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
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