Is La Paz getting a nude beach?

The ultimate trial balloon was recently let loose in La Paz regarding nudity. Nude beaches, of course, are a rarity in Mexico. Outside Zipolite in Oaxaca, there aren’t any, although Playa del Carmen in Quintana Roo used to have one, and the Riviera Maya does have some adults-only resorts where clothing is optional. Tourists have also been known to occasionally take some liberties on the nation’s beaches, but as far as legal recognition goes, Playa Zipolite remains the only officially sanctioned nude beach in Mexico.

However, there might be a possibility for one in La Paz. Well, the municipality of La Paz, anyway. It would have to be an area with little traffic so as not to offend the sensibilities of locals, and indeed, the area proposed by the La Paz comptroller, Jorge Pável Castro Ríos, in an interview with Diario El Independiente, is about as low traffic as it gets: between Playas El Saltito and El Carrizalito.

He noted that no formal requests have been made to date, and that permits would have to be acquired from the appropriate authorities. But the fact that it was brought up at all does seem to suggest that La Paz might be amenable to the tourism dollars and media interest generated by such a proposal.

Vendor access is being limited on Los Cabos beaches 

Life is good on Los Cabos’ beautiful beaches. But if there is a complaint, particularly on the more popular playas, it’s that there are way too many vendors. Local business owners, who have heard the complaints from tourists for years, have been vocal in pushing the local government to crack down on the many unauthorized vendors found on beaches like Playa El Médano in Cabo San Lucas, some of whom come from other states during the high tourist season.

It appears their voices, on behalf of innumerable harried tourists, have finally been heard. Over 300 vendors have been swept from local beaches by authorities, and moving forward, only those who are properly permitted and wear the official uniform—a long-sleeved white shirt—will be allowed to sell their wares. New uniforms are expected to be issued to the 698 paid-up vendors this summer. ID cards will also be issued to those who ponied up the 1,200 pesos to renew their permit, and an additional 600 pesos for the shirt. 

That still seems like an awful lot of vendors pestering tourists, but at least it’s easy to see them coming.

Los Cabos has the only two A+ Blue Flag beaches in Mexico 

When the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) announced its Blue Flag beaches for 2024 – 2025, Los Cabos had 25 of Mexico’s 78 awarded beaches, the most of any single municipality. However, even among beaches heralded for their cleanliness, sustainability, and services, there are levels.

For example, there is an A+ designation that signifies the very highest achievement obtainable under the Blue Flag banner, meaning not only does a beach meet all 33 international criteria for water quality standards, safety, services, and environmental management and education, but it maintains cleanliness at a truly exceptional level (no mean feat given the amount of garbage regularly hauled from local beaches).

These standards are so stringent that to date, only two beaches in Mexico have ever qualified: Playas Palmilla and Santa María in Los Cabos. The two A+ awardees were recently announced after a two-week audit, bringing attention to just how pristinely maintained these coastal stretches are, in addition to their aesthetic beauty. 

Naturally, that means the other local beaches aren’t operating at A+ levels. Blue Flag awardee Playa El Chileno, notably, appears to be struggling to maintain even the basic standard. For example, there have been reports of activities prohibited under Blue Flag rules, including unlicensed food and alcohol sales, and the unauthorized renting of beach chairs to tourists. Vendors without permits, of the kind mentioned earlier, have also allegedly been harassing beachgoers there.

Play El Chileno, it should be pointed out, is a very popular beach, particularly among locals. It’s also very beautiful, with excellent swimming and snorkeling. However, despite being a perennial Blue Flag winner and one of the first five beaches ever to achieve the honor in Mexico (dating back to 2014), it could be in danger of losing that status. 

It wouldn’t be the first. The thing about Blue Flag beaches is that the quality has to be consistently maintained, which is sometimes hard to do. But Los Cabos’ government has shown a commitment to keeping its beaches in excellent condition, resulting not only in its record number of Blue Flag playas, but also 17 newly minted Platinum ones. This honor, like the Blue Flag, is premised on cleanliness, services, and sustainability. But it’s administered not by FEE, but rather by the domestic Instituto Mexicano de Normalización y Certificación.

