Cabo San Lucas

The cape was home for thousands of years to hunter-gatherers; archaeological work shows people living here for at least 10,000 years. When Europeans arrived they met the Pericú, who lived on seeds, roots, shellfish and fish and called the place Yenecamú. The cape was a way station for the Manila galleons and a hideout for English pirates, but settlement was slight: the town traces its founding to Cipriano Ceseña, who arrived from Sonora in 1788, and a Japanese castaway who landed in 1842 counted only two houses and about twenty people.

The town grew around tuna. In 1917 an American company built a floating platform to catch the fish, and in the 1920s the Bernstein brothers brought a factory ship to the bay; when it sank in 1928 they moved processing ashore, and in 1927 they had founded the Compañía de Productos Marinos. The cannery shaped village life for half a century until it closed in 1979, unable to hold out against tourism, and moved to Puerto San Carlos.

From 1974 the Mexican government built the infrastructure to turn Cabo San Lucas into a national tourist centre. A marina opened, Los Cabos International Airport followed in 1977, and the completed Transpeninsular Highway brought road traffic from the north. Hotels, timeshares and golf courses spread along the coast towards San José del Cabo with little environmental control, and activists and lawyers have since fought to protect wetlands and coastline. Hurricane Odile struck the town in September 2014 and caused widespread damage.

Cabo San Lucas is a resort town first, and its culture is shaped by visitors: sport fishing, boat trips, beach clubs and a busy nightlife scene around the marina and Médano Beach. The town has strong ties to the United States. Most of its non-Mexican residents are American, and with those in San José del Cabo they make up the great majority of Americans living in the state; an English-language newspaper covers Los Cabos and the towns of the south.

Fishing is the oldest thread. The waters off the cape hold striped marlin, dorado, rays and sharks, and the Bisbee's Los Cabos Offshore each October is billed as the highest-paying marlin tournament in the world. The arch at Land's End, where the Pacific meets the Gulf of California, is the town's emblem and appears in countless photographs and advertisements.

Beneath the resort surface is a working Mexican city of people who have moved here from across the country for jobs in hotels, construction and services. Greetings matter, Spanish is the language of the neighbourhoods inland from the marina, and the parish church of San Lucas belongs to residents rather than tourists.

About 203,000 people lived in Cabo San Lucas at the 2020 census, an increase of almost 200 per cent on 2010 that came largely from merging the city with neighbouring communities, and about 351,000 in the Los Cabos metropolitan area that it shares with San José del Cabo.

Tourism drives almost everything, and visitors can get by in English and US dollars. Hotels, timeshares, restaurants, boat operators and construction employ many people. Walmart and Costco from the United States and the Mexican chain Soriana run supermarkets that serve both residents and those staying in rented condominiums. Taxis and cheaper local buses link the town with the corridor and the airport, and ride-hailing is available.

Rapid growth brings strains familiar across the peninsula: water in a desert, the cost of housing for workers, traffic along the corridor, and pressure on beaches and wetlands. Cruise days and the winter high season fill the marina and the town centre with visitors.

Seafood is the heart of eating in Cabo. Fish tacos — battered white fish in a corn tortilla with cabbage, cream and salsa — come from Baja California and are sold across town, alongside shrimp tacos, tostadas of ceviche and cocteles de mariscos, seafood cocktails served in a glass. Dorado, tuna and marlin from the local fleet appear on many menus.

Away from the waterfront, the taquerías a few blocks inland serve grilled steak tacos with tables of salsas, roasted chillies, grilled onions and guacamole, and are where residents eat. Clams, a speciality of La Paz further up the coast, also appear, pickled, breaded or stuffed.

To drink there is Mexican beer, tequila and mezcal, craft beer brewed in Los Cabos, including by the Baja Brewing Company, and damiana, a liqueur flavoured with a wild herb of the southern peninsula. Beach clubs on Médano serve the cocktails that go with the views across the bay.