stevsgarage
Contributor
An E-mail special from American Airlines set me to thinking. As winter was setting in on a long year I made the decision that I couldnt make it to springbreak without warm sunshine and clear water. (We already had St. Maarten booked for springbreak) From Kansas City most good deals are to Cancun and the Yucatan but after many trips there I wanted something a little different. I had considered Cabo for a few years but the airfare during the times when I could travel always seemed high. (My wife is a teacher which locks us in to traveling during peak periods)
The deal gave us a choice between Fiesta Inn in San José and Fiesta Americana on the hotel corridor. Both were all-inclusive packages but the Fiesta Inn was a little cheaper and near town which I thought to be a plus for my wife who is not a diver but fluent in Spanish and enjoys dealing with Mexican trinket dealers. Also in my Yucatan mentality I figured all the resorts in the area would have deals with the area dive shops.
I have to say I had already made two mistakes here. The first one, few resorts outside of the Cabo marina area have any dealings with dive shops and getting from San José to dive shops in Cabo would be easy. It wasnt. It is about twenty-five miles from San José to the Marina in Cabo and the road is a nearly new four lane highway and in retrospect renting a car would have been the easiest way to get around. (There is even a big gravel parking lot behind the Marina with plenty of spaces in the morning, although it does get a little full in the afternoon.
Cab fair seemed a little high, again by Yucatan standards however I think most prices in Cabo are a little higher and most of the cabs in Cabo are modern full size vans unlike the little Japanese sedans I have become accustomed to. The price from San Jose to Cabo is about thirty-two dollars US plus tip each way.
I tried the bus to Cabo upon my arrival to check out how well it worked and to set up my diving for the next morning. First they have two bus systems in San José, inter city and town to town. To get to the bus to Cabo we had to walk nearly a mile up hill to a bus stop by the highway. Carrying my gear this could be a very unpleasant trip. Having just missed the bus we had to wait about twenty minutes for the next bus. Then with the stops the trip took about forty minutes. And then another long walk from the bus stop down to the Marina, where all the action is.
My wife, who is fluent in Spanish, found a young university student trying to earn extra money on Christmas break to be our driver for the week. He was also able to give us some personal insight on the area, since he grew up in Cabo and has seen it develop. I found him to be very helpful and reliable.
The Marina is sort of a lagoon on the western end of the Bahia (bay) of Cabo San Lucas. To the north and north-east side there are a few shops including the Hard Rock Café, a modern style mall and a couple of resorts. To the south there is a nice walkway with kiosk and sidewalk type vendors selling jewelry, large iguanas in Santa hats, glass bottom boat tours, fishing trip, and time shares. (I might add that most were not the overly pushy type I have met in other places, and after a couple of trips around the area they knew who you were and left you alone). South of this walkway was the large gravel parking lot. On the eastern corner was an area where tour groups meet and one of the cleanest public restrooms I have ever seen in Mexico. Beyond that there were a couple more souvenir shops and a secured area for duty free shops for cruise ship visitors. Then the area opened up into the bay and the long narrow peninsula known as Lands End with the famous Cabos arch marking the end of the Pacific and the beginning of the Sea of Cortez.
On the west side is the Resort Plaza las Glorias. (It was in the process of changing their name to Costa Real) It has a long strip of property on the Marina that they have developed into kind of a super strip mall that they rent to various restaurants, timeshare, fishing and whale watching expedition vendors, T shirt shops, jewelry stores, and most importantly dive shops. This is the place to be for any water sports in Cabo. With Sammy Hagars Cabo Wabo, The Hard Rock Café, and Squid Roe near by almost anything else, too.
On the Marina I located the dive shop I had chosen from the research I did on the Internet, although I didnt pre book any dives because of the uncertainty of my transportation. I was disappointed to find they didnt operate on Sunday which was to be my first day of diving on my short trip to Cabo so I took the short walk down the Marina to Lands End Diving were I made my plans for the next three days of diving.
I dont want anyone to think I didnt like the Fiesta Inn or San José. In fact I liked both a lot. The Fiesta Inn, a beach front property, is a little small in the way of resorts with only a few of the typical amenities. Swimming pool/snack bar and they claimed to have an activities director although I never actually saw one, and that is about the extent of it. There is a nice indoor/outdoor restaurant over looking a beautiful well kept cactus garden with the Sea of Cortez as the back drop. Unlike many of the all-inclusive I have stayed at, they had a typical Mexican dishes on their buffets, and much to my surprise the pico de gallo actually had a little jalapeño in it. I can also say that the staff was very helpful and friendly as Ive come to expect in Mexican resorts.
