RonnyThere’s lots of places to go snorkeling in Cabo Pulmo but if you’re without a boat and confined to the shore, we recommend Playa El Arbolito. It’s an 11min drive from Cabo Pulmo and is an easy, dependable snorkeling spot if you’re unable to book a guided boat tour. This post documents our whole journey to Cabo Pulmo from Salt Lake City, Utah so if you’re just looking for the snorkeling info be sure to click the page-jump link in the “Day three” section below.
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Day one
Day two
Day three
Day four
Day five
Leaving behind the freezing temperatures of the Utah desert, we hopped on a plane via Delta for a 3 hr flight to the Baja California Sur, namely San Jose del Cabo, Mexico.
A quick note, time of year can mean the difference between poor visibility snorkeling, and warmer waters with better water clarity. For your best bet, summer or fall will be the warmest and clearest!
Salt Lake City to San Jose del Cabo
The last few flights into Mexico, we haven’t gotten our customs forms until after we’ve arrived at the airport. Make sure to bring a pen for your form and have your flight and accommodation information available.
A quick breeze through customs, we were hit with another snag – one agent stops Ronny asking how many cameras he has. Apparently, Mexico has initiated a rule or limit on how many cameras you can come in with. Find more information here:
Making our way to the ATMs. My debit card could only pull $300 a day, so we grabbed that, and paid an interesting 14.75 conversion rate to pesos located inside the airport. From there, we booked a taxi down to Hyatt Place Los Cabos. Our 900 Peso fee covered our tolls and tip from airport to hotel.
San Jose del Cabo – Hyatt Place Los Cabos and Kahe Sushi
The USB port (the only in the room) didn’t charge electronics, but we did bring along our own power banks. We did forget to bring the extra GoPro Batteries that would have made our trip more complete and captured more. Sometimes, that does happen folks!
(PRO TIP: if you want a seamless experience in a hotel with wine, make sure to either pick up a wine key if your bottle is corked, or choose bottles that have a twist off top! This isn’t our first time opening a bottle of wine with improvised tools, sadly)
For dinner we stopped by Kahe Sushi. We had margaritas alongside two sushi rolls. The Tuna Special and the Samurai. They also had a killer mango shrimp ceviche here, highly recommended. Walking back to the hotel, make sure to take a stop in the local alleys.
The next morning we packed up and head on out for a short walk up to the local Alamo Rentacar in San Jose del Cabo. Abreojas Cafe offered an array of drinks, including a home made iced coffee. It was so flavorful and was plenty for the both of us to take on the walk up the hill.
Alamo took a little longer than expected…thirty minutes to be exact. We turned up right when another couple was doing a walk in and there was only one employee there, Bernice (whom we highly enjoyed interacting with). After some additional insurances were added at the last minute because WHY NOT, we grabbed the SUV and headed out.
Road trip to Cabo Pulmo
The original plan was to travel up the Baja beach road all the way up from San Jose del Cabo to Cabo Pulmo. After picking up the car, Bernice advised we not take that route due to possible road issues and needing a higher clearance vehicle.. So the increase, while small, to rent a bigger vehicle wasn’t an issue, it turns out it wasn’t a necessary purchase, since what I thought was going to be a perfectly fine vehicle to take on the road, was discouraged from taking that route. We took the inner highway route instead.
Overlooking the Baja California Sur for the first time on a trip is always a punch to the gut. The colors are truly unbelievable. You can’t imagine the turquoise, the white, and the deep prussian blue. Our eyes melted as we peeked over the campground that lined the white sand beaches.
Cabo Pulmo Travel – Our experience
Our only contact in Cabo Pulmo was with the group Cabo Pulmo Travel. They boasted a complete online booking system, so I felt it was pretty legit. We requested to book one Eco Room for $59/Night. We didn’t need to put a deposit down, and we saw on the site that the room we requested was indeed booked out for the dates we had requested.
