Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

We are off on another Panama Canal Cruise. When we first went in 2013, our thought was that this would be a “once in a lifetime” trip for us. Last year that changed when my sister and her boyfriend said they were thinking of making the trip. After asking lots of questions about our trip, their decision was to make the trek through the canal. They invited us to travel with them. In April, we found ourselves boarding the Norwegian Star out of Los Angeles bound for Miami. We also picked up a niece of ours and her husband making this a truly family cruise. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing photos of the excursions we opted to choose, this time all from the list of available choices offered by Norwegian Cruise Line.

Though some of the ports were the same as in 2013, we were careful to choose different excursions so that we may visit different places than on our original trip. We would also get to add two new countries to our (admittedly small) world travel list. But I digress from our visit to Cabo San Lucas.

In Cabo, you might as well be in San Diego, California. On our bus tour, we went by the Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and any number of U.S. based fast food places. The tour we chose would take us out of the city to San José del Cabo, some 20 miles (32 km) from Cabo. But first, we stopped at a bar/restaurant that provides an encompassing view of the harbor area. We recognized this place instantly. It was the first stop on our tour in 2013 as well.

The harbor at Cabo is shallow. You’ll note in the photo of the cruise ships that they are anchored offshore some distance. The port at Cabo requires the use of tenders to shuttle passengers to and from the dock. Across from the dock where the passengers go ashore, a large hotel and resort complex complete with nearby marina attracts longer term guests than us cruise ship day-trippers. When we were here in 2013, those buildings were but a concrete shell, construction having barely begun on the project.

When we arrived at San José del Cabo, we dispersed into the center square with lots of touristy shops and a beautiful church, a staple of all of the Mexican communities I have ever visited. Believe it or not, we’ve been in about a dozen different small towns in Mexico over the last couple of decades, this after deciding I would never go to Mexico. How time changes things.

We had only about an hour to visit the town square, so our first stop was that beautiful Catholic Church you can see in the image above. All of the Central American countries are predominantly Catholic thanks to the influence of their Spanish conquerors many centuries ago.

Once we left the church grounds, we had some time for a bit of gift shopping and a quick, but expensive, lunch. Yup. We might as well have been in California. Except I did have to smile at the Mexican take on the border wall that is the subject of so much discussion in U.S. politics.

On our way back from our visit to the town square, we stopped at one more attraction, a glass blowing factory. Next week I will share some photos of those talented artisans who create those beautiful glass articles. In the meantime, I submit for your review, a gallery of images captured on our visit to San José del Cabo. In most browsers, you can click on an image to enlarge it and to scroll through the gallery.

John Steiner