“Cabo San Lucas at Eye Level” is a reference to “The City at Eye Level”. While this book is still helpful, I wanted to share the below video from Create Streets that provides a concise perceptive on the same topic. I am focusing the following post on two approaches I took to walk between my hotel and downtown. Yes, most tourists at my hotel paid for transportation to downtown. I paid for roundtrip transportation between my hotel and downtown once because the Arch and Lovers Beach water taxi provided through a company at my hotel included a nearly 50% discount on a massage at my hotel’s spa. Even though my massage therapist did not speak much English, I still enjoyed the massage. I knew enough Spanish to say thank you, give feedback on how the massage felt, and provide a tip.
Highway Route
Transportation between my hotel and downtown was cheap, so I was not trying to avoid paying for transportation by walking. As a transportation planner, I wanted to experience whether it is feasible to walk from my hotel to downtown. I also wanted to slow down time to take photos and stay in one place to watch people interact with the infrastructure. Being driven was too fast to take photos and observe people on the highway!
While I knew walking along and across highways would be risky, I was surprised by how much more dangerous walking was in Cabo San Lucas and other parts of Los Cabos than anywhere I have walked in the US. As I will show later, I should clarify that walking was much safer in the downtown tourist area. It is unfortunate that the locals have to suffer from dangerous infrastructure while the tourists get the safer infrastructure. The locals have to suffer from the dangerous infrastructure every day while the tourists likely only spend a few hours walking downtown. In case you are curious how I know the elderly person shown in the below photo is a hotel worker, I saw a hotel logo on their shirt and they were walking from the direction of many hotels. I did not speak Spanish well enough to ask whether they work at the hotel shown on their shirt.
The below intersection was a few feet away from the above photo where the sidewalk ends. Due to the walk signals not working and the lack of beg buttons, I ended up having to jaywalk across this busy intersection. I watched the locals jaywalk to figure out when to safely jaywalk. Even though I hate beg buttons, I would rather have a beg button than try to jaywalk.
As I mentioned earlier, the walking infrastructure got safer in the downtown tourist area, which was not far from the above dangerous intersection. The below video shows a running signal (the person in the signal runs instead of walks) in front of the Hard Rock Cafe. I did not even have to push a beg button to activate the running signal. The signal automatically started. I barely crossed the highway before the runner stopped running, so I doubt the signal is timed for elderly people and people in a wheelchair. While I am not sure whether Mexico has something similar to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the ramp on the side I was standing on likely was too steep and narrow to be ADA compliant. Why is the signal only limited to the Hard Rock Cafe?
Beach Route
Due to how dangerous the highway route felt when walking, I avoided the highway route for my next walking trip to downtown. Even after I tried to force Google Maps to provide a beach route to downtown, Google Maps kept forcing me to use roads. Since there were no cars on the beach, I felt safer walking along the beach than on a highway with missing sections of sidewalk and walk signals. Thankfully, I wanted to walk all the way to downtown because there was no public beach access until downtown. I kept looking for public beach access as I walked past continuous walls of private hotels. The hotels had “private property” signs everywhere. Even though I wanted to take a short cut to access a road between the hotels, I could not find any public access so I kept walking until I reach the marina in downtown. I was getting nervous about whether there would be public access from the beach to the marina. This is the only public access to the beach that I saw between my hotel and the marina. The very limited public access to the beach surprised me because I have been getting used to Oregon’s laws that require public access to the beach.
In addition to having difficulty finding public access from the beach to the road, I was constantly approached by Mexican vendors on the beach trying to sell cigars, weed, coke (cocaine not the drink), hats, jewelry, activities, etc. The below photo shows one of the worse locations because vendors approaches me from the hotel side and the water taxi side. The water taxi vendor wanted to take me to the Arch and Lovers Beach. Thankfully, the vendors let me through after I replied no, shook my head, or ignored them.
Even though no one was using these stairs, which face the marina near the public beach access, the hotel blocked the public from sitting on the stairs. I found it difficult to just find a public place to sit after walking along the beach. While I understand hotel management likely does not want people who are not staying at the hotel to be on their property, the stairs face a public walkway. I believe people need public places to sit when the walkway is public.
Fun Vacation Despite Walking Challenges
I added this section because I do not want readers to think I had a horrible vacation. I realize after reading what I wrote in this section that it appears I tried to show that I had a fun vacation. I definitely enjoyed escaping western Oregon’s rainy and cold winter to a place in Mexico that is consistently sunny and warm during the winter. I was able to go swimming outside and wear sun glasses every day! While the weather was great, I plan to learn from the bad aspects of staying at an all-inclusive hotel for my next vacation. I feel context is important in the bad aspects because I would rather have been in Mexico than doing a staycation like many of my Oregon friends.
Due to the threat of COVID-19, I decided to stay in one all-inclusive hotel the whole time instead of traveling to several cities. While I ate and drank plenty during my first time staying at an all-inclusive hotel, which felt like a cruise ship on land, I quickly got cabin fever or stir crazy because I had a constant urge to leave the hotel to explore Mexico. I am not sure what personalities the people who relaxed by the pools all day have but I got stir crazy after only an hour of laying in or by the pools!
Even though my dad felt it was unsafe to leave the hotel and urged me to stay in my hotel the entire time, I needed to leave daily to maintain my sanity. I got tired of the tourist restaurants in my hotel. I would have preferred experiencing and financially supporting authentic local restaurants instead of the tourist restaurants in the hotel. While I would need to speak Spanish better, I also would have preferred talking more with the locals instead of other tourists. I did not come to Mexico to hear American tourists bash COVID-19 restrictions in their home city and state! Many American tourists booed the hotel staff at midnight on New Year’s Eve when they kept announcing that everyone had to wear a mask and do physical distancing when celebrating the new year. As the below photos from my trips outside the hotel show, I consistently wore a mask and did physical distancing.
Next Blog Post
While I plan to write a follow-up post after I use on-the-ground engagement for Clackamas County shuttle planning, I am not sure how many more posts I will have time to write until after passing the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) Certification Exam. Due to the first round of COVID-19 restrictions, my exam was canceled in May 2020. The second round of COVID-19 restrictions canceled my November 2020 exam. Since the vaccine is being distributed, I am hopeful that my May 2021 exam will happen. Even though I am still struggling to choose the best correct answer, especially when I must think from the perspective of the exam writers and nationally (Oregon has special planning), I have been studying for the exam with few breaks since summer 2019. I am excited to blog more consistently after passing the exam!
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