South Baja (December 2001)

Los Frailes/Cabo Pulmo (East Cape), 6 nights
Todos Santos, 1 night
La Paz, 2 nights
San Jose Del Cabo, 1 night

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Recommended Lodging
East Cape: Villa Los Frailes
Cabo Corridor: Cabo Surf Hotel
La Paz: Posada Santa Fe
San Jose Del Cabo: Hotel El Encanto Inn

By: Scott Roberts

The terrorists were reaping havoc in the travel world.  Baja was recovering from hurricane Juliet which cut off food and water supplies, destroyed roads, and devastated many homes.  Sounds like a good time to go to Baja.  As it turns out, it was.  We were able to get deep discounts everywhere we stayed, the roads are all drivable, the food and water situation has been resolved.  Aside from extra security checks at the airports, a few small road detours, and the complete lack of tourists, everything seems to be moving right along in Baja.

So off we went, my wife Cherie and me, from Seattle, and our friends Chris and Hala from Portland.  We arrived at the airport 2.5 hours early (as requested) for our 7:37 am flight.  This turned out to be about 1.5 hours too much.  Luckily we had some free board room passes and were able to get some breakfast and relax for a while.  We were able to upgrade to first class on the way down using some credit card vouchers, but Chris and Hala had to rough it in coach.  The flight was fine.  The bloody marys were nice.  I shuttled back some booze to our friends in coach as well.

We prearranged a car rental before we left, but didn't commit to anything.  This turned out to be a good thing.  Approximately six car rental agencies are right next to the baggage claim.  All the major players are there as are a few smaller outfits.  We just went down the line and asked them their rates for the car we wanted.  This seems to be standard practice, so don't be shy about bartering.  Thrifty gave us a good rate, but I wanted to check the other rates first.  She immediately took about $100 off what she originally quoted.  We went down the line, and nobody could beat that price.  We ended up going with full insurance, and saved about $150 off of the uninsured rate we were quoted on the pre-booked rental.  I read up a little on rental cars in Mexico.  Apparently you can get into a bit of trouble if you don't have Mexican insurance.  We decided on the full insurance just for piece of mind, but I bet you can get away with less.  We went with a 4 door pickup because we had a lot of gear to haul and the roads in Baja are a bit rough.  It was the perfect choice.  The total price after tax and insurance for 10 days was about $800.  I slapped the DiveAtlas.com magnets on the doors and we were ready to go.  There are several good maps online at LosCabosGuide.com.  This will help get you acquainted with the area.  If you are going, be sure to pick up a good guide book or two.  We found the Moon Handbook on Cabo to be the most comprehensive.  The Lonely Planet guide book had some good information, but it was a little light on the East Cape information.  The Lonely Planet Diving and Snorkeling Guide provided a good overview of what to expect, but it lacked any specific details that would enable you to do any diving on your own.  It does give you a starting point for asking questions though.  If you are planning to learn to surf, you might want to give Learn to Surf a quick read.  It's for the ultimate beginner.

Our first destination was Villa Los Frailes.  Los Frailes is on the East Cape, directly East of the airport and about 1.5 hours away.  Bob from Villa Los Frailes met us at the Thrifty rental agency to show us to the grocery store and the villa.  We threw our gear in the pickup and headed south to the grocery store just north of San Jose Del Cabo.  We stocked up on beer, margarita makings, and food for the 6 days and began our journey to the villa.  If you are looking for a rundown of the different grocery options check out the Los Cabos Guide to Good Eating.

We took the north route through La Ribera.  It's paved most of the way, and the dirt road was in pretty good condition.  Los Frailes is way out in the middle of nowhere.  It's just about as far as you can get away from major development when it comes to the Los Cabos region.  You could get to Villa Los Frailes using the north road in any type of vehicle.  There is a tiny grocery store, bar, rental houses, a small resort, and couple of dive shops in Cabo Pulmo which is about 10 minutes to the north.  There are rental houses in a few locations to the north and to the south, but for the most part it's undeveloped.  La Ribera (45 minutes north) is the closest gas station, so get gas where you can.  The south road was drivable, and it was fun to do once.  It's pretty, but definitely not the quickest or most enjoyable road to drive on.  There were a few spots that may have been tough for vehicles with low clearance.  The DiveAtlas.com truck managed fine though.  From what I hear, the road conditions change quite often, so check with some locals before heading off in any particular direction.  They say that you shouldn't drive at night, but we did.  We really didn't have a choice because of our flight time, but just be careful.  There are some unexpected bumps, and large cows, bulls, donkeys and pigs will appear out of nowhere.  One of those cows could do serious damage.  Locals will typically flash their lights to warn you of upcoming animals.  Speed bumps are signed but aren't marked very well.  Despite what I read about crooked cops, we found them to be nothing but helpful on our entire trip. 

