Los Cabos is a municipality located at the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula, in the state of Baja California Sur. It encompasses the two towns of Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo the municipal seat linked by a twenty-mile Resort Corridor of beach-front properties and championship golf courses.
The area was remote and rural until the latter 20th century, when the Mexican government began to develop Cabo San Lucas for tourism, which then spread east to the municipal seat.
The main draw is the climate and geography, where desert meets the sea, along with sport fishing, resorts and golf. This tourism is by far the main economic activity with over two million visitors per year. Over 1 million visit from the United States.
The town of San Jose del Cabo is located at the foot of the Sierra de la Laguna, 130 km SSW of La Paz, the state capital of Baja California Sur. Although it is the seat of government for the municipality of Los Cabos, it is smaller than the other city of Cabo San Lucas.
However, because of federal and private investments in tourism, its growth is now rivaling that of the more famous resort area.
This growth has been regulated to outside of the town center, especially to the south where the beaches are, leaving the historic town center quiet and relatively unchanged.
There are still cobblestone streets, adobe houses, jacaranda trees and a central square in front of a church that dates from the 1700s, where people still gather in the evening when it is cooler.
A number of the large houses in the center date from the 19th century, and most of these have been converted into restaurants, art galleries and shops selling everything from fine handcrafts, silver, local gemstones and souvenirs.
The art scene in the town is well-developed because of tourism and people with vacation homes. These shops carry high end paintings, sculptures in from traditional Mexican, Mexican contemporary and international artisans and artists.
During the high season from October to May, these galleries stay open late into the night. The town has resisted the addition of large shopping malls and chain stores.
There is also some colonial era architecture as well, but this style has more in common with colonial towns to the north into the United States rather than the center and south of Mexico.
The main example of colonial architecture here is the town’s parish church. It was part of the Estero de las Palmas de San Jose del Cabo Mission, founded in 1730. The facade is marked with a tile mural depicting the martyrdom of founder Nicolas Tamaral, killed by the local Pericu people.
The patron saint of the town is Saint Joseph, whose feast day is celebrated here on March 19. Another important occasion is the feast of the Our Lady of the Pillar on October 12. Occasions like these are marked with traditional dance in dress styles known as Flor de Pitaya and the La Cuera.
Other important landmarks in the town include the municipal hall or palacio municipal, which dates from 1981 and the cultural center or Casa de Cultura, housed in a 19th-century building.
The tourist area of the town is the area between the town proper and the shoreline. This area has a nine-hole golf course and a line of hotels and resorts facing the ocean, which served over 900,000 hotel guests in 2011.
San Jose del Cabo is the seat and the government for the communities found in a 3,451.51km2 area, located in the extreme south of the state of Baja California Sur. It is connected to the capital of La Paz via the Transpeninsular Highway .
The municipality borders that of La Paz to the north, with the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of California surrounding it in the other directions. The municipal government consists of a municipal president, a syndic and fourteen representatives called regidors.
The main areas of the municipality are the seat, Cabo San Lucas, and the tourist corridor along the coast between them. Although San Jose del Cabo is the government, Cabo San Lucas has a higher population and its natural arch at Land’s End is the symbol for the municipality.
Outside of the two main cities, other important communities include Colonia del Sol, Las Veredas, Colonia Los Congrejos, San José Viego and La Ribera.
The municipality is one of the most important tourist destinations in Mexico, for its fishing, beaches, and resorts. Historical landmarks are relatively few but include the municipal hall, the Casa de Cultura in San Jose del Cabo, the Faro Viejo and the San Jose del Cabo and Santiago de las Coras missions.
The city of Cabo San Lucas, about twenty miles to the west of San Jose del Cabo, is far more commercial. Unlike most Mexican towns, Cabo San Lucas has no main plaza or large cathedral. Instead, it is centered around the marina and entertainment district.
Up until the latter 20th century, the area was a small fishing village when tourist infrastructure was begun. Despite its success, high rise construction has been kept limited, focusing on resorts and sand-top restaurants in the beach area.
The main attractions are fishing, nightlife and whale watching. It is a place for vacation, where most visitors stay at all-inclusive resorts. The two main events during the year are Spring Break and Sammy Hagar’s birthday on the first weekend in October.
The latter focuses on his Cabo Wabo bar and restaurant in the city.
The success of Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo has created a tourist corridor along the coastal highway between the cities. While there has been some development of resorts, hotels, and golf courses, there are still smaller isolated and undeveloped beaches.
By far the main economic activity for the municipality is tourism, focused on a shoreline corridor between Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo. Most visitors come from the United States especially California and Canada, followed by Mexico, and many visitors return year after year.
Visitors can get by in Cabo San Lucas purely in English and use U.S. dollars. Most of the about two million visitors a year arrive by plane to the Los Cabos airport, but the Cabo San Lucas marina also has facilities for cruise ships.
In 2012, the area has hotel occupancy of just over 60% with 248 cruise ships visiting. The area’s high end resorts have also attracted notable names such as Bruce Willis, Kelly Preston and John Travolta, and San Jose del Cabo also has a notable expatriate population, mostly retirees who have economic influence.
