Located at the tip of the 775-mile Baja
Peninsula, where the Pacific Ocean meets the Sea of Cortez, Cabo—as it is
commonly known—is one of Mexico’s top destinations for its long beaches,
resorts, scuba diving, and picturesque coast. They said it was about 1400 miles
to California. Renowned for the spectacular rock formations that line its
shores, this bustling playground boasts one of the region’s most scenic
harbors. The main industry here is tourism, as you would expect. They also said
that the most popular career here is to work in tourism, so they learn English
early. There are also supposed to be a lot of whales between here and LA
(though we have not seen any). They have three types of whales: grey, humpback
and blue.
Here we took a tour of San José del Cabo, which
is the more subdued sister city to Cabo San Lucas. This was a tender port,
which means you get to shore on one of the ships lifeboats, or tenders. Since
our ship is new, we have some really good-looking tenders. They are higher,
wider and have a balcony.
Our guide for this tour was Rudy, and he was
pretty good. We met with him once we got
off the tender and then took our bus (only 20 minutes) along “El Malecon,” the
highway that connects all the resorts between Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del
Cabo.
San José del Cabo, sister to Cabo San Lucas is
the sleepier of the two. San José was an important city during the Spanish
colonization and a stopover for ships heading farther into the Pacific. Its
charming pink church, inviting town square and low adobe homes evoke an old
colonial atmosphere. A Spanish mission here, founded in 1730, replenished
galleons making the long journey to the Philippines. It is the oldest Spanish
mission on the Baja Peninsula.
As we drove into town we were welcomed with a
very charming circle.
It was a quaint town, but not much happening.
Many stores were not open because it was the first day of the year, but even if
they were, there still would not be much happening. We saw the old mission and
the church. There is a nativity outside the mission with the baby Jesus in it.
They said they only add the baby after the 25th because before that
he was not born. Very true and very interesting.
After we finished the tour we did a 3 mile walk
around the harbor in Cabo San Lucas. We were here a few years ago, but we could
not walk as far as we did this time as they have really expanded the area. Very
pretty and very touristy.
There were three ships in port this day. This
picture shows Regent to the left, Carnival to the right, and us in the middle.
We were supposed to leave port at 6 last night,
but it was almost 7:30. They had called for two people, I am assuming did not
get back. I do not know whether they found them or we left them. Worse places
to be left; however, our passports were being held by the ship. But, these last
few nights the sunsets have be beautiful. Here is one with the Regent ship in
the foreground. This is a place that I would come back to and stay a week in
one of the beautiful all-inclusive hotels along the beach.
We now have two sea days, and then two in LA.
On the first day in LA we will have lunch with all of Steve’s brothers and
sister. They have not all been together since his dad died about seven years
ago. It should be a nice lunch. The second day we are going to do a city tour,
so I will post some photos.
We are then at sea for six days. I will post
some pictures of the ship during this time. I have been taking bridge lessons
and we have graduated to supervised play on those sea days. So, I have created
a cheat sheet and I will do my best.
Happy New Year to All!!
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