Bill Morton
On Travel
I was beginning to think that I was the only person left in King County who had not been to Los Cabos in the last 20 years. Actually, it had been 23 years since we last explored the tip of the Baja, and I knew things were going to be very different.
Oh, yeah. Very.
In the mid-1980s, Los Cabos tourism officials informed me, the year-round population of Cabo San Lucas plus San Jose del Cabo totaled 5,000. Today that total is between 500,000 and one million. And that’s not counting the gringos.
From Costco to the Dolphin Swim, from Pueblo Bonitos’ Holistic Wellness resort, The Pacifica, to the charming new boutique and gallery-encircled town square in San Jose, the last five years have been nothing short of … volcanic.
Our plan was to discover all the crazy newness of Los Cabos in one short week. To do that we decided to spend our seven nights in four different hotel resorts, not a strategy I’d recommend, but it served to give me different perspectives on the mass of developments below Baja’s Tropic of Cancer.
Our week started with a recommendation by a travel photographer buddy, Larry Dunmire, based in southern California. I had previously met Larry at Manzanillo and later at the annual Mexican tourism extravaganza at Acapulco. Larry knows Mexico so well that he was recruited to write and shoot a travel guide to the Southern Baja.
Larry recommended a boutique property of only 22 rooms near San Jose del Cabo called Cabo Surf Hotel. Fifteen minutes after arriving, we had complimentary margaritas in hand and were soaking up the sunset in their seaside Jacuzzi. A couple of other guests, a young woman from Manhattan and her mom from Washington, D.C., shared the hot pool. They had come to the Cabo Surf to attend a wedding. The bride’s family was from San Francisco and had been scouting wedding locations in Los Cabos for years.
“So how was this Cabo Surf Hotel for the wedding?”
“Perfect in every way,” the daughter replied. “The wedding party had the entire hotel for a couple of days, and the staff was unbelievable. If I ever get married, it’ll be here.”
Mom concurred. “Me too.”
The Cabo Surf Hotel may be regarded for hosting intimate occasions, but its claim to fame is surfing. Mike Doyle, one of the early Los Angeles surfer dudes who inspired Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, the Beach Boys and Endless Summer’s Bruce Brown, settled here and operates a surfing school in conjunction with the hotel with the motto: “No experience necessary! Guaranteed you’ll stand up and surf.”
The ocean view from the Cabo Surf’s “7 Seas” restaurant is book-ended by rocky outcroppings pounded by waves, and the surfing down the middle to the hotel’s beach is the best in all of Baja Sur. As for dining, the 7 Seas is on everybody’s “top ten” Cabo restaurant list because its seafood menu is well crafted and it is one of the area’s best-view restaurants.
We found that one of the real bonuses of our staying at Cabo Surf Hotel is its close proximity to the village of San Jose del Cabo, regarded as Cabo San Lucas’ quiet, shy little sister. While watching Cabo San Lucas’s boisterous “adolescence,” San Jose took notes on what worked and what didn’t. The path ahead for San Jose is to have better stand-alone restaurants, more small intimate boutique hotels (following Cabo Surf’s lead), to focus on arts with independent galleries carrying works of higher end artists, and to keep vehicles away from its new, peaceful downtown square.
Oh, yes, and to create a new marina for boaters but NOT for cruise liners. It is clear that the 2,000 to 5,000 cruise passengers who daily invade Cabo San Lucas are not of interest to the city fathers of San Jose.
We really like our dinner in San Jose’s art core at “Voila!” with its quiet courtyard setting matched by its novelle Mexican fusion dining. Judy went for the lobster burrito, a success, she reports. Our breakfast at Jasman’s, also in the art district, was well served and well priced, remarkable because reasonable prices are very hard to find in Los Cabos. Up the block we treated ourselves to an ice cream crepe, a pain o’chocolat, and a couple of cappuccinos at the French Riviera Bakery, heavenly decadent.
Another boutique hotel, Casa Natalie, is located on the square in downtown San Jose and should get credit for inspiring its fresh arts tone. Natalie and Loic Tenoux, Casa Natalie’s owners, managers and chefs, are European. Everything they do fuses the best of European and Latin cultures. This small, luxury hotel property has only 14 rooms and two suites, and its location — away from the beach — assures very quiet, relaxed days and nights. For those who can’t imagine a vacation in Los Cabos without beach time, no problemo. Natalie has prime beach access and a complimentary van to take you there and back.
