Cabo San Lucas is on the southernmost tip of Baja California. Once a haven for pirates, it became a fishing village. Back in the 1970’s, we visited Cabo to find a small community with a couple of hotels, unpaved streets, and a few stalls with vendors selling wood carvings, woven blankets, and some silver jewelry. We tendered to shore, getting off, not too easily, on a boat ramp landing. We have watched this area transform into a whole different scene over the following years.
Today, we will tender into a very nice marina, full of yachts and fancy fishing boats. The only familiar sights are the rocky outcroppings and Los Arcos, the famous “hole’ in the rocks. Timeshares, condos, apartments, and huge resort hotels line the harbor, beaches, and hillsides. And of course, restaurants, bars, and night clubs abound for the party-hardy. Mostly notably – the Spring Breakers.
There are a whopping 21 tours available through shore excursions, which is over-kill, since our time here is limited from 7am to 2pm. Anyway, 5 tours are sightseeing, while adventure and water activities take up 11 more. Finally five tours are for scuba diving, snuba, and dolphin experiences. Prices range from $40 to $220. The most expensive is for deep sea fishing…catch and release.
Since we have been here a gazillion times, and taken most all of the tours, our mission was to take our usual hike, and eventully find a place for lunch, if there was time. The last tender was 1:30, and we know from experience not to wait until the last boat. Although we had priority tendering, we decided to wait until most of the tour groups went off to shore. So after breakfast, we went off the ship around 9am.
The weather was better than perfect. Not too hot or humid, we would enjoy a cloudless day with gentle breezes. By the way, the Amsterdam was the only cruise ship in the bay today. Sometimes , there can be as many as three. For that reason, we would have been happy if we had a longer stay here, but it was not in the planning.
One thing nice about being the only ship here was the fact nothing was really crowded. And the folks that were vacationing here in the myriad of accommodations were not out and about yet. And for that reason, few of the hawkers and vendors were present yet. And those that were there, were pretty low-key.
Our first stop was at Cabo Wabo, but not for the food and beers, but for t-shirts. Then it was back to the main street and a walk through town to the major shopping mall at Puerto Paraiso. We were surprised to find that the entire front of the mall was being re-designed, and another hotel complex was going up on the property. It is staggering what already exists here, and the need for more vacation rentals is unbelievable.
This is the area of high end shopping, so the restaurants are also on the nicer side, in our opinion. After walking through the mall and the upscale Luxury Avenue, we decided to see if the restaurant we liked the best was opened yet. Good thing we did, because the doors were opened at 11am, instead of noon, as advertised. Inside, there was a table full of young ladies, who we found out were from California. How did we know? One of the gals came over and asked if we had visited San Francisco, since one of us was wearing a Hard Rock SF t-shirt. Not only did we visit, there, we lived there as young kids. Some of the ladies were from Petaluma, in the north bay, so it was like meeting neighbors. They confirmed that the beer was great here, as they already had been enjoying it for a while already.
So we ordered our pizza and blonde craft beer, as this was a brewery restaurant. Good as always, we stayed until noontime, and also enjoyed a shared carrot cake. Time to go, we walked slowly back to the ship, picking up a long sleeve Cabo t-shirt to wear while in cooler Canada in a few days. Most all of our cold weather clothes are packed already.
Going back on a local tender boat was much better, since the driver slowed down so we could see the huge sea lions perched on the back platforms of fishing boats, begging for scraps of bait. They are so big, they practically tipped the smaller fishing boats backwards. Then the driver took us slowly along the outcroppings past Los Arcos, before he headed for the ship.
Then it wasn’t so easy getting back onboard, since other boats were waiting their turn. We were third in line, but riding in this boat was nice, since we were on the top deck with the driver, and in the open air. The seas were calm, so no one complained.
Guess we boarded by 1:30pm, but we were not the last. We always like this sail away, mostly for the scenery, but also for the sudden change in temperatures and winds. But we would have over an hour before we would leave, due to an emergency medical debark. It was more like 3pm when the ship made the exit past Los Arcos, and made that turn towards the north. As the Captain had warned, the cool wind picked up and blew a lot of people’s things without warning. Some of it went overboard. Within a few minutes, the back decked cleared. We followed shortly after getting enough photos of the rocks and the hole from both sides.
That left the afternoon to work on photos before heading for a nice and relaxed dining room dinner. Two good choices tonight were the minestrone soup and the honey mustard breaded chicken breast. With a couple of small desserts, we were good to go.
A different type of show was performed tonight by an award-winning mentalist by the name of Alan Chamo. However, we wanted to catch a movie, The Accountant, which was on TV. Glad we did, since it was a good one.
Now we have two days at sea as we head towards San Francisco, a very favorite place for us.
Bill & Mary Ann