New signs delivered to popular Los Cabos beaches

New signage is also being delivered to some Los Cabos beaches this summer, as part of a Zofemat (Zona Federal Marítimo Terrestre) initiative to promote self-care and safety. The signs will showcase plenty of useful information, including an explanation of the flag system used to update the water conditions for swimming or other aquatic activities. 

No, this has nothing to do with the aforementioned blue or platinum flags. Rather, it refers to color-coded flags like the green, yellow, and red ones that are occasionally flown, and which, like the colors of a stop light, tell you whether you can swim because conditions are safe, you should take caution, or avoid getting in the water altogether. White flags, meanwhile, mean there are jellyfish in the water, while black flags indicate beach closure.

The signs weren’t installed at all beaches, but only at those that see the most traffic. 

Chris Sands is the Cabo San Lucas local expert for the USA Today travel website 10 Best, writer of Fodor’s Los Cabos travel guidebook and a contributor to numerous websites and publications, including Tasting Table, Marriott Bonvoy Traveler, Forbes Travel Guide, Porthole Cruise, Cabo Living and Mexico News Daily. His specialty is travel-related content and lifestyle features focused on food, wine and golf.

The post MND Local: Los Cabos news roundup appeared first on Mexico News Daily

Agricultural bounty in La Paz, as one might expect, doesn’t come from the city, but rather from a few small production areas like El Carrizal, El Centenario, Los Planes, and Todos Santos that account for only a fraction of the land in the larger municipality, but the vast majority of crops. Todos Santos is particularly notable, not only because it and the neighboring community of El Pescadero account for a significant portion of the total growing area in La Paz. But also because they’re the heart and soul of the municipality’s thriving farm-to-table restaurant scene. 

Farm-to-table restaurants in Todos Santos and El Pescadero

Although there’s a history of farming centuries old in these areas, the farm-to-table movement has flourished in the last two decades, led by restaurants such as Cocina de Campo by Agricole, Hierbabuena, and Jazamango. 

Of course, each is distinct. Hierbabuena, founded in 2013 in El Pescadero, has a small garden of perhaps one acre, but grows upwards of 40 different varieties of fruits, flowers, herbs, and vegetables, which it incorporates into its delicious menu specialties. Contrast this with Agricole, the 37-acre El Pescadero farming cooperative founded by Elizabeth Ibarra Vivanco, whose abundant produce may be found in its farm store market and also in its restaurant, Cocina de Campo by Agricole — the latter of which has been celebrated as a Bib Gourmand selection by the Michelin Guide, certifying exceptional quality and value.

Javier Plascencia, the scion of a Tijuana family of restaurateurs, needed no introduction when he opened Jazamango in Todos Santos in 2017. He’s the most famous chef in the Baja California peninsula and has his own Michelin Guide credentials, having received a coveted star for Animalón in Valle de Guadalupe. The restaurant was thus eagerly anticipated, and has lived up to its billing thanks not only to kitchen talent, but the restaurant’s reliance on local ingredients, many of them coming from the onsite garden. 

There are other farm-to-table attractions, too, as well as those that don’t fit so neatly under the farm-to-table label, but certainly merit attention from visitors. Baja Beans, for example, is best known for its coffee, which can be sipped in fashionable resorts throughout the region and at its burgeoning number of cafés. The original is in El Pescadero and is also worth visiting for its Sunday Market, a great place to find fresh, local produce. Meanwhile, boutique hotel Paradero Todos Santos, which opened in early 2021, is bounded by family farms, a fortunate occurrence for diners at Tenoch by Paradero, its Michelin Guide-recognized restaurant. 