The main draw for most visitors has been the environment, where the desert meets the sea, best symbolized by El Arco, a natural stone arch over the ocean in Cabo San Lucas where the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California meet.
The natural features have led to ecotourism such as boat tours to El Arco, tours of the San Jose Estuary and the coral reefs of Cabo Pulmo, and whale watching from January to March, when the animals are here to breed.
Sports fishing is a major and the longest established draw as there are about 800 species of fish in the waters off the coast. High season for this activity is in the summer, the season for marlin, although fishing for various other species extends all year.
There are certain exotic species that are off limits due to conservation concerns and others are catch-and-release only.
There are four main golf courses in the municipality, designed by the likes of Jack Nicklaus and Pete Dye. Other activities for tourists include snorkeling, diving, dune-buggy rides, camel rides, zip-lining, rides on water-propelled jet packs, surfing especially at the Acapulquito Beach, jet-ski riding, kayaking, sailing, horseback riding, ATV riding, hang gliding, mountain biking, camping, tennis and rappelling.
Off the beaten path, there is the town of Miraflores for its leather crafts, the Santiago fossil museum, the traditional towns of Caduano, San Antonio and San Bartolo and a glass blowing factory.
Los Cabos hosts a culinary event called Ritmos, Colores y Sabores, which attracts chefs from the United States and Europe. The gastronomy of the region is based on seafood, which includes clams, marlin, snails, tuna and shark. A locally produced liquor is Damiana, sweet and flavored with a local herb, said to be an aphrodisiac.
The main export of the municipality is the production of salt. There are also limited mineral deposits, especially in the Capuano and Mezquite areas such as limestone and granite.
The small town of Miraflores is known for its leatherwork, especially saddles and other gear for horseback riding. Jewelry and decorations made with shells are produced in San Jose del Cabo, Cabo San Lucas and Santa Rosa.
The municipality of Los Cabos is at the southern end of the Baja California peninsula, where desert meets the sea and the Gulf of California meets the Pacific Ocean.
The area was originally underwater, evidenced by the many fossils of marine animals, which are up to 25 million years old. The basement rock underlying Los Cabos formed even earlier, approximately 115 million years ago.
The municipality has an average altitude of forty meters above sea level. There are three main terrain types, mountain terrain, semi flat areas and flat areas.
The mountains consist of the Sierra de la Laguna and the Sierra de San Lázaro, both formed of volcanic rock, covering about fifteen percent of the total territory with peaks between 400 and 1000 meters.
The semi flat areas are located between the coast and the mountain ranges, mostly of sedimentary rock and account for sixty percent of the territory. The flat areas are along the coast, beaches and alluvial plains, which account for twenty five percent of the territory.
One of the main natural resources is the beaches. Major beaches include Los Frailes, Buena Vista, Agua Caliente, Cabo San Lucas, Puerto Chileno and Punta Colorada, often promoted together as the Costa de Oro or Golden Coast.
One very popular beach in Cabo San Lucas is Lover’s Beach, which is surrounded by dramatic rock shapes. The sea experiences lows of 72–73 °F (22–23 °C) in winter, and highs of 77–84 °F (25–29 °C) during the summer months.
As it is on the edge of the desert that covers most of the Baja California peninsula, it is one of the sunniest locations in the world, with an average of 320 days of sunshine per year.
The climate is characterized as hot and dry to the north of the town of San Jose del Cabo, hot and semi moist in San Jose and along the southern coast and temperate and dry in the highest elevations, because of cyclones that hit this area.
Average annual temperature is 24C with the coolest month being January. There is a rainy season in the summer, with most rain in September. The rain and terrain make for a variety of micro climates, including areas with a climate similar to the Mediterranean.
Areas between 0 and 400 meters are desert and semi-desert, with many areas having deep sand deposits. Higher elevations get more water and can have pine forests.
The main surface water of the municipality is the Rio San Jose or San Jose River, which runs north to south, mostly during the rainy season.
Other streams run only during rains and include Santiago, Miraflores, Caduano and Las Palmas. There are subterranean deposits of water such as the Santiago and San Jose del Cabo, but the lack of water is the main impediment to human development in the area.
The Río San José stops just shy of the ocean, with a one km long sand bar creating an estuary, the third largest in Mexico. This pooling of brackish water has created an oasis in the surrounding Sarcocaule desert.
The Rio San Jose flows largely underground for 40 miles (64 km) from its origin in the Sierra de la Laguna or Laguna Mountains, although its Miramonte River tributary adds almost an additional 10 miles (16 km).
Its tributaries flow down the eastern side of the sierra and include Santa Rosa, Santa Lazaro, San Miguel, San Ignacio at La Palma, Caduano, Miraflores and San Bernard. The river used to flow above ground until the beginning of the 20th century due to anthropogenic causes.
