Mexico's Pacific Coast - Huatulco and Cabo San Lucas Mexico Travel Blog

Huatulco

There’s a local saying in Huatulco that goes “Para todo mal mezcal y para todo bien tambien”. It translates to “When things are bad, have mezcal, and when things are good, also have mezcal”. I tend to agree!

Huatulco is a resort region in the Mexican state of Oaxaca with white Pacific coast beaches. The region is made up of 9 bays, including the popular cruise-ship port, Santa Cruz Bay. Tangolunda Bay is home to upscale resort hotels and a golf course. In the inland community of La Crucecita, also known as their downtown and closes to the airport, there are plenty of restaurants and shops around a central plaza.

We stayed in the Dreams Resort and Spa in Tangolunda Bay, which we highly recommend.

The Dreams Resort and Spa in Tangolunda Bay, Huatulco.

The resort was just a 10-minute cab ride to La Crucecita. It’s a small village that is great to walk around and bargain shop for souvenirs and silver. It is also great for eating local Oaxacan cuisine, like chocolate covered grasshoppers, known as Chapulines, and do a variety of mezcal tastings, all available in their many shops and restaurants.

Chapulines are grasshoppers covered with chocolate mole. You add some lime, salt, Oaxacan cheese, and put them on top of a tortilla chip. They are crunchy, almost like potato chips, and flaky, like the slips of skin on fresh, shelled peanuts. They still have their appendages, antennae and wings. They look just like what they are—bugs—but taste like salty and spicy chips. Locals eat them often as a snack.

Mezcal is Oaxaca’s version of tequila made from different kinds of agave or maguey. It’s surprisingly smooth and smoky—a sweet smokiness that comes from roasting the piña (heart) of the agave plant in a pit dug in the ground. Varieties of mezcal range from joven (younger) to aged or “rested” reposado and even more aged añejo. The mezcal is served with thick slices of juicy naranjas (oranges) and with the traditional gusano (worm/larva/scorpion) found floating inside the bottles. You do not drink Mezcal with salt and lemon, like tequila, and you also don’t take shots of it. It’s intended to be sipped and enjoyed.

La Crucecita is famous for is its enormous ceiling mural of the Virgin Mary in Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe y de la Santa Cruz Catholic Church. It is free to enter and view. The mural was painted by Mexican artist Jose del Signo and is about 30 meters long (approx. 98 feet) and 285 meters square (approx. 935 feet). It is the largest painting of the Virgin Mary in Mexico. The mural was painted before the dedication of the church, which occurred in 2000. To view the mural in its entirety in this tiny church, many people lie on the floor. In the painting, the Virgin Mary is dressed in white and blue and shows baby Jesus in her womb. It’s an absolutely beautiful painting and hard to admire in photos. You really need to go and experience its magnitude for yourself.

Largest painting of La Virgen de Guadalupe / Our Lady of Guadalupe

Another must see in Huatulco is the Huatulco National Park, also known as Bahias de Huatulco National Park. It is a protected area where you are encircled with wild life and beautiful virgin beaches. The national park is huge and there is plenty to do. We took two tours in the national park.

The first was an adventure packed tour that included horse back riding, white water rafting, zip-lining and RTV riding.

The second tour took us to a virgin beach where we snorkeled and enjoyed the beautiful beaches and water life.

At one of the virgin beaches at the national park having fresh cut coconut

There was jelly fish everywhere and one stung me!

Cool rock formations you see throughout the national park. I see the head of a lion. What do you see?

We absolutely loved Huatulco and everything it offered, but we also had a blast celebrating my beautiful cousins wedding! Put Huatulco on your travel list.

Cabo San Lucas

Cabo San Lucas is a resort city on the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula. It’s known for its beaches, water-based activities and nightlife. Playa El Médano is Cabo’s main beach, with outdoor restaurants and numerous bars. Past the marina is Land's End promontory, site of Playa del Amor (Lover's Beach), El Arco (The Arch), a natural archway in the seacliffs and Divorce Beach. I know, the names are so funny.

El Arco, the Arch of Cabo San Lucas, is its most famous site. It’s a distinct rock formation located in the extreme southern end of Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula. It is here that the Pacific Ocean becomes the Gulf of California.

The Marina boardwalk is where you’ll find many bars and restaurants. This is great to walk around during the day and night. The downtown itself is really easy to walk around also, and it’s where you’ll find most of the popular hang out spots. These will be located primarily along two main roads, Lazaro Cardenas and Marina Boulevard. There, you’ll find places like Mandala Los Cabos club and The Giggling Marlin Bar, just to name a few.

One of our favorite seafood restaurants, Lorenzillo’s

The Mona Lisa restaurant is a very popular, high-end restaurant with one of the best views of the sunset and The Arch.

Once a year, in October, there is a huge fishing competition. We were lucky enough to experience it. It’s called the Los Cabos Billfish Tournament. People from all over the world bring their huge amazing yachts and go out into the ocean to catch massive Marlins. The person that catches the biggest Marlin wins thousands of dollars, but then again, it costs thousands of dollars to participate. The Marlin that got second place weighted approximately 450 pounds. We missed the winner and how much that one weighed, but can you image? You can read more about it here: http://www.loscabostournaments.comand here https://www.bisbees.com

The marlin in this picture came in at 356 pounds.

We chose to stay in a beautiful all-inclusive hotel on the side of the Pacific Ocean called Sandos Finisterra Los Cabos. We loved everything about the hotel, but what we failed to realize, or were not told, was that the beach the hotel was in was a black flag beach, meaning, you were not allowed to enter the water because of its strong undercurrents. They don’t even allow you to wet your feet. We were bummed to hear that, and although the pool was absolutely amazing, we did miss the beach.

Next time we go to Cabo San Lucas, we will stay along Medano beach. It’s a large strip of beach that has a lot of hotels and restaurants. Although it is super touristy and has lots of locals constantly trying to sell you stuff, it’s the closes beach to downtown that is calm enough to swim in. There are other beaches further away from the town that you can consider staying at also.

*Medano beach, here you can also visit Mango Deck for drinks and live music.*

One of the main reasons we went to Cabo San Lucas was because it’s known as a “Trash the Dress” destination. This is where brides and grooms take amazing pictures on the beach in their wedding attire. After we got married, we went to Cabo San Lucas to relieve some of the wedding stress, but also to take some fun beach pictures. Thanks to our amazing photographer, Gonzalo Verdeja, we had an absolutely amazing time. Check out his work at www.gvphotographer.com.

There is plenty more to see in Cabo San Lucas and its neighboring areas, but this gives you a good starting point. If you would like to know what else there is to do, please contact me.

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