It took about 2 hours to make the drive to the outskirts of Cabo San Lucas. We had been able to make reservations for one night at the Cabo Vista Hotel which looked nice on Hotels.com.
We made the reservation for only one night, just in case it had problems that they didn't brag about on the website.
As you come into town, there is a huge amount of traffic and you know you have arrived in the big city.
We couldn't figure out how to enter the hotels address into the GPS but by looking at the Google Map program we knew it was located on the main one way street that runs from the outskirts of town to the downtown marina area so we had no trouble finding the hotel, which was located at the blue dot on the map.
You can see from the map that shows only a portion of Cabo San Lucas that Cabo is NOT a sleepy little fishing village any more.
We arrived at the hotel about mid day on a Sunday and pulled right into a parking space and spoke with a very nice English speaking lady who had us registered in no time.
We were pleasantly surprised by how nice the room was, and we were happy to have found such a nice room for $64.00 per night.
Once inside the room, a few steps down the hall past the bathroom took us to to a nice bedroom with a kitchenette.
The bed was a queen size and was firm and comfortable.
The bathroom was very clean and had a nice shower.
After checking out the room, we went back out to the car to get all of our stuff. That was when we realized what the "clicker" was for that the lady at the front desk gave us.
The parking lot was covered with a nice trellis like structure but we soon realized that it was really a support for roll up bars that lock off the whole compound from the street area. The clicker was for us to use if we came back after dark and wanted to pull back into our parking place because they shut up the whole facility after dark.
Uh-Oh.
After moving all of our stuff into the room, we went back to the office and asked the lady if we could sign up for a few more nights because it looked like the neighborhood was nice and quiet during the day and we would be safe at night behind the bars and the room was very nice with fast free internet and cable TV in English.
She said she was sorry but they were sold out for the next night but we could sign up again after that. We explained that doing that was a lot of trouble because we would have to reload the car, find somewhere else for tomorrow night and then do it all over again to come back to her hotel.
We went back to the room and made reservations with Hotels.com for another hotel for the next night just in case there was a convention or something that was taking up all of the rooms. Then we took off on foot and headed for downtown to look around and find dinner.
It was about a 20 minute walk to the harbor that was interesting as we walked past a mix of Mexican homes and small businesses. Since it was Sunday, all of the small businesses like hardware stores and auto parts stores were closed so we didn't get a chance to check them out but the tourist stores were all open at the harbor so we took a quick look around before heading back toward the hotel to a little open air restaurant that we had passed that smelled delicious.
Then it was back to the room for a good night's sleep.
That went well until about 0500 in the morning when everyone that lived in the town uphill from our hotel started driving to work down near the harbor on the one way street right outside of our bedroom.
There is really only one main road into town from the northwest side of town and that was where we were trying to sleep.
One lane, one way, rush hour . . . . . . . . . the best way to speed things up is to lay on your car's horn real hard to make the bumper to bumper stopped traffic suddenly move out of your way.
Well, we all know that honking your horn doesn't do anything to stalled traffic but apparently they haven't learned that yet in Cabo because EVERYBODY was honking their horns.
We were suddenly very glad we had only signed up for one night and had not been able to add more nights. This had to be the traffic situation every morning and we couldn't wait to get away.
That brought us to the next problem. After we had loaded up the car and checked out of the hotel, we had to figure out a way to back out of the driveway and into the street that was jammed with cars being driven by frustrated, aggressive drivers who wouldn't think of losing their place in line by letting another car back out of a driveway in front of them.
The short version is that we finally made it out onto the street and then crept along with everybody else until we made it to a cross street where we got out of the marina traffic and were able to head toward San Jose Del Cabo which is another town on the end of the peninsula where our next hotel was located.
The end of Baja California used to just have one main town, Cabo San Lucas, but as the tourists invaded over the years, more and more development occurred and the result has been continuous growth across the coastline toward the town of San Jose Del Cabo which is about 15 miles east of Cabo San Lucas.
Once we got out of the early morning congestion near the hotel, we were able to get onto the road that follows the coastline toward San Jose Del Cabo.