After the long bumpy ride, we were greeted by Ramón at Villa Los Frailes.  Ramón is the live in caretaker.  He doesn't speak much English, but he can understand what you are saying most of the time.  From what we could tell, he is pretty much there to keep the place running, and help you out with anything you need help with.  The villa exceeded our expectations in every way.  It has a huge living room and kitchen, 4 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, pool, hot tub, gas BBQ, and even a separate fridge for your beers.  It is built on a sand dune just off the beach.  The is a small all-inclusive hotel about 1 km down the beach, and a few homes about 1 km in the other direction.  Other than that, Villa Los Frailes has the whole bay to itself.  See pictures of the Villa below.

Spectucular view of the bay and the Sea of Cortez	Desert flowers	Outdoor hallway to bedrooms	The bathroom. They are huge.	Small bedroom. There are two of these.
Living room and entertainment center	Pool and hot tub	Kitchen	View from the South	Entry way
From the road side	Nice architectural accents	Evenings by the pool	View of the bay from the North. Bahia Los Frailes in foreground.	View to the North

As you can see, the place is spectacular.  In addition to top notch accommodations.  The rental price comes with a caretaker, maid service every other day (although it only came once in the 6 nights we were there), several sea kayaks, wind surfers (didn't try them), two aluminum boats with 25hp outboard motors, satellite TV, and CD changer.  We received a deeply discounted rate due to the turmoil in the world and the recent hurricane.  The promise of an extensive trip report didn't hurt either.  I would come back at full price, but we would need more people to make it affordable.  There were a few problems with our stay, but the positives far outweighed the negatives.  The hot tub and pool heater were not working.  If this is important to you, you should check to make sure it's fixed.  The BBQ didn't work very well.  We lit it manually for the first 5 nights, but we couldn't get it to work on the last night.  Hopefully they'll get a new one. 

Note from the owner: "The hot tub and BBQ were repaired and in operation shortly after Christmas, trying to keep everything running in Mexico can be doubly difficult, and we are working to have redundant systems for all critical items."

The setting, the accommodations, and the amenities were all fabulous.  The rooms are gigantic.  The bedrooms have huge showers and huge walk in closets.  The location is absolutely perfect if you are looking to get away for a while.  If you want nightlife, you'd better go to Cabo San Lucas.

The weather in Los Frailes was great.  Highs ranged from probably 75 to 85 degrees.  It got a little cool at night, but nothing that a long sleeve shirt and some light pants couldn't handle.  In December, it sounds like about half the days are windy, and half are calm.  We had 2 windy days, followed by 3 calm day, returning to windy on our last day.  The weather patterns vary throughout the year, summer being the hottest and calmest, peaking in August, and winter being the windiest and coolest, peaking in January.  On windy days, you can still find OK snorkeling along the north shore of the bay.  It's protected from the winds, but Cabo Pulmo is not.