San José is a small quiet little town with a lot going for it. All you have to do is stand in front of your resort and wave an arm at the first bus that comes by and for about fifty cents theyll take you to town (similar to Cancun). The downtown is a very quaint strip of divided road with beautiful landscaping down the center and nice center and church at the end. There are many typical jewelry and souvenir shops with a few nicer more upscale shops. They even have a Cabo Wabo merchandising outlet. You can also find several pharmacies and liquor stores and a variety of restaurants, including Italian and Chinese. There is even a near by language school here if you want to study Spanish total immersion style.
The beaches in most of the Cabo area are very wide and although the sand is not the coral white of the Caribbean, very beautiful. Unfortunately there are only a few beaches in the area that allow swimming because of strong undercurrents. The swimming beaches are Playa el Medano, Playa Santa Maria, Playa Chileno, and Lovers and Divorce Beach. Playa el Medano is the closest to San José. Lovers and Divorce Beach are on the Lands End peninsula where most of the diving takes place and Santa Maria and Chileno are good snorkeling sights and offer some diving, according to my guide book, although I never saw anyone diving when I was there.
Although Cabo has some world class diving they dont seem to be the diving mecca, as is the Yucatan. Some of this may have been that I was there the week before Christmas, a time usually a little slower for tourism than just after, but the people who travel there just dont seam to be interested as much, as you could tell from the lack of involvement by the resorts. Also the time of year I was there may have been a factor, although the water temperature was between 73 and 75 degrees, the morning air was down around 60 and the highs were only about 80.
Diving in Cabo was unique in that by being so close to the dive sights that they where able to come back to the marina for each surface interval. This meant that they could customize your dive package as you went along. They began dives at 9:30, 11:00 and 1:30, all you had to do was pick the times you wanted to dive to make a one, two or three tank dive. Back at the marina you could strip off your wet suit, use the very clean public restroom, barter with the side walk vendors, have a snack with your spouse and make the next dive refreshed and ready. They also included night dives but because of transportation I was not able to try any. They also give discounts for multi-tank, and multi-days of diving and as usual an added charge for credit cards so its best to bring cash.
I arrived early the next morning to get acquainted, and filled out the usual release forms. Then we stacked my gear on the cart with the rental gear and headed around the marina to Lands Ends divers slip. The small dive boat (El Guera) was well equipped for diving and had a large Yamaha engine. This setup proved very good for quickly maneuvering around the wakes of the large fishing boats, yachts, and whale watching party cruisers in the bay.
The deal gave us a choice between Fiesta Inn in San José and Fiesta Americana on the hotel corridor. Both were all-inclusive packages but the Fiesta Inn was a little cheaper and near town which I thought to be a plus for my wife who is not a diver but fluent in Spanish and enjoys dealing with Mexican trinket dealers. Also in my Yucatan mentality I figured all the resorts in the area would have deals with the area dive shops.
I have to say I had already made two mistakes here. The first one, few resorts outside of the Cabo marina area have any dealings with dive shops and getting from San José to dive shops in Cabo would be easy. It wasnt. It is about twenty-five miles from San José to the Marina in Cabo and the road is a nearly new four lane highway and in retrospect renting a car would have been the easiest way to get around. (There is even a big gravel parking lot behind the Marina with plenty of spaces in the morning, although it does get a little full in the afternoon.
Cab fair seemed a little high, again by Yucatan standards however I think most prices in Cabo are a little higher and most of the cabs in Cabo are modern full size vans unlike the little Japanese sedans I have become accustomed to. The price from San Jose to Cabo is about thirty-two dollars US plus tip each way.
I tried the bus to Cabo upon my arrival to check out how well it worked and to set up my diving for the next morning. First they have two bus systems in San José, inter city and town to town. To get to the bus to Cabo we had to walk nearly a mile up hill to a bus stop by the highway. Carrying my gear this could be a very unpleasant trip. Having just missed the bus we had to wait about twenty minutes for the next bus. Then with the stops the trip took about forty minutes. And then another long walk from the bus stop down to the Marina, where all the action is.
My wife, who is fluent in Spanish, found a young university student trying to earn extra money on Christmas break to be our driver for the week. He was also able to give us some personal insight on the area, since he grew up in Cabo and has seen it develop. I found him to be very helpful and reliable.