The drive was very interesting because of all of the changes that had occurred since we last visited Cabo San Lucas. The last time we were here, the town of Cabo was quite small and has a small harbor with a few boats. East of town were long stretches of undeveloped coastline with an occasional hotel or condo built along the water.
Now, there is an almost continuous line of structures spreading eastbound from the town of Cabo San Lucas. Many of the buildings were gigantic and very expensive looking and were obviously built to accommodate the high dollar Americans that must like to spend a few relaxing days in the sun.
We drove from Cabo San Lucas to the town of San Jose Del Cabo in about 30 minutes and then it took another 30 minutes to drive through the town to the Los Cabos International Airport where we had reservations at the Best Western Airport Hotel.
As we had expected, the hotel prices in the Cabo San Lucas area during the peak winter months were pretty high. When we went to Hotels.com, we were pleasantly surprised to find our last nights hotel at only $64.00 per night until the rush hour traffic started and then we understood why the price was so low.
When we booked the room at the Best Western Airport Hotel, we were really surprised to only have to pay $52.00 per night and we wondered "How bad will this one be?"
Again, our initial impression was good. There was plenty of parking right next to the hotel and the area looked safe . . . at least in daylight.
Registration was easy with English speaking desk clerks and our reservation was on their computer so check in took about 2 minutes.
A quick elevator ride to the 5th floor took us to our room.
This room was larger than our beautiful room at Hotel H Blue in La Paz and we thought things were looking pretty good.
We unpacked our few belongings and decided to head out and begin our exploration of the area.
On our way out to the car, we took a side trip to the other end of the lobby to check out the pool.
So far, so good.
We headed back to Cabo San Lucas to explore around the harbor.
This picture gives you an idea of how built up it has become. The picture is taken on the coast highway headed back toward Cabo.
Once we arrived at the harbor area, we discovered that all of those people that had awakened us at 5:00AM had arrived early enough to take up ALL of the available parking in the downtown / marina neighborhood, or else the curbs were painted red on the side streets that were too narrow to allow parking at all.
We continued to cruise the side streets and finally found a place to park. We then went on a pleasant walk around town.
The main street of the tourists section of town is separated from the marina area by large hotels.
To get to the marina, we walked through one of the hotels.
It was very nice!
I went to the hotel lobby and checked with the front desk clerk about room prices. She said that this time of year, their rooms start at $1,000.00 per night and go up from there but suggested we might be able to get a better price on line. I later checked at Hotels.com and the rooms started at only $750.00 per night.
It also gave us our first glimpse of the marina. It is not just a few small fishing boats any more.
We enjoyed watching the birds and other wildlife in the marina.
All that fresh ocean air made us hungry so off we went in search of food.
They have the usual touristy places.
We walked a little further down the street to a small little "locals" restaurant and had a great lunch.
Then it was back out to visit some shops and walk along the marina.
All of the shops had pretty much what you would expect.
Lots of T shirts and other things to remember Cabo San Lucas.
We visited one shop where a man was decorating small knick knacks with VERY small beads. He was gluing each bead on individually using tweezers to carefully place each bead.
A walk along the broad walkway around the marina was very interesting. There were 4 cruise ships anchored just outside of the harbor and small boats were busy ferrying people back and forth to the harbor.
The channel into the harbor looked chaotic but all of the boats seemed to have a plan and we didn't see any close calls.
There was a very large new building that was a tourist welcome and information center. It was made out of carefully fitted stone and was very attractive.
As we got closer, we noticed something interesting that reminded us of where we were. We saw a wire hanging on the outside of the building.
Apparently, someone forgot to install the wire inside of the structure and the wires were important so they just added them.
A little electrical tape and it was good to go!
We enjoyed our first full day at the end of the Baja peninsula, and headed back to our hotel to see how our room was going to be for the rest of the night.
We hit San Jose Del Cabo right at rush hour, but it allowed us to slow down some and spend more time checking things out.
San Jose Del Cabo had nice main city streets and lots of dirt shoulders and dirt side streets.
Paved shoulders and dirt shoulders were just an opportunity to pass everybody else.
We got back to the hotel just in time for a beautiful sunset.
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Then it was back to the room for a peaceful night's sleep.
The trip in and around Los Cabos will continue in the next chapter.
Get out there and see stuff!!!
Tom & Suzie
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