Agricultural production in the La Paz municipality

Just under 4,000 hectares, or nearly 10,000 acres, are farmed in the municipality of La Paz, producing close to 140,000 tons annually of fruits and vegetables, including asparagus, basil, chile peppers, mango, melon, and tomato. Chile peppers, oddly, are botanically classed as a fruit, and account for over half (51.1%) of all agricultural production in La Paz. The fruit most associated with the region, though, is mango, so ubiquitous during the summer months that its fresh juice can be found at restaurants around the region, and particularly so in Todos Santos, where there’s even an annual festival dedicated to its many uses. 

However, tomatoes and chile peppers remain the staple crops and account for close to 80% of all produce grown in the La Paz municipality. Each is also planted in Todos Santos and El Pescadero, too, although these communities each have their own specialties. In a 2015 study, for instance, it was noted that 41% of the planting area in Todos Santos was set aside for poblano peppers, 17% for basil, 16% for green beans, and 10% for herbs such as chives, marjoram, mint, rosemary, tarragon, and thyme. Plantings in El Pescadero were similarly allotted, with the vast majority of its 488 hectares given over to poblano peppers, basil, green beans, and culinary herbs. 

How meat and seafood are sourced locally

Do restaurants in Todos Santos, El Pescadero, and elsewhere in the municipality source meat and seafood locally? You bet they do, although not exclusively. La Paz is the leading poultry producer in Baja California Sur, accounting for 482.7 tons according to the most recent yearly statistics. The municipality also provided 304.7 tons of pork, 92.7 tons of goat meat, 61 tons of lamb, and was a significant source of dairy products, too. Nearly 9 million liters of cow’s milk were squeezed from udders last year, and 384,000 liters of goat’s milk.

Seafood is an even more traditional part of the local economy, with the most important species harvested from the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortés (as the Gulf of California is always referred to locally) being, from a value perspective, scale fish like tuna, dorado, snapper, and grouper (52.5%), lobster (21.6%), shark (13.3%), octopus (4.2%), shrimp (2.2%), abalone (2.2%), and oyster (0.7%). The fresher these catches are, the better. Hierbabuena, for example, sources its seafood from a fishmonger in nearby Punta Lobos.

The importance of regional aquaculture 

However, not all fish consumed locally are caught. Aquaculture has also become big business in La Paz, and is a valuable source of fish that are critically endangered in the wild due to overfishing, like totoaba, as well as red snapper, shrimp, clams, oysters, and scallops. As Forbes Mexico reports, over one million totoaba are currently being nurtured in nurseries in La Paz by the aquaculture fishery Santomar, with a portion by Mexican law earmarked for return to the wild to replenish the natural population. 

It’s important to note that wild totoaba cannot be legally consumed, but second-generation fish from aquaculture facilities can, and those are the fish that are finding their way onto menus in popular tourist destinations like Los Cabos and Todos Santos.

Chris Sands is the Cabo San Lucas local expert for the USA Today travel website 10 Best, writer of Fodor’s Los Cabos travel guidebook and a contributor to numerous websites and publications, including Tasting Table, Marriott Bonvoy Traveler, Forbes Travel Guide, Porthole Cruise, Cabo Living and Mexico News Daily. His specialty is travel-related content and lifestyle features focused on food, wine and golf.

The post Where does farm-to-table food come from in Baja California Sur? appeared first on Mexico News Daily

That’s not to say, however, that there aren’t plenty of things worth doing, and this seems an opportune time to spotlight some of the smaller, often recurring events at area hotels, resorts, bars and restaurants.

Cooking class at Acre

Not only does this class offer the opportunity to tour the property of one of the most acclaimed farm-to-table restaurants in Los Cabos, but it also provides participants with a chance to learn how to prepare a few delicious Mexican specialties from scratch. 

Dates: Weekdays, 11 a.m.–2 p.m. in August
Location: Acre Restaurant and Cocktail Bar, C. Rincón de las Animas, Animas Bajas, San José del Cabo
Cost: 2,100 pesos per person

Yoga + Mimosas at Drift

Best known as a 29-key boutique hotel in the heart of San José del Cabo’s Gallery District, Drift also prides itself on its weekly Yoga + Mimosas event, held each Saturday. The yoga and first mimosa are complimentary for those who RSVP, but rental mats for non-guests or brunch afterward at Drift Kitchen + Mezcal Bar are extra. 