Upon arrival at the pin drop that the company provided us, no one was there….save two men, one an arms length deep in an ATM Machine, and another armed with a semi automatic gun.
A call later led us to Maribelle, and she told us that she was still cleaning rooms and would meet up with us in an hour or so. We made our way to the Cabo Pulmo Peninsula where we found lots of crabs, urchins, and wind.
Arriving back at Cabo Pulmo Travel, Maribelle hooked us up with a room. The room we were originally booked for was either booked with someone else, or they didn’t have it ready. Either way, we were put up in Casa Verde, a small green bungalow along the main street.
It came out to the same price so we agreed, and got escorted over to our stay.
Casa Verde – Accomodation
Casa Verde had a small fridge, sink, kitchenette, a few spices and pots/plates/wine glasses. A small pullout couch sat by the front door, and a full bed behind that. Across from the bed was the bathroom, a simple sink toilet shower setup. Hot water was available, and all you need in this oasis.
It was a modest bungalow running off of Solar Power, which is very common out here. Be prepared to have low power items only (charging) and streaming/internet is near extinct.
Tacos and Beer for Lunch
“Downtown” was an easy three minute walk towards the beach and back. Lunch was at Tacos and Beer, which…if you can believe it, has great tacos and great beers.
A little how-to on the taco bar. If you order tacos, you’ll receive them sans toppings. Take a look around and see that there is a taco bar. Here should be a plethora of toppings, from pickled onions, guac, pico, cabbage, sauces, hot sauce, peppers and more. Load up on your favorites and take them back to your table to chow down. We also enjoyed their margaritas!
Location is unbeatable with a near white sand beach as your floor, and the blue shades of the ocean beyond. I highly recommend the Pescado Ceviche, you will not regret it. Ceviches will typically be served with a side of tortilla chips, and also a few packets of crackers. Try the ceviche with the crackers! It soaks up a bit more of the flavor while keeping it light.
After lunch, we took a stroll along the beach, rushing with waves and squawking pelicans to let everything settle in. It was time to get ready for dinner, and head back out to La Palapa for dinner.
La Palapa for Dinner
It was a great dinner at La Palapa, right on the beach. A few more margaritas later and our tummies full of food, we desperately tried to leave the restaurant in time to capture the sunset. It took us about fifteen minutes to get the staff’s attention and another ten to get the check to us. We wished this could have been a more seamless process, but so it goes sometimes! Finally, we were able to run out and make it to the beach to capture the rest of the colors of sunset. Truly a beautiful sight watching the mountains tuck the sun behind them.
Make sure to try to stay awake if you have a clear night to see the stars, there is very little to no light pollution out here. Our bungalow featured a patio that was perfect to block the wind and view the galaxies.
We headed back to Casa Verde, interacting with the local gatos that came out for some late night scraps.
Snorkeling in Cabo Pulmo – El Arbolito
The next morning we had planned the day to be spent snorkeling. We had tried to book a snorkeling tour with Arturo through Cabo Pulmo Travel, but were never able to confirm a meetup location, nor a time that he’d expect to meet up that morning. We decided to give it one last-ditch effort and headed back to the pavilion.
Again, no one was there and we decided to head over to the restaurant they own (Restaurante El Caballero) to see if we could get in touch with anyone regarding getting out on the water. Maribelle tried to contact him but was unable to get in touch. Dejected, we headed out to El Arbiltito where we knew of some good beach-accessible snorkeling.
We’re not sure if this payment stop has been here long, but we ran into a woman with cones in the road asking for a payment of 100 pesos for us to park closer to the beach. We obliged, and then ran into a sign that said you can’t get into the water without a snorkeling guide. Not wanting to get verbally accosted, we went back and asked the woman if we could indeed snorkel without assistance. She assured us it was ok, and off we went.
We headed to the South end of the beach to get acquainted with the water once more.
