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 Travel & Outdoors | May 2007 
Postcard from Land's End
 Bill Sanford - Merced Sun-Star
| | (www.loscabosguide.com/postcards) |
Did you ever have a problem like this? You're planning a big trip, visiting five countries. You want to be informed. You invest in some travel books. The amount of information almost overwhelms you. For instance, Frommer's Mexico 2007 runs to nearly 800 pages. And that's for only one of the five countries. Who has time to read all that and still get ready for the trip?
'Tis a problem! Is there a solution? Let me suggest one. Frommer's treatment of Puerto Vallarta goes on for 48 pages. However, 25 of those pages are devoted to "Where to stay," "Where to dine," and "Puerto Vallarta after dark." What if you can skip all that?
I suggest you can because you already have comfortable accommodations, great meals and pre-paid nightly entertainment - on your cruise ship! It's wonderful. Packing and unpacking on hold for the duration. Every night your hotel and restaurant move to your next destination. Come morning all you have to do is enjoy your next shore excursion. And consequently, you only need to become informed about the things to see and do in or near the particular port city. Cuts the reading way down!
In our particular case, the cruise ship is Regal Princess, 70,000 gross tons, 811 feet long, rated for 1,590 passengers. And there was so much to like. It would leave from and arrive back at San Pedro, saving us major travel to a distant embarkation point. It would take us to the Panama Canal which virtually everyone who goes says is a great sight. It would also give us days in eight other desirable destinations: Five in Mexico, and one each in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.
I want to share our experience with the hope you find some matters of interest as you read and perhaps become better prepared to undertake such a trip yourself one of these days.
Our first port of call came on our second day, Cabo San Lucas at the southern tip of Baja California. In reading about the area, I soon encountered a surprise. My source asserted that many thousands of years ago the peninsula was joined to the mainland. "Then a massive rupture of the San Andreas fault sent the waters of the Pacific crashing into the newly formed depression, creating the Gulf of California (or Sea of Cortez) and the Baja Peninsula."
Cabo stands as an excellent illustration of how development is dependent on infrastructure. Cabo remained small and little known for a very long time. Then in 1974 the highway down from Tijuana - some 1,111 miles in length - was made so that people could drive down from the United States. In 1986 the expansion of the airport proved a springboard to explosive growth. Today Cabo has emerged as one of Mexico's leading resort areas, rivaling such hotspots as Cancun and Puerto Vallarta. The resident population has surpassed 40,000. Speaking of infrastructure, there is still no pier where cruise ships can tie up, so passengers go from ship to shore on tenders (lifeboats lowered from the promenade deck).
The tourists who swell the 40,000 come mostly for golf and sport-fishing. Some are attracted by the beaches and the rowdy nightlife. Whale watching is a draw from January through March.
With regard to natural sights, nothing quite equals the impressive sea arch where the land of Baja is finally overmatched by the Pacific Ocean. At that point the ocean and the warmer Gulf of California encounter each other. Something I would not have known without my travel book: "Glass-bottom boats leave from the town marina every 45 minutes between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. They cost $14 for a one-hour tour, which passes sea lions and pelicans on its way to the famous El Arco (Rock Arch) at Land's End . . ." Near the arch there's a beach, Lover's Beach or Playa de Amor, with a double exposure; one side faces the Pacific and the other the gulf.
Having tendered ashore, Jeanne and I board a boat with perhaps 65 others. It takes us out for stunning views of El Arco. Exploding waves in the vicinity add to the visual excitement. We take something of a horseshoe-shaped course in order to get good views of El Arco from the Pacific side.
The bay is bustling with a variety of watercraft. Numerous pelicans, surprisingly people tolerant, catch the eye and call this photographer to action.
Manmade sights? Discounting the big new hotels for a moment, consider the downtown church, Iglesia de San Lucas, completed in 1746.
Sorry, gotta go because this article must stretch to cover a second Mexican port: Puerto Vallarta, actually the last stop on our cruise. I'm taking all the places we stopped in a strict north to south order, not in the order visited.
What shall I say of "P.V." as it is sometimes called for short?
It has high name recognition, quite a lot of which stems from the making of "Night of the Iguana" in 1963. Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor had a celebrated love affair during the filming. You can still see properties they purchased.
It enjoys a fine reputation among people whose judgment I respect. For example, Lynne Bairstow. She has traveled Mexico extensively and written about it frequently. She is the author of the chapter on P.V. in Frommer's travel book on Mexico. An American, she has lived in P.V. the past 15 years. Here is her considered opinion: "No matter how extensively I travel in Mexico, Puerto Vallarta remains my favorite part of this colorful country, for it's unrivaled combination of simple pleasures and sophisticated charms. No other place in Mexico offers both the best of the country's natural beauty and an authentic dose of its vibrant culture."
Bairstow cites some of what underlies her enthusiasm: 26 miles of beaches, "over 250 restaurants, a sizzling nightlife, and enough shops and galleries to tempt even jaded consumers . . ." She notes: "Ecotourism activities flourish - from (forest) canopy tours to whale watching, ocean kayaking, and diving with giant mantas in Banderas Bay."
The city's population has surpassed 250,000. Still, its "downtown" - on both sides of the Cuale River - is quite compact and walkable.
Perhaps the most notable landmark downtown is the statue of the boy sitting on a sea horse. The sculpture, mounted on a pedestal, overlooks Bahia de Banderas (Bay of Flags) which is notable in its own right. It is largely the crater of a long-extinct volcano. It plunges to a depth of 5,900 feet, has 100 miles of shoreline and is the seventh largest bay on earth. One writer calls it a "marine wonderland."
We arrive close to 9 a.m. It's a beautiful, clear morning. Looking around we get the impression we've joined a cruise ship convention. Radiance of the Seas (Royal Caribbean), Ryndam (Holland America Line) and Pride (Carnival) are all in ahead of us. When we have tied up, we look out our cabin window. What a sight! Wal-Mart. Right across a busy boulevard.
We wish downtown were handier. A 31/2-mile taxi ride each way doesn't match our definition of handy. Never mind. We have two "Adventures Ashore," as Princess calls them, awaiting us. Jeanne will get "up close and personal" with a dolphin. Her short report: "Being in a pool with a dolphin, playing with it and petting it was just as wonderful as I always thought it would be."
Meanwhile, Bill looks forward to the "Jungle Canopy Adventure." We - a party of 12 - are driven northeast from the ship for about 50 minutes. Once at the canopy site, we are outfitted, instructed, and then away we go, closely attended by canopy staff. Being 76, I ask if I might be in the running for an age record. Not even close! They have had a 94-year-old who was eager to do it again.
Here's how the company brochure describes the adventure: "The tour consists of a series of platforms mounted on the trees of the tropical semi-desert forest. Guides help participants use climbing equipment and techniques to move over the tour. There are 14 observation platforms, 9 horizontal traverses (zip-lines), and a "Tarzan" swing, two flexible bridges and a vertical descent (rappel) "which is 70 feet straight down.
Jeanne and I had visited Puerto Vallarta once before. We rate this short stay higher largely because both the dolphin adventure and the canopy trip are rare, rewarding and memorable. Viva El Cabo and P.V.!
Well, the west coast of Mexico keeps going and going. Next week we'll report on three ports further south and east: Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo, Acapulco and Huatulco. See you next week.
Editor's note: This is the first story in a series that Sun-Star correspondent Bill Sanford is writing about his cruise to the the ports of Mexico and the Panama Canal. Go to Original |
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