Dates: Aug. 2, 9, 16, 23, 30
Location: Drift, Miguel Hidalgo 613, Gallery District, San José del Cabo
Cost: The class is free, but RSVP to ensure space availability

Martini and Jazz Nights at Humo

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Jazz on the Rocks | Live Music (@jazzontherocksatsp)

Some things never go out of style. For instance, jazz and martinis have each achieved classic and forever stylish status. Up to four signature examples of the iconic cocktail are featured on Saturday nights at elegant, Ritz-Carlton-based Humo.

Dates: Aug. 2, 9, 16, 23, 30
Location: Zadún, A Ritz-Carlton Reserve, Blvd. Mar de Cortez, San José del Cabo
Cost: Call (624-172-9000) for reservations

Fiesta Mexicana at Playa Grande

Playa Grande, a beachfront resort under the Grupo Solmar banner, celebrates traditional Mexican music and dancing each Monday night with its Fiesta Mexicana. Mexican culinary favorites are also featured, with tacos and margaritas headlining the buffet and open bar.

Dates: Aug. 4, 11, 18, 25
Location: Playa Grande, Playa Grande 1, Cabo San Lucas
Cost: US $52 for adults, free for children 5 and under

Hook and Cook at Pueblo Bonito Pacifica

If you can’t catch dinner while shore fishing in the Pacific Ocean at luxury resort Pueblo Bonito Pacifica, don’t worry. Your chef guide has fresh fish and ceviche to serve up for this memorable breakfast activity.

Dates: Aug. 6, 13, 20, 27
Location: Pueblo Bonito Pacífica Golf & Spa Resort, Previo Paraíso Escondido, Cabo San Lucas
Cost: Call the resort for reservations and details (624-142-9696)

World’s 50 Best, Guest Bartender Claudia Cabrera, at Viceroy

Viceroy Los Cabos has been showcasing cocktails from some of the world’s best bartenders this summer. In June, it was Kevin Tocino from Aruba Day Drink in Tijuana. This August, it’s Claudia Cabrera from Kaito del Valle in Mexico City.

Dates: Aug. 7
Location: Viceroy Los Cabos, Zona Hotelera, San José del Cabo
Cost: Open to guests of the resort, rates start at US $500 per night

Boogie Nights at Rooftop 360

Retro music from the 1980s and ’90s rules during weekly Boogie Nights at Rooftop 360, the bar with spectacular views set above Playa El Médano at Corazón Cabo Resort and Spa. Women enjoy two-for-one prices on domestic drinks from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Dates: Aug. 7, 14, 21, 28
Location: Corazón Cabo Resort, Pelicanos 225, Col. El Médano Cabo San Lucas
Cost: No cover charge

Chris Sands is the Cabo San Lucas local expert for the USA Today travel website 10 Best, writer of Fodor’s Los Cabos travel guidebook and a contributor to numerous websites and publications, including Tasting Table, Marriott Bonvoy Traveler, Forbes Travel Guide, Porthole Cruise, Cabo Living and Mexico News Daily. His specialty is travel-related content and lifestyle features focused on food, wine and golf.

The post What’s on in Los Cabos in August? appeared first on Mexico News Daily

However, this fact should not be taken to mean that tourists have grown tired of the sport, or that local developers have grown weary of using it to attract tourists or homebuyers for real estate developments. More new courses, plural, are on the way, with three of them expected in 2026. 

Some context is needed, though. Last year, I reported that there were a handful of golf course projects under development. Two of those are now suspended, with the other three, as noted, proceeding toward completion. Thus, it seems a good time to catch up on how all five stand currently.