Calm Day, Mermaid Bay, Cabo Pulmo

Rough Day

The best snorkeling and diving is up in Cabo Pulmo, home to the only living coral reef on the west coast of Mexico.  You can drive 10 minutes north to get there, or you can use the aluminum boats or sea kayaks at Villa Los Frailes.  We had some great snorkeling at Mermaid Bay (Playa La Serrita on the map).  This bay was about a 15 minute boat ride from the villa.  There we observed eel, turtles, various puffer fish, schools of Barracuda, and numerous other kinds of tropical fish.  Visibility was about 50 ft.  Water temperature was probably about 77 degrees.  It was perfect with a 3mm wet suit, but you could get by with nothing.  About half way between Cabo Pulmo and Villa Los Frailes is a sea lion colony.  We took the aluminum boat their twice, once for snorkeling, and once for diving.  The sea lions are extremely friendly.  They seem excited when you come to swim with them.  They are swimming all around you, blowing bubbles and barking in your face.  Stay upwind of their rock if possible, because they smell pretty bad.  We also dove El Isoltes off of the aluminum boat.  This was a very nice dive, teaming with marine life.  The usual tropicals were there, as were several large eels and an impressive vertical wall of coral.  I highly recommend this dive.  Just go down to about 70 feet and slowly circle your way back up to the surface.  It couldn't be easier to navigate.  Below are some pictures from the dives at the sea lion colony and Los Isoltes.

The mellow one checking us out	strange fish	sea lion pups	unique orange fish	The playful pup
Sleepy	sea lion bulls	The intimidator	blowing bubbles in our face	Snorkeling with sea lions
Angel fish	The sea lion dive also has fish	bigger fish at the island	beautiful coral	Eel with octopus leg on it's nose
rock fish	colorful groupers	Flame angel standing out in a crowd	porcuipine puffer hiding
puffer	lots of caves for hiding	Cabo Pulmo Divers boat dive	Sea lion cruising the reef

In addition to diving on our own, there are three dive shops in Cabo Pulmo that you can choose from if guided diving is more your cup of tea.  All the diving is from pangas which are basic fiberglass boats with outboard motors.  Cabo Pulmo Beach Resort has a dive shop.  This is where we rented our tanks from.  Rafael was extremely helpful telling us where to dive and anything else you needed to know about the area.  Unfortunately we didn't get the opportunity to dive with them.  Our one experience with boat diving was with Cabo Pulmo Divers.  We booked a two tank morning dive on a moderately windy day.  The guide was sick, so we opted to just dive on our own with pre-dive briefings.  The seas were very rough.  Our first dive was at El Bajo De Los Meros.  This reef is the most northeasterly dive on the map above.  Is a reef at a depth of about 65'.  It's about 35' wide and 300' long.  There are several cracks, crevices and overhangs that support all sorts of marine life and coral.  There were huge grouper and pargo hanging out on the fringes of the reef.  The highlight was probably the schools of porcupine puffers.  I have never seen porcupine puffers in schools out in the open like this.  They were everywhere, and they were just hovering in place, right out in the open.  Visibility was only about 30 ft.  The swells got the best of us on our surface interval, and we weren't feeling too good before the 2nd dive.  The 2nd dive was at El Cantil.  This reef structure was more varied than our first dive, with small canyons everywhere.  The coral on this dive was more impressive than at El Bajo.  Unfortunately, the air was not too good.  We both felt a little nauseous about 15 minutes into the dive and decided to go up a little early with about 1200 lbs left over.  We didn't feel too good the whole way in to shore.  The people at Cabo Pulmo Divers were very nice, but the bad air wasn't very pleasant.  Give Cabo Pulmo Beach Resort a try.  The other dive shop was Pepe's Dive Shop.  They are supposedly top notch, unfortunately Pepe was out of town during our stay.

Cabo Pulmo Beach Resort dive shop	Cabo Pulmo Divers	Pepe's Dive Shop	Typical panga. Most do not have shade cover.

Just down the beach from Villa Los Frailes is a small fishing encampment.  Locals spend the nights here and take off fishing in their pangas in the morning.  They come back at about 2pm with tons of fish.  They load these fish in trucks and ship them out of town.  Watching the pangas return to shore is quite an event.  They time the waves perfectly and head full speed towards the sandy shore.  It's an easy way to beach the boat, but unfortunately fish scrap scavenging pelicans are often run over by the high speed pangas.  Ramón helped us buy a large ahi tuna from one of the fish trucks one afternoon.  The entire tuna fed 4 people for 2 dinners and a lunch, and set us back about $11.  You can't beat that.  Diving, snorkeling, walks on the beach, hanging out on the deck reading, cooking up meals, drinking beers or margaritas, day trips to San Jose Del Cabo, and visiting Tito's bar were enough to keep us busy for 6 nights.  Any more than that might get a little slow, but there's nothing wrong with that.  Villa Los Frailes is a perfect place to sit back and unwind.

