Cabo San Lucas

Cabo San Lucas on the map of Baja California Sur

Cabo San Lucas is a place at the extreme southern tip of belonging to Mexico Baja California. Along with its 30 kilometers eastern sister city of San Jose del Cabo San Lucas is the southernmost district of Los Cabos, Baja California Sur.

The landmark of San Lucas is the 62 -meter-high rock El Arco at the southern end of the peninsula. While it is reachable by a walk along the beach from the nearby Playa del Amor at low tide, the beach is sinking sand surrounding it at high tide in the Pacific.

Although the area was probably settled around San Lucas for thousands of years, the former village was not until the beginning of the 20th century. While the residents initially almost exclusively lived from fishing, now forms the tourism, the main source of income. For to be surrounded by his extremely attractive location, after several sides by the sea ( west and south lies the Pacific Ocean, east of the Sea of ​​Cortez ), the place was increasingly discovered as a desirable holiday home of the super rich in the USA.

History

It is believed that people have come to the southern tip of the peninsula for the first time about 14,000 years ago. According to current knowledge, lived before the colonization of America exclusively Pericu, a nomadic tribe of Indians for hundreds, if not thousands of years in this region. The Spaniard Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo was the first European to 1542, who came with the Pericu in contact, as he sailed along the coast of Baja. 1721 went here the English corsair George Shelcocke ashore. He was the first European who had made a record of the Pericu. In this he described the inhabitants of the peninsula as of great, straight and well-built figure. According to his report, they had thick black, but little well-groomed hair. Her skin color was dark copper color and thus darker than the other islanders in the Pacific.

During the Spanish colonization served San Lucas ' natural harbor often English pirates who plundered repeatedly large commercial vessels in the region, as a shelter. Because lived due to the lack of fresh water supply here hardly any people. The few Spanish settlers, who was staggered in the south of the peninsula, rather settled in San José del Cabo, where there was fresh water. That left San Lucas to the early 20th century, a small town whose few inhabitants primarily subsisted on fishing.

Only at the beginning of the 20th century evolved into San Lucas such a thing as a small fishing village. 1917 established a U.S. company a floating platform to commercialize the tuna fishing. Ten years later, the Compañía de Productos Marinos, SA established that brought the sleepy fishing village of further growth.

In the 1930s - San Lucas scored just about 400 inhabitants - a canning factory was opened to sell the surplus of self-caught fish in the other parts of the country. Henceforth, the sale of fish cans was the main source of income of the residents of San Lucas. Until the cannery in 1941 severely damaged in a hurricane.

The boom began after the Second World War, when San Lucas during the 1950s and 1960s began to be the center of attraction of sport fishermen. With the completion of transpeninsular Highway in 1973, the population increased to about 1,500. [Note A]

The development of the holiday and party area rich and famous Americans, especially from Southern California, was laid in 1974. In that year, Baja California Sur received the status of an independent state and also a ferry service to Puerto Vallarta was introduced, which made ​​Los Cabos to an easily accessible holiday destination of the Mexican mainland. With the opening of the international airport in San Jose del Cabo in the 1980s, another foundation stone was laid for the increase in tourism.

Today's tourist area

In no other of Mexico's leading beach resorts you will find so many gorgeous beaches near the city center. In addition, the extremely advantageous location of the city is at the confluence of the Pacific Ocean with the Sea of ​​Cortez, which the city receives marine and air flows from both sides of the peninsula. This combination produces pleasant temperatures, both in the water and on land. For the city in this manner is dominated at any season of the cool Pacific Ocean or the warm Sea of ​​Cortez. As a result, the summers are not as hot as in La Paz and the winter is not as cool as in Todos Santos. Rarely, it is hotter than 33 degrees or colder than 13 degrees. In addition, the district Los Cabos is adequately protected from the prevailing north winds on the peninsula, what the winter can be warmer here than at any other spot on the peninsula. Even San Lucas is rarely affected by rain and has about 360 sunny days a year. In addition, San Lucas has a wealth of first class restaurants and comfortable hotels. The guitarist and vocalist Sammy Hagar operates in the town of Cabo Wabo Cantina nightclub. The numerous amenities attract an appropriate audience on both sides of the border to the USA and are the reason that San Lucas has now become a popular attraction for well-heeled tourists and Mexico's fourth largest seaside resort to Cancun, Puerto Vallarta and Acapulco. Nevertheless, the local politicians of Los Cabos are anxious to get the primitive lifestyle of a small town alive.

The world's richest deep sea fishing competition

In addition to various other anglers and deep-sea fishing competitions, the three-day Bisbee 's Black and Blue Marlin Jackpot Tournament is in Cabo San Lucas each year held in October. With a win bonus of last more than 2.3 million U.S. dollars, it is the most generous Marlin Offshore fishing competition in the world. Gigantic are also the huge increases in prize money, because at the beginning of the new millennium was the Bisbee 's most lucrative competition of its kind, although the prize money back then "just" a little more than $ 850,000 was.

References and Notes

[Note A] Although the number of inhabitants in the early 1970s was still manageable, the population figures vary considerably depending on the source. So is the website http://www.cabosanlucasinsider.com/ the population for 1974 with only around 900, while the quoted several times here edition of Moon Handbooks from the year 2003, the number in 1973, estimated at about 1,150. In contrast, there by the Automobile Club of Southern California in 1973 published brochure entitled Baja California Sur to the population of about 1,600. Since it was printed in that year, they should be classified as probably the most authentic source. Because the figures vary greatly and all based on " approximate", here was the " approximate" value of 1.500 as the basis, which also coincides with the indication of the official website of the District Los Cabos.

The history of the underlying data sources are:

• Http://www.cabosanlucasinsider.com/
• Moon Handbooks: Cabo (Fourth Edition ), Emeryville, CA, USA (2003 ), pp. 202ff ISBN 1-56691-409-4
• Http://www.loscabos.net/cabo/index.htm

• Additional references: