Cabo San Lucas
| Cabo San Lucas | ||
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Coordinates: 22 ° 53 ' N , 109 ° 55' W Cabo San Lucas on the map of Baja California Sur
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| Basic data | ||
| Country | Mexico | |
| State | Baja California Sur | |
| Municipio | Los Cabos | |
| City foundation | 1828 | |
| Residents | 56,811 (2010) | |
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| Detailed data | ||
| height | 20 m | |
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Cabo San Lucas is a place on the extreme southern tip of Mexico's Baja California peninsula . Together with its sister city of San José del Cabo , located about 30 kilometers to the east, San Lucas forms the southernmost district of Los Cabos in the state of Baja California Sur .
The landmark of San Lucas is the 62 meter high rock El Arco at the southern end of the peninsula. While he was at low tide by a walk along the beach from the nearby Playa del Amor is reached, the surrounding him sinking sandy beach at high tide in the Pacific .
Although the area around San Lucas had probably been inhabited for thousands of years, the former village did not emerge until the beginning of the 20th century. While the residents initially lived almost exclusively from fishing, tourism is now the main source of income. Because of its extremely attractive location, surrounded on several sides by the sea (the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, the Sea of Cortes to the east ), the place was increasingly discovered as a sought-after vacation home for the super-rich from the USA .
history
It is believed that humans first came to the southern tip of the peninsula around 14,000 years ago. According to current knowledge, before the colonization of America, only Pericú , a nomadic Indian tribe, lived in this region for several hundred, if not thousands of years. The Spaniard Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo was the first European to come into contact with the Pericú in 1542 while sailing along the Baja coast. In 1721 the English corsair George Shelcocke went ashore here. He was the first European to keep a record of the Pericú. In these he described the inhabitants of the peninsula as tall, straight and well-built. According to his report, their hair was thick, black, but poorly groomed. Their skin color was dark copper and thus darker than that of other islanders in the Pacific.
During the Spanish colonization , San Lucas' natural harbor was often used as a shelter for English pirates, who repeatedly plundered large merchant ships in the region. Because of the lack of fresh water supply, hardly any people lived here. The few Spanish settlers who ended up in the south of the peninsula preferred to settle in San José del Cabo, where there was fresh water. So until the early 20th century, San Lucas remained a small town, whose few inhabitants lived mainly from fishing.
It wasn't until the beginning of the 20th century that something like a small fishing village developed in San Lucas. In 1917, an American company built a floating platform to commercialize the tuna fishing. Ten years later the Compañia de Productos Marinos, SA was founded, which brought further growth to the sleepy fishing village.
In the 1930s - San Lucas had about 400 inhabitants - a canning factory was opened to sell the surplus of self-caught fish to other parts of the country. From then on, the sale of fish cans was the main source of income for the residents of San Lucas until the can factory was badly damaged in a hurricane in 1941 .
The boom began after World War II when San Lucas began to attract sport fishermen in the 1950s and 1960s. With the completion of the Transpeninsular Highway in 1973, the population rose to about 1,500. [Note A]
The development of the vacation and party area for rich and famous Americans, especially from Southern California , was started in 1974. That year Baja California Sur was granted state status and a ferry service to Puerto Vallarta was introduced, making Los Cabos an easily accessible holiday destination for mainland Mexicans. With the opening of the international airport near San José del Cabo in the 1980s, another cornerstone was laid for increasing tourism.
Today's tourist stronghold
No other of Mexico's leading seaside resorts has so many beautiful beaches close to the city center. Added to this is the city's extremely advantageous location at the confluence of the Pacific with the Sea of Cortes, which means that the city receives ocean and air currents from both sides of the peninsula. This combination creates pleasant temperatures, both in the water and on land. Because in this way the city is not dominated by the cool Pacific or the warm Cortes Sea at any time of the year. As a result, the summers are not as hot as in La Paz and the winters are not as cool as in Todos Santos . It is rarely hotter than 33 degrees or colder than 13 degrees. In addition, the Los Cabos district is adequately protected from the north winds that prevail on the peninsula, which means that the winters here are warmer than at any other place on the peninsula. San Lucas is also rarely affected by rain and has around 360 days of sunshine a year. In addition, San Lucas has a variety of first-class restaurants and comfortable hotels. The guitarist and singer Sammy Hagar runs the nightclub Cabo Wabo Cantina in the town . The numerous amenities attract an appropriate audience on both sides of the border with the United States and are the reason that San Lucas is now a sought-after attraction for well-heeled tourists and Mexico's fourth largest seaside resort of Cancun , Puerto Vallarta and Acapulco has developed . Nevertheless, the local politicians in Los Cabos endeavor to keep the traditional way of life of a small town alive.
The world's most valuable deep sea fishing competition
In addition to various other angling and deep-sea fishing competitions, the three-day Bisbee's Black and Blue Marlin Jackpot Tournament is held every year in October in Cabo San Lucas . With a prize of more than 2.3 million US dollars, it is the most highly endowed marlin deep-sea fishing competition in the world. The huge increases in the prize money are also gigantic, because at the beginning of the new millennium the Bisbees was the most highly endowed competition of its kind, although the prize money at that time was "only" a little more than 850,000 US dollars.
Notes and sources
[Note A] Although the population was still manageable in the early 1970s, the population varies considerably depending on the source. The website cabosanlucasinsider.com gives the number of inhabitants for 1974 as only around 900, while the 2003 edition of Moon Handbooks , which is cited here several times, puts the number in 1973 at around 1,150. In contrast, the brochure published by the Automobile Club of Southern California in 1973 with the title Baja California Sur gives the population at around 1,600. Since it was printed that year, it should arguably be classified as the most authentic source. Because the figures fluctuate a lot and are all based on "approx." Figures, the "approx." Value 1,500 was used here, which also corresponds to the information given on the website loscabos.net .
Web links
- http://www.cabosanlucasinsider.com/
- http://www.loscabos.net/cabo/index.htm
- City map of Cabo San Lucas
- cabosanlucas.net
- Website about the beaches of Cabo San Lucas (with photos)
literature
- Moon Handbooks: Cabo (Fourth Edition), Emeryville, CA, USA (2003), pp. 202ff ISBN 1-56691-409-4
Individual evidence
- ↑ Joe Cummings: Cabo - La Paz to Cabo San Lucas (Moon Handbooks, Fourth Edition), Emeryville, CA, USA (2003), pp. 200ff
- ↑ http://www.baja.org/7mares/bleibweg.htm
- ↑ http://www.loscabos.net/cabo/index.htm
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from October 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Joe Cummings: Cabo - La Paz to Cabo San Lucas (Moon Handbooks, Fourth Edition), Emeryville, CA, USA (2003), p. 220
