Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cabo San Lucas (popularly known as just 'Los Cabos' - along with San José
del Cabo - in Mexico and 'Cabo' in the United States) is a city at the
southern tip of the Baja California peninsula at Coordinates: 22°53′N
109°54′W / 22.88°N 109.90°W / 22.88; -109.90, in the municipality of Los
Cabos in the state of Baja California Sur, Mexico. As of the 2005 census,
the population was 56,811 people. It is the largest community in Los Cabos
municipality, and the second-largest in Baja California Sur, after La Paz.

Cabo San Lucas is quickly becoming a high-end holiday destination with a
number of resorts and timeshare clubs appearing along the coast between San
Lucas and San José del Cabo.

The word cabo (pl. cabos) translates into English as cape and San Lucas is
the Spanish name for Saint Luke. Thus Cabo San Lucas can be translated as
Cape Saint Luke and Los Cabos as The Capes.

History

It is thought that the first humans came to the southern end of the
peninsula 14,000 years ago. When the first Europeans arrived, they
encountered nomadic groups of Pericú surviving on a subsistence diet based
on the gathering of fruit, seeds, roots, and shellfish, as well as hunting
and fishing. They lived a Neolithic lifestyle, without metals

According to Hatsutaro's narrative contained in the book Kaigai Ibun when he
arrived at Cabo San Lucas on May 1842 there were only two houses and about
twenty inhabitants. However, American authors such as Henry Edwards and J.
Ross Browne claim that Cabo San Lucas' founder was an Englishman named
Thomas Ritchie, aka Old Tom Ritchie. J. Ross Browne says Ritchie arrived
there about 1828, while Henry Edwards says that he died in October 1874.

A fishing village began growing in the area when in 1917 an American company
built a floating platform to catch tuna and ten years later founded Compañía
de Productos Marinos S.A..

The Development Rush

The warmth of the waters at Cabo San Lucas, the beauty of its beaches, the
abundance of sport fish, and other qualities, motivated a great number of
both foreign and Mexican vacationers to spend their vacations in large-scale
tourist developments there, starting from 1974 when the Mexican government
created the infrastructure to turn Cabo San Lucas into one of the most
attractive centers for tourism in Mexico.

Cabo San Lucas has become an important vacation and spa destination, with a
great variety of sites of interest, and timeshares that have been built on
the coast between San Lucas and San José del Cabo. The distinctive El Arco
de Cabo San Lucas is a local landmark. Cabo San Lucas has the largest marlin
tournament in the world. In the winter, pods of whales can be observed in
the ocean. They bear their calves in the warm waters there.

Cabo San Lucas and San José del Cabo are served by Los Cabos International
Airport. The town is also a popular port of call for many cruise ships. Cabo
San Lucas has a small international airfield, which handles air traffic for
general aviation flights and air taxi service.

In 1990 rocker Sammy Hagar of Van Halen opened a nightclub and restaurant,
The Cabo Wabo Cantina, with the three other members of Van Halen. In the
mid-nineties he bought out the other owners, his band-mates, and assumed
complete ownership of the club. To this day it is one of the most popular
attractions in Cabo San Lucas. He is known to play live at the club at least
once a year with his band, The Wabos on his birthday, October 13, and shows
often include many famous guests and friends from the music industry.

Other clubs in Cabo include Mandala, El Squid Roe, Gigglin Marlin, NoWhere
Bar, Tiki bar, and The Jungle Bar.

The Corridor

Cabo San Lucas' raucous party atmosphere and San Jose's laid-back colonial
style are bridged by a golf course-and resort-studded Tourist Corridor that
stretches between the twin towns in 20 miles of pristine white sand beaches
and craggy coves.

Exclusive hotels and gated residential communities attracting a wide clientèle of rich and famous weave seamlessly amid this wondrous landscape and comprise this region known as "the Corridor". Many of these properties, which are considered some of Latin America's top resorts, have become havens to Hollywood stars, Fortune 500 C.E.O.s and even the U.S. president during the 2002 Asia-Pacific Economic Conference (APEC). High-end resorts in the Corridor include the One and Only Palmilla, Esperanza and Las Ventanas.