Two Sides of "Cabo"

What Cabo is about now is sort of MTV party time. Boogie til you lose your margaritas at the Gagging Marlin, blast around on jetskis or ATV's, get jerked up in the air by a parachute with your lil bitty bikini hanging out. Kill some marlins.

But it's still a place of raw beauty, a collision of sea and stark desert. Go to Lover's Beach, stay after the people have left. You can walk back on the Pacific side, get a twilight drink at the Whale Watcher Bar on your way. Take the bus up to Santa Maria cove and snorkel over the reefs. Camp by Todos Santos. Swim from the Gas Dock out to the arch. Swim through the arch. Make love in the cave beside it. Go out in the desert after dark and just lay back and look at the stars. Sit on the Solmar beach rocks and just feel the waves pounding the tip of the stark spine of the Californias.

Quick Tips:

Budget travelers, don't get freaked out by the guide books saying Cabo is Sodomy and Gomorrah by the Sea. Stay in San Jose, there are several reasonable hotels in the center of town--a quiet, nice place to hang in the evening and dine al fresco. Walk out to the highway and take the bus over to Cabo for the day--get the hell out before it gets nuts, or stick around and get nuts with it.

Best Way To Get Around:

Blow everybody's mind: Walk! The entire Cabo San Lucas area is just not that far to walk around in. Taxis are plentiful, but expensive by Mexican standards. There are public buses that run out to the beaches and resorts along the corridor, leaving every hour or more. A dollar all the way to San Jose del Cabo.

I lived in Cabo (or slept in my truck at other times) but if I ever took a hotel room in the Cabos area, there was only one choice--Senor Mananas in San Jose. Forget the glass wall ghettos--THIS is as close to the Baja experience as you're going to get this time out.

It's a sprawling collection of bungalows and rooms, with common kitchens and big breezy living rooms under thatched 'palapa' roofs. You cook in a nice communal kitchen if you wish (or barbecue). Sprawl on a sofa (better yet, one of the hammocks), grab a book, play some chess, shoot the breeze with people who've been coming back there for years. Great owners, great neighbors, a unique experience. And just steps from 'downtown' San Jose---if you want to call it that--where the little plaza is full of candle-lit tables in the evening, fine cuisine to pizza. Stroll over by the church afterwards, nodding to the kids and moms in the square, and get a homemade ice cream cone. When was the last time you showed you friends pictures you took of the inside of your hotel?

Oh, did I mention--$35-35 US a night?

This was THE Cabo eatery for years, the orginal and legendary 'Broken Surfboard' and it is still a place where you might meet yachties, drifters, millionaires, bus drivers, smugglers, lost sorority girls, surfers, Baja rats, or just Cabo old timers. Dining type is tacos and mexi-snacks ala sandals and trunks. The legendary board still hangs above the thatch roof. Order, glut, pay, hang out or split. Who cares?

Join the castaways on a three hour tour. Okay, the name is hokey. The bar in shape of a boat on the beach is hokey. But three words: Location, location, location. Right on the sand, right on THE beach, and right under the sun. It's just a palm thatch roof, over some of the tables, the rest out on the sand. The beach party bingo look of the day turns romantic at night, when glass globes are put on the tables, each with an inch of sand supporting a white candle. You step out of the water and step into Billigans. In fact, I've seen the ocean come right up into Billigans. It floated the bar, but didn't stop drink service.

The food is generally of the cuisine known as 'high priced'--steaks, lobsters, and shrimp. Everything fresh and braised and juicy. You can get a quesadilla if you want though. They're eager to please at Billigans, just a fun-loving crew. Hell, they work in paradise.

I probably shouldn't mention this in these days of correctness, but it's good to get a seat where you can see the open-air shower. A lot of really beautiful women come to Billigans, and it's been my impression that they look a lot more beautiful under the shower. Do they have THAT in Maxim's? I think not.

Even if you don't eat there (very good seafood, pretty pricey) you should stop by Seafood Mama's on the Marina and climb up inside the phallic tower. It's a fun trip spiralling up the nautical spire, but the view from the top is something special.

For a higher view yet, go to the Whale Watcher Bar at the Finisterra Hotel late in the day to (duh) watch whales. But don't mind if you don't see any--the bar is an experience in itself. Carved out of the sheer cliff face (the men's room is actually a walled cave--the fireplace just a niche by the wall ala Neanderthal), the bar sprals upward, with little aeries with a table or two, and one final table at the very tip top, just room for two. To your immediate west, a throbbing surf far below, miles of ocean, and a wrap-around sunset. Maybe a whale or two.

You don't HAVE to be a lover to go here (that's Virginia, I believe). But it's a great place for being in love with everything in sight. This is the main jewel of Cabo, a million times more worthwhile than the lunatic sideshow that's grown up around it, and one of the absolute finest swimming holes in the world.
It's also the Last California Beach. As the spine of the Californias drops down into the sea, terminating with typical preposterous poetry in a stone arch with sand-floored cave, it leaves one last gap--Lover's Beach--to bridge the Two Seas. The Pacific side is a towering, pounding surf that you'd be nuts to swim in. I've actually seen people pulled into the water, just like in Bugs cartoons. This is literally and no fooling killer surf. But it looks just glorious slamming the rock spires in front of the SolMar. And you see whales here a lot.
The business end of the beach is on the Mar de Cortez side, gentle clear water perfect for lazy swims or for snorkeling. There are lots of parrot fish, Moorish Idols, wrasses, and other cool tropical fish around the offshore rocks. You can swim out to the arch if you're up for it, or back towards town to the white rock--a open air aquarium.
Or just laze in the soft white sand, staring up at the rock walls that protect this unique beach. They've been sandblasted for centuries to produce a tissue-like effect that could have been done by Dali or Max Ernst on a mushroom high.
Most people arrive by water taxi from Medano beach or the dock in front of Plaza Las Glorias, but you can also rent a canoe at the Hacienda beach and paddle over. Or walk through the SolMar bar, hike south on the beach until you hit rocks and follow the trail over them--at high tide this can require some timing and dashes to keep from getting soaked (and/or carried out to sea) but the climb itself over the sand-smoothed rocks is fun.
Forget Squid Roe and the Gagging Marlin and the topless joints--this place is the heart and soul of Cabo and the more time you spend here the better person you will be. Same goes for any lovers you bring along.