched high on a cliff with commanding views of the sea and the rest of the resort. We feasted on scallops with thyme-cream sauce, grilled parrotfish and lobster-asparagus terrine. Like most Los Cabos restaurants, Arrecifes is open air, though a roof covers all the tables, and glass windbreaks keep napkins from flying away. But in the evenings this time of year, a light jacket or sweater is a good idea.
The next night we ventured into Cabo San Lucas, where we ate along the marina at Cafe Dorian, a Thai-Mexican fusion restaurant with (what else) French flambe specials. The food was actually pretty interesting, including smoked-salmon pinwheels accented with hibiscus vinaigrette, grilled lobster bathed in a sweet Thai-curry sauce and balsamic-glazed quails with tomatoes Provencal. What makes this place, and other marina-area spots, are the impromptu entertainers who sing tableside for tips. That night we heard two gringos offering cheat-sheet Beatles tunes (skipping the tricky chords), a 6-year-old with amazing pipes backed by two guitarists (his father and uncle), and a rhythmic percussion band with an energetic dancer who juggled fire and stayed a respectable distance from the customers.
Our dinner at C is documented in the accompanying story. We also dined at The Restaurant, the open-air dining room at Las Ventanas al Paraiso. The tables overlook the infinity-edge pool and the Sea of Cortes beyond; the perimeter of the pool is set with flickering oil candles at night, and even though the sunset is out of view, it’s a wonderful environment. The Mediterranean menu includes treats such as breadcrumb-dusted yellowtail snapper with an artichoke-broccoli ragout, tempura-battered crawfish and mussels served on toast over a seafood-mushroom broth. The fresh breads put out by the kitchen are irresistible.
Other worthy spots: DaGiorgio II, a very good Italian with spectacular views of Cabo, El Arco and the bay below; it’s a great lunch spot and the perfect place to watch the sunset (which is when everybody tries to get in, so call ahead). The unnamed tequila and ceviche bar at Las Ventanas. The great Mexican breakfast at Agua, in the Palmilla Resort. And, for a quick sandwich or boxed lunch for the beach, the 24-hour Senor Greenberg’s Mexicatessen (yes, se habla pastrami) in Cabo San Lucas.
— Phil Vettel
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E-mail Phil Vettel: pvettel@tribune.com
