Sunday, June 8, 2014

San José del Cabo

During the last week of May, my wife and I took a little trip down to Mexico. We found a good deal for a resort on Groupon, at an all-inclusive resort right on the ocean in the city of San José del Cabo. So we headed to the airport, looking forward to a week away. Our flight had us going to Dallas, then going onto the connecting flight to San José del Cabo. We went through the security line at the Little Rock airport in record time, I don't think there was even anyone else in line ahead of us. We soon boarded the plane, eagerly looking forward to landing in Mexico in a few hours time.

But Mother Nature and American Airlines had other plans for us. A storm was perched over Dallas, which shut down all of DFW Airport for a few hours. They let us walk back into the terminal after sitting on the plane for awhile, and there we waited until the storm moved past Dallas. When it finally did, and the airport reopened, our flight was delayed about three hours. Our connecting flight left on time, however. Which meant we got to spend the first night of our vacation in a romantic and lovely hotel just outside of the DFW airport.

We had a flight early the next morning, and finally landed at the San José del Cabo airport around Noon. It was annoying to lose a day of our vacation, but nice to finally get there. The city of San José del Cabo is located right on the very bottom of the Baja Peninsula, and has a population of around 70,000. We headed out to explore the city one night, when it was their weekly "Art Night." In the heart of San José del Cabo is an Arts District, surrounding the old Catholic Church, or the Misión de San José del Cabo Anuiti.

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The city of San José del Cabo was founded way back in 1730, but it served as an important port for the Spanish Navy long before then (there was a lot of pirates in the waters). The city was founded by the Spanish because they thought they needed a permanent city there to help quell the pirate raids. So some Jesuit Missionaries came in and founded the city, and built some of the old colonial architecture that still stands there.

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And another shot from one of the streets near the old church, in the Arts District. I wished that I had my tripod with me when I saw the sky.

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The beaches around San José del Cabo are rough, and swimming is highly discouraged due to "rogue waves" and riptides. But there are a few places where you can safely swim, one of those being a beach called Playa Palmilla. The surf is calm enough there to get out into the water, which I tentatively did for someone who isn't used to the ocean. This is the view of the beach, with what I assume are some extravagantly expensive homes sitting on the hill over the water.

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We walked further down the beach to a spot where some rocks were sitting defiantly in the constant waves. I did have the tripod with me this time, and I tried to take a few pictures as the waves crashed and swirled in between the rocks along the shore.

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This was a neat area, and was surprisingly empty considering this was such a touristy area.

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And one last shot from the beach, a four second exposure of the waves crashing into the rocks.

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