The Legacy Club at Diamante, a Tiger Woods design

The Legacy Club will be the third course designed by Tiger Woods at Diamante, an upscale development on the Pacific Coast of Cabo San Lucas. His first completed design, El Cardonal, opened in 2014, followed by the 12-hole, par-3 Oasis Short Course in 2017. As if Tiger’s commitment to Diamante isn’t evident, he also has a restaurant there called The Woods Cabo. 

El Cardonal is currently his most famous local layout, if only because it’s the Los Cabos course to host a PGA Tour event, the annual World Wide Technology Championship. However, that will change in 2027, when the Legacy Club takes over hosting duties for the tournament. By all accounts, the new course will be spectacular. As TGR Design notes, “the concept for The Legacy Club is to create a course that transports golfers from the open desert landscape of southern Baja into a new, secluded environment of lush vegetation—truly an oasis in the desert.”

The Legacy Club, like all of Tiger’s local designs, will be private, with membership capped at 250. The sprigging of grass began this summer, and the course is expected to open by the end of 2026.

Campo Alto at Querencia, a Tom Fazio design

Querencia, too, has hosted tournaments, in its case, the Cabo Collegiate, which was held at the private luxury community’s Tom Fazio-designed course a few miles outside San José del Cabo. Fazio’s layout premiered in 2000 and was immediately hailed as world-class. However, over the years, its reputation has only continued to grow. It was named one of the World’s 100 Greatest by Golf Digest in 2016, by which time Golfweek had already acclaimed it as the best in Mexico.

Originally, that course, like the community in which it is set, was dubbed Querencia. But it has since been renamed Campo Bajo to distinguish it from Fazio’s second course on the property, Campo Alto. Can Fazio craft another masterpiece in Los Cabos? All signs point to yes. Three holes have already been sprigged with a newer Bermuda grass type that is perfectly suited to the local climate, one of two varieties of Bermuda that will be used for the course as a whole. 

When finished in late 2026, Campo Alto will feature finishing holes routed through dramatic canyons, as well as four tunnels and one bridge so that golfers are shielded from any interactions with those traveling along local roads.

Oleada Golf Links, an Ernie Els design

Ernie “the Big Easy” Els won four major championships during his career on the PGA Tour, and is still playing on the PGA Tour Champions. However, the South African has since turned his attention to golf course architecture, too, most notably at Oleada Golf Links, the latest project set on Cabo San Lucas’ duneswept Pacific Coast, with the course and its accompanying oceanfront resort community situated between Diamante’s El Cardonal and the Solmar Golf Links.

“This is one of the most spectacular projects on our books,” Els reported in his latest update on ernieels.com in April 2025. “We’ve got a great team here, and the boys are doing an incredible job. As a golf course designer, whenever we can work in sand, it’s heaven for us! We got a lot of great work done today; we wanted to do as much as possible so that the boys can really get going. This one is going to be very special, and we’re so excited for the grand opening next year.” 

Yes, that means Oleada Golf Links is also targeting 2026.

Baja Bay Club, a David McLay Kidd design

Scottish course architect David McLay Kidd created a legendary layout at Bandon Dunes in Oregon, and his course at Baja Bay Club on Los Cabos’ East Cape, announced in 2024, would likely have generated significantly more excitement had it not been located so close to Cabo Pulmo, the national park and marine sanctuary that is home to a living coral reef and the largest abundance of marine life in the Sea of Cortés. 

Due to this proximity and possible impacts, local activists and environmental organizations protested, and in February of this year, the project was provisionally suspended by Semarnat, Mexico’s environmental agency. Appeals will likely be held soon, so there’s nothing conclusive to report. However, it should be noted that local activists have successfully scuttled large-scale projects near Cabo Pulmo in the past, most famously the Cabo Cortés development in 2012.

A second Quivira course, with another Jack Nicklaus design

Jack Nicklaus, the winningest major champion in golf history, has also had a hall-of-fame design career, crafting six layouts in Los Cabos alone. The most recent was Quivira, a stunning Pacific Coast routing that opened in late 2014. Based on the success of this course, a second Nicklaus course at Quivira has long been expected. However, according to a well-paced source, this project too has been suspended, although no reason was given as to why. 

