By Gary G. Tomlin
Lo Cabos, Mexico -This Mexican adventure started with a broken tooth. I took it to a happy-assed dentist office in Fairbanks. Staff seemed like a bunch of little forest fairies on mushrooms who were covering up a gross hustle with phony cheerfulness. It was going to be $2800 to instal a crown.
I went home to chew on that and concluded, I can go to Mexico and get a crown. With travel and accommodation it’s still gonna cost $2800, but I’ll get the vacation instead of the Dentist. So that’s what I did.
In between the stages of the dental work, I rented a car and spent the week “no Habla-ing Spanish” round the tip of the Baja Peninsula. “Los Cabos” it’s called in Spanish. “The Cape” in English.
Cabo San Lucas, or Cape of Saint Luke, is the southernmost city on the Baja right at the tip.
The Harbor hosts the range of sailing vessels: from fabulous yachts that would stand out in the Port of Cannes to row boats. The District surrounding the harbor is home to the shops, restaurants and services that cater to visitors. The Senior Frogs franchise is on these streets. I found the shops to be the least intrusive, most interesting and classy, and the restaurants the most inviting, of any in the world’s tourist centers that I have visited. If you’re going to Mexico to do traditional tourist things it would be hard to beat Cabo San Lucas.
For a more Mexican experience visit Saint Joe.
Twenty-miles up a coast is the booming city of San Jose Del Cabo, or Saint Joseph of the Cape. It’s shoreline, and that between the two cities, offers five-star hotels, golf courses and world-class shopping. But a few blocks up from the shore are the neighborhoods where live the people who provide the services and construction to the region. Middle-class Mexico.
It is nostalgic of the neighborhood I grew up in the midwest, in the 1960s, and I found satisfying adventure exploring its shops, markets and neighborhoods.
I set my base camp at an inexpensive two star hotel in central San Jose. It was clean, secure and had all the amenities I needed. Within a block of the hotel is a lavanderia where I dropped my laundry in the morning, and it was washed, folded and returned in the afternoon. Across the street was a wonderful little Taqueria where the manager spoke excellent English and gave cheerful lessons on reading the menu. On the corner was an OXXO, which is very similar to a 7-Eleven, where I got consistent, fresh brewed coffee in the mornings.
There was a little grocery store where I bought snacks and staples. The neighborhood markets all have someone with obvious disabilities bagging groceries, and the custom is to tip them a few cents. It gives them purposeful employment, and is very sweet in a community inclusiveness sort of way.
Every neighborhood has a storefront bakery with daily offerings of fresh breads and amazing pastries. They have metal plates, like pizza pans and tongs, and you walk around the racks of fresh baked products making your selections. Then you take the plate over to the checkout counter and a crabby lady bags them and rings-up your charge. I don’t know how you could work in a bakery and be crabby, but the demeanor seemed consistent across the many bakeries I tested. Maybe, they just appear crabby in contrast to the aroma infused, high level of joy, expressed by everyone else in the room.
The Taquerias are simple, open air restaurants. They specialize in tacos. You order a tortilla: flour or corn. And the meat: beef, pork, chicken or fish. The plate comes with a tortilla that looks like a wet dish rag with a generous pile of meat in the middle. You take that to a buffet of add-ons: pico-de-gallo, an array of salsas, cheeses, and a variety of chopped cucumbers, onions, radishes and jalapeños, and you load up the tort. The crispy, hard shells I’m familiar with are, “Gringo Tacos,” and I’ve never seen one south of the border.
You order one taco at a time until you’re full. There’s beer. It’s all very social and fun.
I’m not normally self-conscience, but it felt like people were judging me on how I built and held my tacos.
Never got tired of it. Never got sick.
The real highlight of Mexican street food is the ice cream. Rich, milk fat, wonderfully flavored, hard packed, ice cream. My favorite quickly became toasted coconut. Seems like there is a little ice cream shop on every block in the commercial districts. There are no cultural or language barriers. There is no angst. Everyone brings neighborly love to the ice cream shop.
The Mexicans are friendly, courteous, happy, hard working, resourceful, helpful, humble people, who are very accommodating to those who don’t speak their language. No seems mad about the terrible burden of dialing “2.”
2 responses to “Our Neighbors in Los Cabos”
How much are tacos?
Almost nothing…full meal with drinks is $5. Three tacos and a coke.