A few park rules to keep in mind to stay safe and help protect the reef when swimming or snorkeling in Cabo pulmo:
- Wear reef-safe, biodegradable sunscreen
- Don’t get closer than 2.5 meters from reefs
- Don’t chase or try to touch marine life
- Wear a life jacket
- And lastly, limit your time in the water to 30min increments
I took about fifteen to twenty minutes to get into the water at my own pace. Often I’ve jumped right in and froze from the shock of not only the water temperature, but not being in the ocean PERIOD after years of not being in it. The visibility was poor on the south end, so we decided to head north to another spot that looked like it had more protection from the waves.
It was so beautiful! Bobbing in the ocean, getting to check out the wildlife is my happy place. There were many different fish, fry, and coral. We really should have snorkeled for longer! After getting it out of our system, we headed back to Casa Verde to shower, wrap up the night, and get dinner.
Dinner at Restaurante El Caballero
Restaurante El Caballero, a perfect quiet spot for the night. We were overlooking a garden where chickens, birds and geckos scurried along. I ordered the vino blanco shrimp dish, and Ronny got the Mole Chicken. Both were delicious, and we each had one of their Margarita Tropicales. Again, totally recommend this place. They do cash only so keep that in mind to have pesos in hand.
A silent peaceful walk back to Casa Verde to tuck in for the rest of the evening, we really couldn’t have had a more perfect day.
Our last day in Cabo Pulmo
Our final morning in our stay was a windy one. It sounded like the water was right outside our window, it was really quite magical. Upon rousing, we checked out the weather and it was very windy. We were hoping to add one more snorkeling spot to our lists but the weather just wasn’t cooperative, the waves were pretty intense, and we had to get the car back to the Alamo by 4pm.
We head back south for a three hour drive, meandering through a town here and there. We arrived back in San Jose del Cabo. For lunch we swung by Claro fish Jr behind the store La Comer. This is another taco bar situation so don’t look stunned when you’re brought bare naked tacos, go make them YOURS.
Las Palmas in SJC, eating at Mar de Fondo
The car was returned to the Alamo across the street from our stay at Las Palmas. While the room was cheap, it was also under construction, had really thin walls, and a labyrinth to navigate each time you left the room. But, really no complaints! The room had a bed, bathroom, and toilet. What more could you ask for?
For dinner, we headed out to Mar de Fondo, a restaurant across the street from Walmart. The food we ordered was delicious as well, we had ceviche and a quesadilla.
The night ended quickly after that, we returned to the hotel, and enjoyed our bottle of wine for the winddown in preparation for the next day of travel.
Final day at Pescadito Break
The flight left at 3PM the last morning, we checked out of our hotel room, grabbed some cash at the ATM in the same plaza, and used UBER for our first time in Mexico! Ronny chatted with the driver, it was cool to hear about his experience and freedom he felt doing it in the area.
He dropped us off at Pescadito Break. This was our absolute favorite location, this is the place to be! The view is framed beautifully with crashing waves, surfers, and birds fishing in the afternoon. We had an authentic caesar salad with shrimp and it was sooo good. We also had a fish and shrimp taco each.
Ubering in Mexico, Mexico carry-on regulations
Hailing another Uber and get ourselves to the airport. The driver was really nice and even let us know about how the government doesn’t let Uber Drivers pickup from the airport, only dropoff. We asked about this because when we landed we wondered why we weren’t able to book an Uber out.
Per usual, no trip is truly over until something has to be taken from my person! We arrive at security and scan our bags, the woman then says that we can’t take our tripods in carry on. How dare you Mexico, what crap! Though this is not my first time dealing with countries that won’t let it be carried on. (looking at you, Taiwan) Thwarted, we grabbed one last drink, and headed back to SLC with our hearts once again broken.
This trip really opened my eyes to how much I want to learn Spanish. I had an interest in so many people and it really felt like a lot of the people here were uncomfortable speaking english.
The country really is beautiful, and we cannot wait to return to the waters and ways.
Thank you for taking me on this journey with your beautiful photos and stories! All I can think about is tacos now.