Around the Cabo Coast

Next, I repeated the route of my 2000 trip around the southern cape of the Baja peninsula.

Punta Arena de la Ventana

First stop was Punta Arena de la Ventana, "Sandy Point of the Window". I'm not sure about any window, but this was a wonderfully vast white sandy undeveloped beach. Public access was granted via a guard station. A pair of lighthouses watched over the point — a new one, and an old abandoned one. The old one was crumbling, but open for exploration by the brave.     24.0598, -109.8325 

Bahía de los Muertos Road

I gave one of the beach security guards a lift home, and then proceeded east to follow the coast down towards Cabo. Just past the town of San Angel, the road withered away to a rough rocky track climbing the steep mountainside. I ran into some ATV riders who took one look at my van and told me, "You're a brave man taking that thing through here!" It was slow going, but the van never had any trouble getting over the pass.     23.9536, -109.8699 

Reaching the coast, I followed the dramatic road as it turned south, cut into the steep mountain slopes along rocky shore of Bahía de los Muertos.     23.9272, -109.8354 

The East Cape

Near Boca del Alamo, the rocky mountainside suddenly ends, and shore returns to sandy beaches.     23.9111, -109.8261 

And, I found I had returned to the land of gringos and beach houses!

Punta Arena

I wanted to visit the lighthouse at Punta Arena near Las Lagunas, but I was frustrated to find that after much exploration I couldn't find a road out to the point that didn't pass through "no trespassing" signs.

The south end of Punta Arena does have public access to an expansive sandy beach. Many public access beaches around Cabo appear to provide these same palapas I first saw at San Juanico.     23.5122, -109.4753 

Los Frailes

The beach at Los Frailes also has public access.     23.3818, -109.4265 

Cerro el Aura

I camped on the beach at the Mouth of Cerro el Aura. This spot, east of La Laguna, appeared to be the last unoccupied beach before the chaos of San José del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas.     23.0826, -109.5986 

In the morning, it was like rush hour — with countless fishing boats running northeast up the beach from the Cabos. One lucky boat got a close-up experience of this whale spy-hopping!