Postcards from Mexico: On the Cabo San Lucas Marina

CABO SAN LUCAS, Baja California Sur, Oct. 25 — It’s quiescent and chill disconnected the strip. The abarrotes are conscionable opening, and there’s an aged antheral successful a vest up the artifact pushing a buying cart afloat of bare brew cans. That mightiness beryllium mop-up work from past night’s debauchery, oregon this morning’s. Stray dogs patrol the streets, trotting from 1 garbage heap to the adjacent similar derelict amusement ponies. In their glory days, they guarded the now-abandoned buildings that flank the street, excessively axenic for this satellite with their barbed-wire crowns of thorns.

Baby birds are conscionable waking up, warbling. They were promised a worm, similar each aboriginal birds, but possibly they’ll settee for the gnats buzzing astir my face, plentiful astatine these hours erstwhile it’s inactive not blistery capable for the prima to pain them retired of the aerial midflight.

Long perambulations on the boardwalk that frames the Cabo San Lucas Marina connection a wealthiness of antithetic sights and sounds. (Cabo Adventures)

It doesn’t instrumentality overmuch to drown retired the sound they make. Every half-minute, buses rattle up the sand-dusted Narciso Mendoza and down the Leona Vicario. As I crook onto Lázaro Cárdenas, I’m presented with a beauteous bouquet of belching tubas courtesy of the euphony blaring from the backmost of a achromatic vocho. One doesn’t question who would blast banda euphony astatine this hour. “Reveille.” “La 4 x 4.” Same tiger, antithetic stripes.

The soundtrack of the Cabo San Lucas Marina

The playlist successful the Cabo San Lucas Marina is different. You mightiness inactive perceive immoderate classics, depending connected whose vessel you locomotion by, but the shops and kiosks pander to a antithetic demographic. I inactive haven’t rather figured retired which. Daft Punk begets Murray Head, which begets Katy Perry. Speaking of which, Señor Frog’s is inactive thriving. Even astatine this hour, I spot a gringo retiree successful committee shorts and a vessel apical loitering successful front, presumably funny astir hours of operation. He’s successful bully company.

Along the esplanade, you perceive acold much English than Spanish. Much of that comes from merchants stumbling done back-of-the-napkin phrases they’ve committed to representation to entice recently arrived tourists to bargain their wares. Though I besides perceive an aged pistillate muttering thing to her canine astir 1 of the boats they walk by, truthful I conjecture adjacent the dogs present are fluent.

‘A parking batch for yachts’

Along a wall, a enactment of men wearing Oakleys, long-sleeved shirts and visors sits idly, taking it casual earlier heading retired connected immoderate excursions they’ll beryllium leading. Nearby, a bored-looking clerk successful a dockside store that looks similar Cabo’s mentation of J. Peterman scrolls connected his phone, unfazed astir the municipality sombrero income quota he’ll request to conscionable by the extremity of the day. Even aboard the boats, connected the eve of the world’s biggest marlin tournament, section fishermen prattle, hosing down decks and trying to beryllium heard implicit the dull roar of idling vessel engines.

This marina is similar a Costco parking batch for yachts, though alternatively of an subordinate successful a neon vest checking your ID, there’s a tall, wrought-iron gross with an entranceway similar a cage that lone those with a cardinal tin get through. I intermission to size it up, past look astir to spot who’s watching. “I could hop that,” I accidental to myself.

Ethan Jacobs is a freelance writer and penning manager based successful Playa del Carmen. He has written extensively successful communicative and abbreviated fabrication formats, and his enactment has received designation some domestically and internationally successful microfiction, abbreviated fabrication and communicative effort formats.