Los Cabos

Friday March 25. I stayed in the van and worked while Mike went out on errands. He took the laundry and walked to three different laundries; none were open. He went downtown looking for tourist information and an ATM and found none. He did get to check out the sailboats in the harbor—including three Brown trimarans like ours--and chat people up. We left the RV park about 1, and after a stop at the supermarket and the ATM, went in search for the highway to Cabo San Lucas--not an easy task. Once we got on it, it was fast: about 3 hours to the Cabo. Excellent highway and excellent signage.

Cabo San Lucas was a disappointment: way over developed. The tiny beachfront is buried behind

The beach at Cabo San Lucas

high rise hotels and shopping malls: we had to walk a gauntlet of tourist bars and tour agencies to even find it.  And we never got a view of the famous Cabo rock arches. Everything is about milking every last dollar out of the tourist’s bank account. The coast to San Jose del Cabo is full of luxury resorts, villas and houses, and there are a few more under construction. We ate ceviche at a view restaurant above a housing development and slept in an abandoned RV park near the highway.

Saturday March 26. In the morning we toured the public beaches. Most of the beaches are well managed, with strict regulations, clean bathrooms and life guards.  Some are closed at night, while

One of the beaches on the Cabo coast

others are open to camping. We breakfasted and swam at a beach that had just opened and stayed until it started filling up with people and the lifeguard called us down from the rocks where we were scrambling and looking at crabs. We visited a couple others just to see, but the scene was uninviting. We checked out the old center of San Jose which was small and pleasant, but never found any tourist information.

We drove the coast road up Cabo East. It is mostly dirt and desert. In that remote region there are lots of open beaches with encampments of RVs and tents, just like Los Cabos of 30 years ago. It was slow going; mellow Mike didn’t rush or

The road up Cabo East

complain. We reached the National Park of Cabo Pulmo in the late afternoon. This sleepy little hamlet is a world class dive site, with the largest intact coral reef in the Americas. It is a haven of eco-concious people, both American and Mexican, and everything is on solar power. The new visitors center is under construction and not open yet. We ate at Nancy’s restaurant. Nancy is an 84-year-old American who has lived there many, many years. Her daughter and restaurant manager Libby is married to Pepe, one of the early dive masters and entrepreneurs in the area, and the first director of the marine conservation area. They raised their two kids there and in the next town up the coast where there is a high school. The kids are grown and gone now. Libby told us about the trails in the upland side of the park. Down at the waterfront there was a signboard with a trail map.

Hiking in the park above Cabo Pulmo

We slept at a stone beach just north of town where other campers were scattered in pockets in the vegetation. The encampment down the beach had a roaring fire and noise and traffic for an hour, but it quieted down and the night was quiet and black. No light pollution here!

Easter Sunday March 27. Got up at dawn and went to the mountain to roll away the stone. The loop hike took us from the waterfront, up a sandy wash with tire tracks, to the south on a lightly marked

cattle trail through the desert, then up a crumbling rock peaklet, down again to the desert floor, through a maze of cattle trails, up a gentle rise that overlooked the wash, and there Sharman bailed. Sharman hung out in a shady tree and watched the birds while Mike scrambled in the hot sun up two more low peaks. We walked back through the wash in time for lunch.

We had another 10km of 20kph driving until we hit pavement. We had a few more vistas of the coast, the dream-houses for sale, and the electric blue water, then the road goes inland and up through low mountains to join the main highway to La Paz.  We spent too

Campers on an unnamed beach

much time looking for laundries and shopping, then tried to find a beach up the north highway, but all we found was more dirt roads which we had no stomach for. So we went back into La Paz where we parked on the Malecon (waterfront promenade), swam at the small beach by the marina, and drank our beer. But they were out of ceviche, so we dressed and walked along the Malecon, past the jam of youth clustered in four teams with matching T-shirts, dancing in unison to a live band at the Easter rally, to another restaurant where we had ceviche and more beer. The ceviche was poor: minced texture, and not enough lime and chili.

We drove three blocks to a quiet residential street and parked for the night.