92 • SPRING 2010
CABO LIVING
®
DAY TRIPS
Playa Los Cerritos
& El Pescadero
Just 45 minutes north of Los Cabos, these
Pacific Coast locales offer relaxation,
recreation and considerable growth potential.
F
~by Michael Koehn | photos by Paul Papanek~
For all of its attractions - and there are a wealth
of them - there comes a time when you need to
get out of the Los Cabo area, even if it’s just for
a day, and see what’s going on in other nearby
regions in Baja.
(ABOVE) | The low-slung hills near
Playa Los Cerritos make for a calm
and stoic backdrop to the rich blue of
the Pacific. Pangas rest on the sandy
shores of El Pescadero. The home of
Tony Cordova, developer of Sol Pacifico
Cerritos, peeks out above these hills.
We’d heard rumors of development and
some great local resources up in the
Pescadero/Playa los Cerritos area, a quiet
beach and farming community just a little
south of Todos Santos, so Paul fired up his
trusty Vanagon and we tossed in our gear
and set out to see for ourselves just what
was happening along the quiet coastline to
the north.
It didn’t take long to see that there were
some significant changes afoot not far
outside of town. Just five or six miles up
the road, near the power plant, we saw a
sign for the new polo center that is under
development and now offering lessons and
polo exhibitions (see article this issue). This
project is being managed by Tony Yahyai,
and is conceived as a 130-acre development
centered on three polo fields and a luxury
resort. Located well away from downtown
Cabo, but not so far from some planned
major developments in the area, Club
Continued on page 94
CABO LIVING • 93
(ABOVE AND FAR RIGHT) | The Cerritos Beach Club offers
open-air dining, among other amenities. A variety of other
activities are available at Playa Los Cerritos, especially
surfing. The mobile Costa Azul Surf Shop is available to
serve all the needs a surfer would have.
94 • SPRING 2010
Cabo Polo will be a unique and interesting
attraction to a quietly developing area.
Once we got past the polo grounds,
the road to Todos Santos opened up to a
vista that makes it one of the most scenic
drives in Baja. With the brilliant blue of
the Pacific sometimes showing on our
left, we drove across low slung coastal
hills, through arroyos and across bridges
spanning dry washes - beautiful unspoiled
scenery accompanied only by the occasional
highway-hugging cow or goat. A few small
businesses dotted the road, including several
ATV and dune buggy operations, and in
short order, near the 69 Km mark, we found
ourselves passing two small businesses on
the left that warranted a stop. The first was
the Blanket Factory; the second a place
called Art and Beer. The Blanket Factory is
just what the name suggests, and produces
some wonderful hand-loomed rugs, blankets,
clothing and hammocks. If you bring them
a custom design, they’ll even create a rug for
you in just a couple of days. Art and Beer, a
collection of small stucco buildings and a few
weatherworn palapas, has the funky charm
of older Baja, and has been described as both
a bar that sells art, and an art gallery that
happens to serve alcohol. Either way, it’s a
great stop for a cold cerveza and one of their
trademark seafood cocktails full of chunks of
shrimp, mussels, oysters, and scallops, while
perusing the owners’ collection of sculpture
and art. Alfredo and Lourdes may also offer
you a free beer for the road, a traditional old
Baja hospitality that I thought had died out
completely.
Just a little farther up Highway 19, at
about Km 66.5 at the top of a hill, you’ll
find an unmarked turnoff that leads to Playa
los Cerritos and one of our key destinations,
the Cerritos Beach Club. This is one of the
best family recreation areas in all of Baja,
with a wide, shallow swimming beach and
a popular surfing break along a rocky point
at the north end. Although you can never be
sure you’re completely safe near the Pacific,
the beach here is ideal for swimming, gently
sloped and hip deep well out into the water.
There are plenty of activities to choose
from in the Cerritos Beach area. For water
sports like surfing and boogie boarding, a
nearby mobile Costa Azul shop can provide
all the surfing gear and lessons needed to
get you up and into the curl (as will the
Pescadero Surf Camp located at about
Km 64). The area also offers Jet Ski tours,
horseback riding, mountain bike rentals and
tours, and kayaking.
The inviting open air palapa bar at the
Cerritos Beach Club has a pool table, plasma
TVs and free wireless Internet. If you forget
your laptop and need to check up on fantasy
football updates, the bar will gladly lend you
one. Also available is a full menu of breakfast
“...the beach here is
ideal for swimming,
gently sloped and
hip deep well out
into the water...”
Continued on page 96
CABO LIVING • 95
(BELOW AND FAR RIGHT) | Surfboards aplenty greet
visitors to Playa Los Cerritos, as well as a sign cautioning
them to be considerate of sea turtles in the area. Friendly
bartenders at Cerritos Beach Club will also help to make
your visit a pleasant one. Gypsys by the Sea, a cozy beach
palapa guest casita, is one of the best-kept secrets of the
El Pescadero area. This B&B is the prize of Mark Catania,
who speaks fondly of El Pescadero. In addition to comfy
quarters, kayaking is also available to guests.
96 • SPRING 2010
and lunch dishes at non-tourist prices.
Specials here include fresh seafood specials,
Arrachera, burgers and fries, and a full
slate of steaks, chicken, and ribs from their
outdoor grill. Don’t miss the action
on Sundays, when the CBC offers live
music from artists like Cabo jazz vocalist
Daline Jones.
