Party-hearty Cabo San Lucas is strictly a resort, but 200-year-old San Jose del Cabo is a bona fide—although small—Mexican town with a shady plaza and pastel pink and blue houses. Boulevard Mijares, the main street through town, has been designated a tourist zone. It's lined with small shops and cafes that are interspersed with small grocery stores and private homes.
A block east on Avenida Zaragoza is the pleasant zocalo (main plaza), with its tree-shaded gazebo and wrought-iron benches. Facing the square, La Iglesia de San Jose, the parish church on the zocalo, bears a tile mural depicting the death of Padre Nicolas Tamaral, a Jesuit priest and founder of the town. (He was killed and dragged through the desert during an uprising against the missionaries in 1734.) The center of San Jose is undergoing considerable change. Entrepreneurs have converted old adobe homes into classy shops and restaurants, beautifying the town and attracting tourists from San Lucas. Among the conversions are a series of art galleries that have remade San Jose into an art mecca with collections of local and famous Mexican painters.
Most of San Jose's resort-style hotels are located along the beach south of town, where Boulevard Mijares intersects Paseo San Jose. The beaches around the resorts are great for walking or horseback riding, but the water isn't recommended for swimming because of its strong surf. At the end of the hotel zone is the Estero San Jose, an estuary that used to shelter more than 200 species of birds until it was all but destroyed by Hurricane Juliette in 2001. Nature tours and boat trips are not currently being conducted, although hikers can walk on the beach to the estuary. Construction on a new marina/resort development is taking place on the north side of the lagoon, but developers promise that the remaining natural habitat will not be significantly disturbed.
You can get a sense of the beauty surrounding Los Cabos from the lookout point above Costa Azul, a popular surfing beach just south of San Jose.