The Marina is sort of a lagoon on the western end of the Bahia (bay) of Cabo San Lucas. To the north and north-east side there are a few shops including the Hard Rock Café, a modern style mall and a couple of resorts. To the south there is a nice walkway with kiosk and sidewalk type vendors selling jewelry, large iguanas in Santa hats, glass bottom boat tours, fishing trip, and time shares. (I might add that most were not the overly pushy type I have met in other places, and after a couple of trips around the area they knew who you were and left you alone). South of this walkway was the large gravel parking lot. On the eastern corner was an area where tour groups meet and one of the cleanest public restrooms I have ever seen in Mexico. Beyond that there were a couple more souvenir shops and a secured area for duty free shops for cruise ship visitors. Then the area opened up into the bay and the long narrow peninsula known as Lands End with the famous Cabos arch marking the end of the Pacific and the beginning of the Sea of Cortez.
On the west side is the Resort Plaza las Glorias. (It was in the process of changing their name to Costa Real) It has a long strip of property on the Marina that they have developed into kind of a super strip mall that they rent to various restaurants, timeshare, fishing and whale watching expedition vendors, T shirt shops, jewelry stores, and most importantly dive shops. This is the place to be for any water sports in Cabo. With Sammy Hagars Cabo Wabo, The Hard Rock Café, and Squid Roe near by almost anything else, too.
On the Marina I located the dive shop I had chosen from the research I did on the Internet, although I didnt pre book any dives because of the uncertainty of my transportation. I was disappointed to find they didnt operate on Sunday which was to be my first day of diving on my short trip to Cabo so I took the short walk down the Marina to Lands End Diving were I made my plans for the next three days of diving.
I dont want anyone to think I didnt like the Fiesta Inn or San José. In fact I liked both a lot. The Fiesta Inn, a beach front property, is a little small in the way of resorts with only a few of the typical amenities. Swimming pool/snack bar and they claimed to have an activities director although I never actually saw one, and that is about the extent of it. There is a nice indoor/outdoor restaurant over looking a beautiful well kept cactus garden with the Sea of Cortez as the back drop. Unlike many of the all-inclusive I have stayed at, they had a typical Mexican dishes on their buffets, and much to my surprise the pico de gallo actually had a little jalapeño in it. I can also say that the staff was very helpful and friendly as Ive come to expect in Mexican resorts.
San José is a small quiet little town with a lot going for it. All you have to do is stand in front of your resort and wave an arm at the first bus that comes by and for about fifty cents theyll take you to town (similar to Cancun). The downtown is a very quaint strip of divided road with beautiful landscaping down the center and nice center and church at the end. There are many typical jewelry and souvenir shops with a few nicer more upscale shops. They even have a Cabo Wabo merchandising outlet. You can also find several pharmacies and liquor stores and a variety of restaurants, including Italian and Chinese. There is even a near by language school here if you want to study Spanish total immersion style.
The beaches in most of the Cabo area are very wide and although the sand is not the coral white of the Caribbean, very beautiful. Unfortunately there are only a few beaches in the area that allow swimming because of strong undercurrents. The swimming beaches are Playa el Medano, Playa Santa Maria, Playa Chileno, and Lovers and Divorce Beach. Playa el Medano is the closest to San José. Lovers and Divorce Beach are on the Lands End peninsula where most of the diving takes place and Santa Maria and Chileno are good snorkeling sights and offer some diving, according to my guide book, although I never saw anyone diving when I was there.
Although Cabo has some world class diving they dont seem to be the diving mecca, as is the Yucatan. Some of this may have been that I was there the week before Christmas, a time usually a little slower for tourism than just after, but the people who travel there just dont seam to be interested as much, as you could tell from the lack of involvement by the resorts. Also the time of year I was there may have been a factor, although the water temperature was between 73 and 75 degrees, the morning air was down around 60 and the highs were only about 80.
Diving in Cabo was unique in that by being so close to the dive sights that they where able to come back to the marina for each surface interval. This meant that they could customize your dive package as you went along. They began dives at 9:30, 11:00 and 1:30, all you had to do was pick the times you wanted to dive to make a one, two or three tank dive. Back at the marina you could strip off your wet suit, use the very clean public restroom, barter with the side walk vendors, have a snack with your spouse and make the next dive refreshed and ready. They also included night dives but because of transportation I was not able to try any. They also give discounts for multi-tank, and multi-days of diving and as usual an added charge for credit cards so its best to bring cash.
I arrived early the next morning to get acquainted, and filled out the usual release forms. Then we stacked my gear on the cart with the rental gear and headed around the marina to Lands Ends divers slip. The small dive boat (El Guera) was well equipped for diving and had a large Yamaha engine. This setup proved very good for quickly maneuvering around the wakes of the large fishing boats, yachts, and whale watching party cruisers in the bay.
