Cabo San Lucas sits at the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula, where the Pacific meets the Gulf of California, and it announces itself with a curving rock arch called El Arco at the very end of the land. The town has about sixty-eight thousand people, many of them working in tourism, and it is loud, bright and busy, with marinas full of sport-fishing boats, bars and resort hotels. In the nineteenth century it was a modest fishing and canning village, and the transformation into a major resort took place from the 1970s, when the Transpeninsular Highway was completed, finally linking the tip of Baja with the border.
That is the ride's story. Highway 1, the Transpeninsular, runs about 1,700 kilometres from Tijuana to Cabo, through desert, cactus forest, mountains and coastal flats, and it is a classic adventure road. Cabo is a satisfying place to finish: warm water, cold beer, and fish tacos. The last stretch, from La Paz and Todos Santos, is a pleasant run through desert scrub and along the Pacific, with cardón cactus, some surfers and old mission towns. Todos Santos is worth a stop for its art galleries and the Hotel California, which claims, without much evidence, to have inspired the song.
Practical matters are easy here. Fuel is everywhere in town, there are plenty of hotels and workshops, and the roads around are in good shape. Heat is the enemy in summer, from June to October, when temperatures are extreme and humidity is high, and hurricane season brings risk of storms. The best months are November to April, with warm days and cool evenings, and whales can be seen offshore from December to March, as grey and humpback whales visit the warm waters.
The water around Cabo is rich with marine life, and the Los Cabos area is known for marlin, dorado and sea lions that bask on the rocks near the arch. A boat ride to see the arch is popular. Watch your belongings in crowded areas, and expect higher prices than elsewhere in Mexico. A sunset on the beach near the rocks, with the Pacific swell rolling in, makes a good ending to a long road.