The next stop was Todos Santos on the Pacific Coast.  We took the North road and then headed South through San Jose Del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas.  The trip takes about 3.5 hours.  The cactus and the hills set against the blue Pacific Ocean makes for quite a pleasant drive.  We stopped at Playa Los Cerritos and Playa San Pedrito to check out the surfing possibilities.  San Pedrito is supposedly better surfing, but it's geared more towards the advance surfer.  The beach is a little rocky.  There were some very run down accommodations at San Pedrito, but we decided to head to Todos Santos for the night since we were planning on surfing at Los Cerritos anyway.  The added benefit to Los Cerritos is that you can rent boards on the beach for $10/day. 

We had no reservations for the remainder of our trip, and as we learned later, it pays to take your time and shop around.  We stopped at a place called Jane's Place and were a bit tired of driving so we decided to just stay there for one night.  After all, how bad could one night be.  It looked very nice at first.  It had a nice little landscaped courtyard and was only $50/night.  Tina, the owner asked that we pay first because she was leaving early in the morning.  I suspect that she was worried we would leave in the middle of the night.  There were small spiders in the bed which sloped to the middle, dead bugs on the sheets, and a thick layer of grime throughout the bathroom.  The palapa roof didn't provide any sound insulation from the loud neighborhood.  They have a dog, and so do half of the people in the neighborhood.  These dogs like to bark all night.  After the dogs went to sleep, we had about 1 hour of sleep before the neighbor's rooster kicked in.  Like the dogs, this rooster cued all of the roosters in the neighborhood.  In addition to these wonderful sounds, Jane's place is a few blocks off the main highway right on the slowdown into town.  Semi trucks would use jake braking to slow down making a loud Bap bap bap bap bap bap buh buh sound. I actually began to incorporate some of these sounds into my nightmares.  It was a truly miserable night.  We should have shopped around for another place to stay.  I'm not quite sure what we were thinking.  I was very happy to get up and go surfing.

The surf at Los Cerritos was pretty nice.  There were two separate breaks at the beach.  One catered to beginners while the other was more advanced.  The people we encountered were very helpful and didn't seem to mind beginners trying to catch a wave or two.  I was able to get up a couple of times, but I don't think I'll be turning pro any time soon.  It was fun, and definitely worth a shot. 

Todos Santos is home to a lot of ex-patriot Californian artists.  We were hoping to pick of one or two paintings for back home.  As a whole, I wasn't too impressed with the art in Todos Santos.  I found the galleries in San Jose Del Cabo to be much better.  It was worth a drive through though, and our opinions may have been swayed by our poor accommodations.  During our stay we stopped by Carnitas Barajas for some fish and shrimp tacos.  They were very good, and reasonably priced.  We also ate at Restaurant Las Fuentes which was pretty average.  The best meal we had was probably at Cafe Santa Fe.  That had some fabulous marlin sashimi, good calzones, and unbelievable lobster ravioli.  It was a bit expensive, but worth it.  Todos Santos is a small town, and has a nice Mexican small town feel to it.  In the evening, the locals were gathered around a mini soccer field near the church watching some teenagers play a strange brand of soccer with little goals the size of lacrosse goals.  The town square is pretty, and there are a lot of shops to explore with dogs hanging out in windows in the shade of the storefronts.  Unfortunately, shopping isn't my cup of tea and I was bored with Todos Santos pretty quickly.  The one piece of art we liked turned out to be the gallery owners personal piece and was not for sale.    Below are some pictures from Todos Santos.

Todos Santos church	Dog in the window of a Todos Santos shop	The surf at San Pedrito	San Pedrito was apparently hit hard by the hurricane	After a long day trying to surf
Run down hotel at San Pedrito	Cat in Todos Santos

After trying our hand at surfing it was off to La Paz.  I had read reports of the crooked police officers nailing people just outside of Todos Santos on the way to La Paz.  Again, we had no problems whatsoever.  The drive takes a little over an hour.  You can immediately tell that La Paz is a big city by Baja standards.  We made our way through the strip malls and traffic light headed for the Malecon.  The Malecon is one of the highlights of the city.  It is a boulevard that runs right along the palm fringed shoreline.  The beach isn't for swimming as the water is fairly polluted much like other large city waterfronts.  It is pretty none the less, and the Malecon is home to several restaurants and hotels.  In general, you pay more for food and lodging the closer you get to the water. 

