Cabo San Lucas - Part One

I’ve decided that for the next couple of weeks I’ll bore you with some details, stories, and pictures of our cruise. I took over a thousands pictures on the trip. You have to love digital cameras.

The first port we stopped in was Cabo San Lucas. It’s a town of approximately 40,000 people most of which are retired. The town has two main industries – tourism and fishing. Cabo San Lucas is known for marlin fishing.

Five cruise lines stop at Cabo but there is no pier where ships can dock because of the shallow water. Once the ship stops, they bring out the floating pier.

People walk off the ship onto the floating pier then climb aboard a water tender, which takes you to shore.

There were over four thousand people on the ship, most of them wanting to go ashore. All the boats in this picture are water tenders getting ready to transport people. On the return trip I asked the tender captain how long it took to get everyone off the ship. He said it took less than forty-five minutes.

We knew very little about any of the places we stopped so we signed up for an excursion at each port. Each excursion took us to places we most likely would not have found on our own and the guides (here the lady in yellow) told us some interesting facts and tidbits about the area.

Every excursion stopped at a local church. It was interesting that the churches were open and no matter the time of day, people were inside worshipping and praying. This is the Parish of San Lucas, originally built in the 1730’s

Then we were taken to town center, the place where people gathered. There we were treated to homemade fruit popsicles. They were actually quite tasty. This is a picture of one of the tree sculptures in town center. I call it - the ultimate tree house.

We stopped at Mi Casa, an open-air restaurant, for chips, salsa, and what else – tequila. Here’s Char drinking tequila with salt and lime. The sample sizes are quite small, which was fine with us. Also, if you buy beer anywhere it comes in six-ounce bottles.

The final stop on our excursion was Cabo Wabo. This restaurant/bar was started by rock musician Sammy Hagar of Van Halen fame. Supposedly, Hagar named it that after watching a man stagger along the beach after a night of heavy drinking. Pictured with us is a couple we meet on the excursion, Dyle and Deb. They were also from Colorado.

All the excursions lasted between three and four hours leaving plenty of time to venture out on your own. While we walked most of the time, it was nice to know you had the option of taking a taxi.

The four of us decided to stop at Taco Loco for a bite to eat. I really wanted the Mexican Combo but not for $114. We decided to split the four taco deal – it was only $75. Okay, okay . . . the prices are in pesos and we weren’t very hungry. We got four tacos and two beers for $5.80. The tacos are served plain - just meat on a tortilla. Dyle and I went to the condiment area and doctored them up with some chili and lettuce. Something to remember if you go to Cabo San Lucas is the chili is opposite of that we have here. At home, the green chili is usually hot; there it’s mild and quite flavorful. In Cabo, the red chili is hot - really hot. Char is convinced it blistered the inside of her mouth.

Next up – adventures in the water taxi.