Our next overnights were at two of Los Cabos’ four Pueblo Bonitos resort properties. Their Pacifica property sits three miles over the ridge from Cabo San Lucas’s marina center. Pacifica has taken a different approach, and we really liked it. Away from other properties and with miles of broad sandy beach, it’s a great place for walking and running. Pacifica features a holistic, wellness concept — no smoking (OK, a cigar room), no children, zen-inspired minimalist interior designs, an array of yoga, stretching, healthy cooking, wine and cheese tasting, and aqua aerobics classes, along with a gorgeous black-and-white-themed spa and fitness center. Several of the aforementioned have small fees attached. Aroma therapy is taken seriously here, as the lobby and the elevators literally float guests on wafts of lavender-infused aires.
We also sampled the Pueblo Bonitos Rose hotel, located along the beach one half-mile east of Cabo San Lucas’ busy downtown. The soft pink colors of the Rose’s exterior is very relaxing, although the hotel sits in the more scrunched setting along a tightly packed row of hotels, restaurants and raucous beach bars. A Cabo classic, “The Office” beach bar and eatery, is a five-minute beach walk away. I’d recommend the Rose to anyone from 15 to 40 who loves to dance, drink, wear funny T-shirts and show off tattoos.
Our last 36 hours may have been our most relaxed of all as we checked into the newly remodeled Los Cabos Hilton Resort located in the heart of “The Corridor,” halfway between the Cabos’ two towns. This property is unusual in that it features huge white sandy beaches, a protected bay for near wave-less safe swimming, and one of the best designed infinity-edged swimming pools of the 20 or so that I checked out on this Baja trip. Both the Sea of Cortez and the pool matched the air in warmth, making both easy to enjoy for hours. The Hilton pool has inlets and peninsulas so that the area for pool-side deck chairs felt spacious, a problem I’ve seen at too many other resort properties. Who wants to wake up at 5 a.m. to rush down to the pool to reserve a deck lounge each day of their vacation? The Hilton’s rooms were larger than many of the others we saw, and who can complain about the complimentary margaritas, which were handed to us before we even checked in? The spirit of the hotel staff here seemed unusually high, making me think that everyone understands why people come to Los Cabos.
One other discovery worth sharing is the French Riviera Restaurant. For those who love fine continental cuisine served in a quiet atmosphere in classical French fashion, you’ll want to have at least one of your dinners here. It’s the brother of the French Riviera Bakery, an elegant complement and respite from the many pricey Mexican restaurants of Los Cabos.
If you go:
The two weeks after Thanksgiving are good times to visit Los Cabos. High season prices don’t go into effect until around Dec. 15. Children are in school. Hotels have lower occupancies, and shopping is quieter.
Dolphin Swim: I’m one of those people who loves animals, and I could not resist a chance to swim with dolphins at the spanking new Dolphin Arena along the Marina in downtown Cabo San Lucas. This was my fourth dolphin encounter, and this one allowed guests to touch, ride and interact with these intelligent mammals much more than the others. The company that operates this is called Cabo Adventures. They have two Web sites: www.cabo-adventures.com and www.cabodolphins.com.
Canopy Desert Tour: The mountains and desert around Los Cabos are full of hawks, road-runners, jack-rabbits, coyotes, turtles, scorpions, snakes and more. A nice half-day tour in a Mercedes truck with open sides, comfortable seats and a canopy top to keep the sun off is a great way to learn about the local people and geography. This tour included a very tasty al fresco Mexican lunch. I liked it a lot, and it reminded us of a trip we took 35 years ago in a similar vehicle from Cairo to Johannesburg. Both are great ways to see new lands.
El Moro in La Paz: If you have time to explore more than the tip of Baja, take a bus or drive up to La Paz, three hours north of Los Cabos. You’ll find La Paz, the state capital of Baja California Sur, much quieter, less impacted by developers, and certainly less expensive. El Moro is an architecturally interesting low-rise condominium that rents well furnished condos daily, weekly and monthly for less than $100 a night. Its location is across the Malecon from the aquamarine Bay of La Paz. Take a copy of Steinbeck’s “The Pearl” when you come.
Bill Morton can be reached at www.secondhalf.net.
