All of the Mexican tacos, a cat who lives at a sushi restaurant, Russian accents, Nebraska, and a man eating cheesy chips the WRONG way. A bachelorette weekend in Cabo San Lucas, only partly explained.
Nancy Carleton spent a bachelorette weekend in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, in June 2022, during Los Cabos Pride week. The story covers El Arco at Land's End and why it exists: Baja California rides the Pacific Plate, which tore the peninsula from mainland Mexico around six million years ago and opened the Gulf of California, which is still widening by roughly four to five centimeters a year. Reported first-hand for That Layover Life.
All of the Mexican tacos, a cat who had made a home at a sushi restaurant, Overboard, Russian accents, Cheetos, Nebraska, a man eating cheesy chips the WRONG way, and coffee walks: a week before Cabo, if you had asked me what these things had in common, I would have stared at you blankly.
It started in a bathroom
I met Emily in a bathroom many years ago, and I am still so proud that I did. Ever since, the many reasons to celebrate her have kept introducing me to more charismatic, adventure-seeking women. This time the reason was the biggest one yet. Em is marrying Dan, and before that, she was getting a Final Fiesta in Cabo San Lucas.
The themes, unexplained
Today I know that those are a few of the many themes that made Em's bachelorette weekend a ball. I am not going to explain them. That is how inside jokes work.
I will vouch for the cat. It was real: a striped tabby who had moved in under the tables at a sushi restaurant and supervised dinner from the floor.
The rest was perfect weather, sunsets, and cool drinks. And it was Pride week. Los Cabos had declared June its official Pride month, and the Pride march through the tourist streets of Cabo San Lucas was set for Sunday, June 19. The list goes on.
A piece of Mexico on its way out
From the water off Land's End, the tip of the Baja California peninsula looks finished: pale granite stacked into towers, with one arch punched clean through. El Arco is the postcard. It is also the very end of a coastline that is leaving.
Start with the rock. It is granite, part of a belt that runs down the peninsula and crops out again here at the tip. Then it picks up across the water on the Mexican mainland, south of Puerto Vallarta. That is not a coincidence. These used to be the same coast.
Baja California rides on the Pacific Plate, which is grinding northwest past the North American Plate. For millions of years the seam between the two ran offshore, west of the continent. Then, around six million years ago, the plate boundary moved inland into a long, weak zone of crust, and the Pacific Plate took the peninsula with it. As Baja tore away from the mainland, the sea flooded in behind it. That water is the Gulf of California, the Sea of Cortez. Geologists still call the southernmost stretch of that rift the Cabo-Puerto Vallarta segment, which is about as close as geology gets to keeping an ex's name on the mailbox.
It has not stopped. The peninsula is still moving northwest, roughly four to five centimeters a year, which is why the Gulf is so long and narrow and why Baja's coastline runs parallel to the mainland's: the two edges used to fit together. The Gulf is one of the youngest seas on the planet, and geologists treat it as a textbook case of an ocean in the early stages of being born.
So the arch everyone photographs is the far tip of a place in the middle of a very long goodbye.
If you go
- When. June is one of the driest months in Cabo San Lucas. Mexico's national weather service climate normals (1991 to 2020) show essentially no June rain; the wet months are August and September. It is hot, so plan for it.
- Pride. Los Cabos Pride is held in June in downtown Cabo San Lucas, organized by the local sexual diversity group Codisex. In 2022 the march was on Sunday, June 19. Check Visit Los Cabos for the current year's date.
- El Arco. Water taxis and boat tours leave from the Cabo San Lucas marina. The arch sits inside the Cabo San Lucas Flora and Fauna Protection Area, run by Mexico's national protected areas commission (CONANP), so admire it from the boat and stay off the rocks.
- Lover's Beach and Divorce Beach. Playa del Amor faces the bay and is usually calm. A short walk across the sand, Playa del Divorcio faces the open Pacific, and its surf and currents are dangerous year-round. Visit both. Swim only at the first one. (Good advice for a bachelorette, in general.)
- Swimming. Médano Beach, on the bay in Cabo San Lucas, is the calmest swimming beach in town. Treat any Pacific-facing beach as look-don't-swim.
A goodbye party
A bachelorette is a goodbye party for one version of your life, thrown by the people who are not going anywhere. We threw Em's at the tip of a peninsula that is doing the same thing in slow motion: leaving one place to join another, and taking everything it is made of along for the ride.
Congrats, Em and Dan. I can't wait to celebrate your big day.
A bachelorette is a goodbye party for one version of your life, thrown by the people who are not going anywhere.
Why is Baja California separating from mainland Mexico?
It sits on the Pacific Plate, which moves northwest past the North American Plate. Around six million years ago the plate boundary moved into what is now the Gulf of California, pulling the peninsula away and letting the sea in.
How fast is Baja California moving?
Roughly 4 to 5 centimeters a year relative to mainland Mexico.
What is El Arco in Cabo San Lucas made of?
Granite, part of the Los Cabos block. The same granite belt reappears on the mainland south of Puerto Vallarta.
Can you swim at Divorce Beach in Cabo?
No. It faces the open Pacific and has dangerous surf and currents year-round. Lover's Beach, on the bay side, is usually calm.
When is Los Cabos Pride?
Every June in downtown Cabo San Lucas. In 2022 the march was on June 19.
Is June a good time to visit Cabo San Lucas?
It is one of the driest months, with essentially no average rainfall; the wet season peaks in August and September. Expect heat.
Sources used in reporting this story:
- Oskin and Stock, Geology (2003), on the plate boundary moving into the Gulf about 6 million years ago
- Bennett et al., Geosphere (2015), USGS, on the Gulf opening and flooding
- UC Riverside, Gulf of California geology, on the granite belt from Los Cabos to Puerto Vallarta
- Bot et al., Tectonics (2016), on the Cabo-Puerto Vallarta segment
- SCEC (2022), on the GPS rate across the Gulf
- Visit Los Cabos, on Los Cabos Pride
- The Cabo Sun, on the 2022 Pride march date
- Los Cabos Magazine, on swimming beaches
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