We learned from our experience in Todos Santos and decided to check out several hotels before making our decision.  We visited Los Arcos, which was right in the middle of all the action on the Malecon.  It was pretty nice, but nothing special.  It seemed a bit busy and slightly overpriced at $85/night.  Next stop was Hotel La Posada de Engelbert.  The grounds were very nice and it was a lot more secluded being South of downtown and on the water.  It seemed a bit past it's prime, and a lot of older clientele seem to stay here.  We wanted to stay closer to town.  La Concha Beach Resort North of town was fairly nice, but again seemed expensive and a bit out of the way.  We ended up finding a gem just North of the downtown action, but right on the Malecon and within walking distance to everything.  Posada Santa Fe was by far the nicest place we visited, included a full breakfast, and was discounted to $65/night.  It wasn't in any of the books we brought along.  This just goes to show you that while books are very valuable, it doesn't hurt to explore a little.  Each room is beautifully decorated with Mexican furniture and art finer than in most nice homes.  The rooms are large and clean, and the bathrooms include impressive stone tubs and showers.  Here are some pictures of Posada Santa Fe.

Office	Nice bathrooms	Mexican art	More art	Posada Santa Fe
Fine furniture	Room decorations	Dining patio	Dining patio overlooking waterfront	Window in bathroom
Gecko	House cats	Stairs leading to dining room

We only had two nights here, and our plan was to go on one boat dive with The Cortez Club.  They work out of the La Concha Beach Resort.  We didn't want to pay the money or spend the time if we couldn't dive El Bajo and have a possibility of seeing the schooling hammerheads.  Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate and we didn't get a chance to dive La Paz.  I felt bad because the people at The Cortez Club were very nice, but we weren't up for another long, rough boat ride on our short stay in La Paz.  We knew it was hit and miss in December, and that was the risk we decided to take.  We were content with our diving in Los Frailes and Cabo Pulmo, and this gave us an opportunity to relax and explore La Paz a little bit.

For the most part we explored La Paz by foot.  The town was bustling with holiday shoppers at the street fair, but tourism was dead.  We walked by several empty restaurants, and the hotels were at very low occupancy levels.  We walked into the town square (Plaza Constitucion) by accident one evening.  Many locals were hanging around enjoying the pre Christmas activities and enjoying the decorations and lights.  Again, not many tourists were there, and it was fun to try to mix in to the local scene.  Unfortunately, the 6'3" white dude probably didn't blend in too well.

There are several restaurants throughout the city.  We ate breakfast at the Posada Santa Fe every morning and it was pretty good.  You had a choice of Huevos Rancheros, French toast, or an omelet.  We ate Chinese food at the Restaurant Dragon.  It was fair with large portions, but the Margaritas were terrible.  Below the restaurant is a coffee and dessert shop called Caffe Gourmet.  They served huge dessert cappuccinos and blended ice coffee drinks that were very good.  This place seemed to be the only place in the city that was crowded.  It was packed with locals in their early 20s.  We also ate at Bismark II which is located a bit in from the waterfront.  We opted for a $4 taxi ride instead of walking the 10-14 blocks in the dark.  The service was fast and friendly, and lobster seemed to be their specialty.  We had lobster stuffed Chile Relenos, lobster burritos, and a lobster stuffed baked potatoes.  The relenos were very good, the burritos OK, and the potato not so good.

Our last day was spent at the beach.  We decided to drive north.  There are several beaches up this way, and we eventually decided on the deserted Playa el Tecolote.  It was a nice long white sand beach with some not so good snorkeling along the South end of the beach.  As usual, there was no one there.  Below are some additional pictures around La Paz.