The Playa Los Cerritos area has been a
center of rumored development, and not
long after walking into the CBC, we meet
Chris Fuller, who is a representative of the
nearby Sol Pacifico Cerritos development
that is being developed by Tony Cordova
(see story in Breaking Ground). Chris offers
to give us a quick tour of what turns out to
be a major new condo complex just south of
Cerritos Beach, with several large towers, an
extensive infinity pool and plenty of room
for fun and relaxation. Nearby, the Tequila
Ranch (also known as Playa Agave Azul),
another high concept development in the
area, plans to include a tequila distillery with
tours and tastings, an agave plantation, a
restaurant serving organic produce, and a
secure residential section with 60 homes and
14 villas.
At about Km 64, we skirt El Pescadero,
a small community, little more than a plaza
lined with small shops, a café or two, with
the Sierra de la Laguna Mountains, a scenic
backdrop to the lush huerta farmland that
surrounds the area. Most of the economy
here centers on organic farms and other
agriculture like tomatoes, chiles and basil,
the product of an ideal climate and an ample
water supply supplied by mountain runoff.
Most of the action here centers around a
local nightspot/watering hole called the
Sandbar at Km 63, which is the place to go
to shoot some pool, have a few beers and
listen to live music, especially on Fridays
when they host Reggae Night. It’s right
around the corner from one of our other
favorite places in the area, a beach palapa
guest casita called Gypsy’s by the Sea, which
is one of the best-kept secrets on the coast,
a cozy complex offering four rooms to
accommodate eight or more people. Gypsy’s
is run by Mark Catania, who gave up the
corporate life in Toronto to run this little
gem, which offers lots of charm and access
to miles of beach directly in front of the
property. There’s a huge common room at
Gypsy’s with plenty of room to relax, and
access to places to surf, fish, ride horses,
dive, kayak or just hang out on the beach
with a picnic lunch. They also offer monthly
seminars with a local astronomy expert,
and, with no shortage of Pacific breeze, plan
to host a kite flying festival. Encounters
with groups of migrating gray whales just
offshore aren’t uncommon here, something
that recently happened to Mark and his
guests. “It was an incredible experience. We
were right in the middle of them, just forty
or fifty yards offshore, and could hear their
clicks and communications when we were
underwater,” Mark says. It was one of those
spontaneous encounters with the natural
world that can happen unexpectedly in Baja.
Other beaches in the area worth exploring
include Playa San Pedro and Playa San
Pedrito (for more advanced surfers, just
north of El Pescadero, between Km 56 and
57) and a beach near Punta Lobos about 2
Km south of the Todos Santos town limits
Continued on page 98
“We were right in
the middle of a group
of migrating whales,
just forty or fifty yards
offshore, and could
hear their clicks and
communications when
we were underwater...”
CABO LIVING • 97
that serves as a launching point for local
pangueros, and where they return at midafternoon with their catch. Following an
unmarked dirt road for about a mile and
a half past the ruins of an old cannery we
finally came to the area, which consists of a
small weigh station, about a dozen boats, and
small chapel built at the foot of the rocky
point. We watched as fishermen gunned their
pangas in through the breaking surf onto the
open beach. The day we visit we’re in luck,
as a returning boat has a couple of beautiful
red snapper, huachinango, which are quickly
filleted, bagged and purchased by Mark for a
Gypsy’s seafood special.
98 • SPRING 2010
Energized by watching the fishermen, we
venture a few miles north, to the outskirts
of Todos Santos, a town worthy of a full
daytrip in itself, and pull into Miguel’s for
some refreshments. It’s exactly the kind of
place you come to rural Baja for, rustic and
friendly, with a first rate menu. If you’re in
the mood for seafood, and, say, chile rellenos,
you’re in luck, because Miguel’s offers
rellenos stuffed with shrimp and lobster, as
well as beef and vegetarian versions. The
fresh fish and shrimp fajitas here are also
great and couldn’t be any fresher. If we had
more time it would have been great to get
into Todos Santos, but that would have taken
another full day. If you get some time in
the area, an especially good local resource is
CalyCanto vacation rentals, who offer
a full slate of activities and eco-tours in
the area, and a trip to visit the legendary
local mountain potters, complete with
pottery lessons.
Driving Highway 14 north of Cabo offers
a lot of entertainment value in a relatively
short period of time. We’d seen the promise
of things to come in terms of big vision
developments, as well as older local watering
holes that provide rest and refreshment and
hadn’t changed since the day they opened. It
was also good to know that Baja fish camps
and some of the age-old traditions were
still unaffected by several decades of the
sometimes feverish rate of development at the
tip of the peninsula.
We now turned the van around, heading
south for a leisurely drive back into town,
with the sun glistening toward the Pacific.
We had an appointment at a place where
old world meets the new, a Cabo Living
staff dinner at Maria Corona with its muy
authentico Mexican menu in downtown
Cabo. It was something to look forward to
at the end of the drive and a perfect
way to end the day.
El Fin!
For more information:
• Club Cabo Polo: www.clubcabopolo.com
• Cerritos Beach Club:
www.cabosanlucasbeaches.com/
cerritosbeachclub
• Pescadero Surf Camp:
www.pescaderosurf.com
• Sol Pacifico Cerritos:
www.solpacificocerritos.com
• Gypsy’s by the Sea: http://gypsysbythesea.com
(FAR LEFT AND BELOW) | Fresh fish from the pangueros
on the beach at El Pescadero are part of the cuisine at Gypsys
by the Sea, which offers mouth-watering dining as well as
comfortable accommodations. Pelicans, landmarks, surf
and sun are but a few of the pleasant details to be enjoyed
by all who come to visit El Pescadero.
CABO LIVING • 99