If you go all the way to the bottom point of San Bernardino County and then continue south you will reach the very last place on the Baja California, and the resort town of Cabo San Lucas.Soon after we came out to America, from England, we used to have a regular annual visit from an aged relative around Christmas. It was a strain and once the visit was over, we needed to get away and recharge the batteries. Our solution was Cabo. It's actually quite a long way away, and enough to make you notice you're really in a foreign country. Back in the mid-80s that was more the case than today.
We used to stay in a hotel about three miles out of town and the taxis always used to charge us "gringo" fares which were about four times
what the locals paid. I always rather resented that. But today, the locals pay the same as the fares have been rounded up.When we first started going there, donkeys were often out in the street and many of the roads coming into town were unpaved. The best restaurant in the area was in the middle of the trailer park - no kidding. It was actually a branch of one operating in Marina Del Rey.
Today, formula restaurants abound and the donkeys have given way to BMWs and Lexuses. Also the streets are all paved and have things like traffic lights and pedestrian crossings, too. As many of the drivers are Americanos, there's even a good chance they will stop to let walkers pass.
Similarly the boats in the recently expanded marina have locations like Long Beach and San Diego written on their sterns. It's a long sail, but worth the effort to get here.
Since my vacationing days at Cabo, my more recent trips have been aboard large ships that often use this place as their last port of call in a week's cruise of the Mexican Riviera.
It's a different type of visit as the time there is extremely limited. In order to reach the home port of Los Angeles, any ship has to leave Cabo at 2 p.m. sharp. It's a
long way back. It's a frequent complaint that passengers never have enough time in the port.I've also noticed over the years that the street vendors have slowly been choked off from their access to disembarking passengers from the tenders that come in from the big ships - Cabo doesn't have a pier to use and therefore visitors have to use smaller vessels to arrive.
At one time all types of sales pitches were shouted at us as we made our way along the path - I remember one fellow who was hawking his big, green iguana as a photo opportunity: "He looks like Ronald Reagan," he used to say, and I have to admit there was a certain resemblance. I rather miss him and his wrinkled animal.
Today such "offers" are confined to sellers of trips in glass bottomed boats or fishing vessels or snorkeling expeditions. Other vendors are confined to a fenced off area and have to ply their wares through the chain link. I expect it's a question of licensing and taxes rather than the comfort of visitors.
In step with modern needs, I noticed that most cafes and restaurants along the harbor now offer free Wi-Fi to their customers. Here, you will see lots of the ships' crews crouched over their laptops, as the costs of the service aboard is as expensive for them as it is for passengers. Cruise liners use a satellite system for Internet and pass the charges, and one assumes their profit margin, onto everyone.
If you have the urge to explore some of the benign waters around Los Arcos, Cabo's famous land mark cliffs, then you can go snorkeling, or scuba diving. If you paddle away to the end of the point you will pass "lovers' beach" - the locals will tell you that on the other side the name is "divorce beach," but I'm not sure if someone was pulling my leg.
Every morning as the ship pulls in at usually 7 a.m. there is a big line of boats making their way out to sea for another fun-in-the-sun day in one of Mexico's finest and still safest resorts.
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