Mexican Holiday

Late February 2010 took us to Cabo San Lucas at the southern tip of Baja California. We visited our friends, Gail and Paul Murphy at their vacation home, a beautiful site overlooking the Pacific Ocean. We enjoyed a great week, visiting local sites and generally just enjoying the beauty and weather in this gorgeous part of the world. Here’s our holiday in pictures.

Gail and Paul took us to a local favorite, The Office, a sprawling, beach-side bar near the center of Cabo San Lucas. Looking through the bar you can see the harbor with its daily cruise ship anchored just offshore. The Los Cabos area is a popular stop for the cruising public.

Here’s Paul enjoying an integral part of our lunch at The Office.

The beach in the downtown area of Cabo San Lucas. The photo was taken just in front of The Office and includes a good sampling of the beach-goers, a mix of tourists and hawkers. The beach vendors offer just about anything imaginable; cigars, jewellery, t-shirts, hats, pottery and so on. Security staff for the beach-front bars make a perfunctory effort to keep the hawkers at bay so you can enjoy your refreshments in peace. But, once you venture out onto the beach, you’re fair game.

We signed on for a boat tour of the harbor to visit the well known, natural attraction, Lands End. Along the way we passed the cruise ship of the day. These ships arrive in the morning and depart in the early evening, allowing its passengers a half-day to explore the area. From Murphy’s home we could see them on their way to or coming from Los Angeles, typically.

Land’s End, our destination after we left The Office. It’s a short boat ride and upon arrival there are numerous amusement choices. We simply toured and photographed, but there are great beaches popular with sunbathers and snorkelers. We saw some colorful fish in the shallow waters of the beaches and some seals relaxing on the rocks. In the center of this photo you can see a hole in the rock, referred to as El Arco (presumably “the arch” in Spanish). The name Land’s End accurately portrays this as the very end of the Baja peninsula, the very end of the cape, Cabo San Lucas.

Lands End marks the dividing point between the Sea of Cortez on the east side of Baja California and the Pacific Ocean on the west. The rush of water seen here is water from the Pacific gushing through an opening in the rock and colliding with water from the Sea of Cortez, moving toward the opening.

Here are those seals. Not too dynamic at this time of the day.

One last view of Land’s End, looking westward toward El Arco. The water is crystal clear and this is an accurate depiction of its colour. Beautiful!

We took a trip north to the town of Todos Santos, the locale for the legendary Hotel California. Long believed to be the inspiration for the Eagles hit song of the same name, it appears that this may be more legend than fact.

Located across the street from the Hotel California, it is part of a small mall, also named Tequila Sunrise. Murphys tell us that until recently, the mall was very much in the business of selling Eagles memorabilia, capitalizing no doubt on the legend of the Hotel California and making good use of an other Eagles song title, Tequila Sunrise.

Gail and Paul took us to a charming little inn, just outside of Todos Santos for lunch. Built and operated by a Swiss Couple, it is beautifully designed and   serves as a gallery for the owner’s art. She also operates an art store in the town of Todos Santos, but we didn’t succeed in finding it. We enjoyed our lunch and a glass of wine at the inn’s restaurant, El Gusto!

Paul captured this charming trio during our lunch at El Gusto! (A name like that deserves the exclamation point).

We didn’t need to venture from Casa Murphy to enjoy magnificent scenery. Perched on a mountainside, overlooking the Pacific Ocean guests of the Murphys are treated to a never-ending series of jaw-dropping sunrises, sunsets and daylight panoramas. I was fortunate to capture this scene of the sun just dipping below the horizon. Seconds later, it was out of sight.

Not long afterward, I took this night scene of the community and beach below the Murphy’s house. The homes immediately below are part of the Montecristo community, further below is the resort complex of Pueblo Bonita, Sunset Beach.

Photographed from the front deck, Cabo Falso and its lighthouse, Faro Nuevo is a prominent landmark.

Rolande and Gail savour a glass of wine and enjoy the sunset, viewed from the infinity pool.

The infinity pool interested me as a photo subject. I managed to get a number of shots of it and put a few of my favourites together as a gallery. You can find it on this site under “Galleries”.