Sunset from the hotel	More sunset	Christmas lights	The Malecon	Town Square
more from the square	The main dock	Beaches up North	More beaches	Panga sunset
Always changing

Overall, La Paz was fun to visit, but I don't think there is enough to keep me bust for more than a few days.  The sunsets are incredible, and I suppose you could do some kayaking and exploring of some of the close by islands.  This would probably be more than enough to fill up 3 or 4 more days in La Paz.  Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate during our short stay so it was off to San Jose Del Cabo for our last night.

On our day trip to San Jose Del Cabo we had explored many of the shops and art galleries.  We found some great pottery at reasonable prices.  We also found a few art pieces that we liked.  Most of the shops along the main strip sell garbage, but around the corner are several nice shops and galleries.  Just head to the corner of Merellos and Obregon and start looking around.  Galeria de Wentworth Porter has some nice work, but it's pricey.  We visited Pez Gordo, Casa Paulina, and Arte Contemporaneo and Antiques.  I can't keep them straight, but one had a nice painting we were going to buy, but they were closed all day.

For our last night, we did the hotel tour again.  Again, everything was empty.  The Tropicana Inn was right on the strip, and was nicely laid out with a pool in the courtyard.  The rooms seemed a little dated and in average condition.  We didn't feel it was worth the $85 price.  Hotel El Encanto Inn seemed to be the best option in town.  This Mexican colonial style hotel was located over near the good art galleries.  Rooms were huge, clean, and looked quite comfortable.  There was no pool, and the rates were $80.  We decided to check out some of the hotels along the water.  The first stop was Presidente Inter-Continental Los Cabos.  This was an all-inclusive that was discounted to $110/ea per night because it was so slow.  The resort was big and the beach and pool area seemed nice.  The rooms were neglected, and the dead cockroaches on the patio were a turn off though.  We migrated down to the East end of the Hotel corridor between San Jose Del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas.  There we found the place to stay.  The Cabo Surf Hotel is a beautiful 16 suite hotel located right on Playa Acapulquito.  After negotiating a nice discounted price for their best room, we were content to hang out at the surf hotel our final night.  Palya Acapulquito has a decent surf break, but it's a bit rocky.  Apparently the break is better during the summer months, but it looked like you could catch some decent wave right out in front of the hotel.  Our room overlooked the pool, hot tub, and beach, with Cabo San Lucas in the distance.  We were the only guests in the hotel.  We had some excellent tuna for dinner accompanied by a wasabi soy dip.  The pina coladas were great, and the margaritas were some of the best I've had.  They didn't hold back on the tequila either.  The rooms were large with large, clean bathrooms, and huge patios for enjoying your breakfast in the morning.  It was the perfect place to end this great trip.  Below are some more pictures of San Jose del Cabo and the Cabo Surf Hotel.

Church downtown	Town Square	Restaurant on the strip	Shops on the strip	More town square
Railings in a park in Cabo San Lucas	a street in SJD	SJD scene	View from room Cabo Surf Hotel	looking the other way
Room interior	bathroom	Looking towards Cabo San Lucas	Breakfast on the patio

Overall, I would say Los Cabos is a great place to visit.  You might get some better diving if you go during the summer when it's calmer along the Sea of Cortez, but it can also get quite hot during those time.  A good bet might be to go in late fall (watch for hurricanes) or early summer.  Regardless, I think Villa Los Frailes was the highlight of the trip.  This place is incredible, and having access to your own boat to dive and snorkel from and being 4 minutes from a sea lion colony is ideal.  Just be prepared to be isolated and don't expect any night life you can't create on your own.  It's big enough for a couple of families to stay, and would be a lot of fun with 8-10 people there to share the cost of the rental.  La Paz was different, and it was interested being in a large city like that and not seeing many tourists.  I would have liked to explore the islands and the diving more, but don't know if I'll ever make the trip again to do it.  Todos Santos was a bit overrated.  It's claim is that it's not influenced by tourism, but I saw more gringos here than any place we traveled.  The art was not too impressive.  It is worth a night, just don't stay where we did.  The surfing was good fun.  San Jose del Cabo was a nice walking town.  It's worth a night or two, and is close to Cabo San Lucas if you want to hit the party scene. 

If you want to do the full circle tour like we did, be prepared to do some heavy driving.  Approximate travel times in hours are as follows;