Sat, Sept 30th -Cabo San Lucas is located at the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula and is one of Mexico's leading resort areas. The town has a population of over 60,000 people.  Cabo is a smallish town framed on the west by the dramatic Land's End rock formations, on the north by the arid desert of the Baja peninsula and on the east by mega hotels towering.

From the time of Cortez's conquest of Mexico until the turn of the 20th century, this area was pretty much ignored accept for a few pirates using the area for R&R.  The Jesuits established a mission in 1730, yet Cabo's almost total isolation from the world was near complete until Bing Crosby, John Wayne, Phil Harris and Desi Arnaz built a hotel in Cabo San Lucas in the late 1940s, and other hotels were constructed in the 1950s and 60s. But it wasn't until the government made substantial investments in the infrastructure of Cabo San Lucas, and the peninsular highway was completed in 1974, that Cabo really took off as a tourist resort.  Today, Cabo San Lucas ranks as Mexico's second most popular resort tourist destination, after Cancun.

  

We were delivered to land by ship tender (a small boat that can travel shallow water) that took about 10 minutes and dropped us off at the Tender Pier, which is located at the Cabo Marina at the center of Cabo's downtown area.  

We did a shore excursion to San Jose de Cabo, which is an artist community just a little north of Cabo itself.  We never realized how much desert there is in this area, all we have ever seen before was the beach and town; so this trip out and about from town was really nice.  We stopped at a local glass blowing factory, which was quite nice, the building itself was quite decorated with colored glass - would have loved to bring some stuff home but this was just our first stop and didn't really think anything would make it for six weeks in our luggage or room, so we passed on buying anything.

Our next stop was at a neat resort looking out at the land's end Arch.  What a site! We had refreshments here and had plenty of time to take our photos.   Our next stop was our destination of San Jose.  We were given a guided tour around the area, stopping at a impressive art gallery where the work is done one bead at a time.  We watched this gentleman make a beautiful animal, placing the beads on with a small tool - it is very delicate work and when we walked around the gallery we were quite impressed with the beauty of the artwork.

  

We had lunch at a neat little taco joint and then wandered around the town - we picked up a couple of tshirts for a pretty nice price.  I was quite impressed with this little town and could have spent the day wandering, but we had to get back on the bus and head back to our ship - that is the problem with cruising - you only have a limited time to see the sites, no matter if you are doing it on your own or with a tour - it still is limited time.

We got to watch the sun go down as we were departing Cabo from the top deck of the ship - NICE - I hope this is a good omen for our sailing adventure.