Mexico: Los Cabos & Coffee with Frida
Cabo San Lucas…. I had been warned that it is very touristy. Yup. Semi-fortunately, I had signed up for a 2-1/2 hour jaunt to fairly-nearby San José del Cabo, about 40 minutes up the road from the coast. The ride out could be titled ‘Here are all the time share communities stretching from Cabo San Lucas to San José del Cabo.’ Dozens. One after the other. They at least backed on the sea, but that was their only redeeming value. Each one was uglier than the last. Many had been built since Hurricane Odile in 2014, ‘the strongest storm ever to hit Mexico’s southern Baja California peninsula’ (wiki). These are my ‘Impressions of San José del Cabo.’
Tendering in to town, mid-afternoon. Note the yacht, one of many.
San José del Cabo was billed as Cabo San Lucas’ sister city, with ‘charming pink church, inviting town square and low adobe homes [that] invoke a colonial flair.’ The church is small — and not pink. The town square was under re-construction (since Odile), the low adobe homes were turned into shops, but 80% of them were closed because it was a holiday! With a bus ride out there, a bus ride back, and only one hour to spend in San José, many people just found a cantina and had a cerveza.
I walked around and took pictures, so it was definitely NOT a lost day. [You be the judge.] But hardly a ‘shore excursion’ that most people would write home about. Viking passengers outnumbered inhabitants by around 50:1. The shopkeepers, cantina operators (those who had opened on the holiday) and three Mexican people in the little church were the only locals I saw. Oh, and a young man sitting on a bench playing a ukulele.
We now have two days at sea before landing in LA on Thursday. I will visit Italophile friends one day, and my Nash cousin Joan and her husband the next day. On Friday, hundreds of passengers disembark and 300+ more passengers move onboard and we’ll all be in the same boat till London. Which means the lines at the World Café Gelato station will be that much longer! #