For more than 250 years the Rio San Jose has furnished drinking and irrigation water for the town of San Jose del Cabo, beginning as a source of fresh water for Spanish galleons traveling back from the Philippines.
Over the sand bar from the estuary is a bay referred to by early Spanish explorers, including Sebastian Vizcaino, as the Bahia de San Bernabe or Bay of San Bernabe, and now as the Bay of San Jose del Cabo.
The estuary is home to both native and migratory birds and aquatic species, 250 species of tropical birds alone. Most of the migratory species use the area as a stopover on their way to southern Mexico, Central American and South America.
It also acts as a nursery to many juvenile and larval stage species. It was declared a state environmental reserve, but pollution and excessive water extraction has caused it to degenerate, leading to a complaint by Greenpeace. One effort to improve the water situation is the creation of new water treatment plants in the 2000s.
Vegetation varies mostly by altitude and soil type and how much moisture the area receives. However almost all species are those adapted to desert and semi-desert zones. The highest elevations have pine forests.
Wildlife is varied and includes mammals such as badgers, skunks, coyotes, foxes, pumas and other wild cats, deer, raccoons, rabbits, bats and various rodents. Bird species include quail, doves, cardinals, woodpeckers, swallows and marine species such as pelicans and seagulls.
There are over 850 species of aquatic animals off the coast such as marlin, sailfish, swordfish, tuna, dorado and whales. Many species and subspecies of both plants and animals are endemic only to Baja California.
Los Cabos has the highest murder rate of any city in the world. Reports of increased violence in the Los Cabos municipality are connected to the 2016 arrest of drug kingpin Joaquin Guzman, nicknamed "El Chapo," following an interview with US actor Sean Penn for Rolling Stone Magazine.
Instability that eluded Los Cabos, Mexico's most prized and protected tourist resorts according to the Los Angeles Times, stemmed from the void in the drug cartel. Generally the violence from fragmented, warring factions, seeking to gain control in the region, has not targeted tourists.
The vast majority of the violence is playing out in the poor desert hillside communities that house resort workers, far from the beaches that have made this region a magnet for business moguls and Hollywood stars.
The lucrative drug-smuggling corridor of the twin cities of Los Cabos has led to bloodshed among rival gangs contributing to the fastest-rising homicide rate in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur from 2015 to 2017.
Warring gangs often use intimidation tactics to announce their presence such as hanging victims in public spaces next to banners called narcomantas.
In December 2017, rival gangs hanged six bodies from bridges near major resorts one with a public banner that was translated as: This is what will happen to anyone who does not fall into line with us. It has been made more than clear that we hold all the power and that Baja north and south are ours.
Such signs are used to threaten government officials and serve as warnings or intentions of cleansing the drug-smuggling corridor. The city since then has considerably lowered the crime rate after the local government cracked down on violent cartels in early 2018.
The Los Cabos airport is located in San Jose del Cabo. When you get out of the terminal, you first reach customs. Here you need to have your disembark/embark card filled out, but you do not give them your declaration card here.
After you clear customs, you cross through baggage claim. At the end of baggage claim there are several rental car companies. If you made a rental, stop by and tell them you are there so they can call a shuttle driver to pick you up.
You then go through declarations. This is the point where they may pull you over for secondary agriculture inspection if applicable. When you walk out of custom declarations, you are in this room full of people.
This room actually is just people who are trying to sell you time shares and tours. Just walk straight out and you will be near the terminal exit.
If you have rented a car, the people in the room after customs declarations may lie to you to keep you in the room. In reality, your shuttle driver is already waiting outside if you talked to them before so just walk out. The rental car shuttle will take you to a brief couple minute drive to your rental car company.
When in the arrivals terminal at the airport, there is a wifi password posted on the corner of the Starbucks in Terminal 2.
If you plan arrive at the international airport of San Jose, a pre-booked transfer van is the cheapest method to get to your hotel or resort. For last minute travelers shuttle vans that charge per person and stop at various resorts can be found and booked at the airport paid with or without prior reservation.
To pre-book a private transportation from the airport in San Jose there are a couple of re-known companies providing these services.
If you rent a car in Mexico, you do need third party liability. Be sure to book this online before you arrive at the rental car company as they will charge you a higher rate. To get to downtown, you can take the main road, or a toll road which is a $2.50 USD charge or 31 pesos per auto.
Los Cabos can de reached by the Transpeninsular Highway.
The road connecting San Jose del Cabo and Cabo Pulmo along the east road cape has some beautiful views and beaches with nice surfing spots. It's possible to take a day trip or even spend a few nights on the road exploring a different side of Cabo far from the touristy resorts
Los Claros, Calle Boulevard Antonio , Cabo San Lucas. A local taco place with good fish. Get fish grilled or a la plancha and try the smoked marlin fish. They accept cash only.
Taqueria Rossy, Carret Transport Km 33, San Jose Del Cabo. A good fish place with air conditioning, good prices, and accepts credit cards.
You can choose to visit - Todos Santos a small town about an hour and a half north.
Tourism Observer
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