So, for now, three courses are coming in 2026, which will elevate Los Cabos’ total number of golf courses from 18 to 21. 

Chris Sands is the Cabo San Lucas local expert for the USA Today travel website 10 Best, writer of Fodor’s Los Cabos travel guidebook and a contributor to numerous websites and publications, including Tasting Table, Marriott Bonvoy Traveler, Forbes Travel Guide, Porthole Cruise, Cabo Living and Mexico News Daily. His specialty is travel-related content and lifestyle features focused on food, wine and golf.

The post What’s the next golf course to open in Los Cabos? appeared first on Mexico News Daily

However, now that the tax has been negotiated down to a manageable US $5 per person, at least for the short term, the substantial number of people in the Land’s End city who rely on the cruise industry —can instead focus on the other big cruise news, which is that the destination is on pace for a record-setting year, thanks in part to an unprecedentedly robust summer schedule.

Why the cruise tax was reduced

Cruise ship companies were furious when the US $42 cruise tax was passed, noting that it would make visits to Mexico’s ports 213% more expensive than those in the Caribbean, and thus no longer feasible from a business perspective. Businesspeople in port destinations in Mexico like Cabo San Lucas weren’t happy either, since the estimated one billion dollars annually generated by cruise ship visits helps to sustain local economies. 

Given this pushback, negotiations between government officials in Mexico and the cruise ship industry began months before the tax was due to take effect on July 1, and a compromise solution was hammered out. The cruise tax would be reduced to US $5 for every person who takes a cruise with port calls in Mexico, regardless of whether they get off the ship or not. 

Of course, the US $5 figure will only apply during 2025 and the first half of 2026. The tax will increase incrementally over the next three years, rising to $10 in August 2026, $15 in June 2027 and finally $21 in August 2028. What’s more, cruise lines will be responsible for collecting the tax — another bone of contention that appears to have been amicably worked out… at least for now. 

Record-setting projections for Cabo San Lucas

Cruise ships have been visiting Mexican Riviera destinations since the 1960s, when Princess Cruises pioneered the idea. But there’s no question that cruise ship passengers to Cabo San Lucas are on an upward trajectory and have risen to record heights in recent years. 

In 2022, for instance, Cabo San Lucas received 227 cruise ships with 540,773 passengers. Ports of call were in the same range the next two years. Passenger numbers, however, shot through the roof thanks to more consistent visits from bigger ships with expanded carrying capacities. A record 735,686 cruise ship passengers visited Cabo in 2023, and although that number slightly dipped in 2024, to 724,331, more than 800,000 are expected by the end of 2025. 

How is cruise ship capacity influencing these numbers? In 2022, each ship brought an average of 2,382 passengers. In 2023, that average jumped to 3,117 passengers per ship, and in 2024 it increased to 3,516. That number likely won’t rise again in 2025: through the first five months of this year, there have been 118 port of call visits bringing 410,648 passengers. That’s an average of ‘only’ 3,480 people per ship. 

However, overall passenger numbers are pacing for another all-time high. Through May, cruise ship visitors were up an astonishing 34% over the same period in 2024. Summer ports of call are also more robust than usual. As a local source intimate with the cruise industry commented, “Usually there are about five ships per month in the summer. This year, it’s closer to 20.”

That makes it difficult to come up with an accurate projection for what numbers will look like by the end of 2025. If we take the arrivals through May and project them for the entire year, the total would be about 985,000. But that’s likely an unrealistic figure, since January through May are high season months, while June to September represent the destination’s traditional slow season, bringing fewer visitors. 

But given that summer arrivals are headed for uncharted territory, too, anticipating upwards of 800,000 passengers in 2025 seems a safe bet. 

Exciting new ships and arrivals

So the cruise ship industry is booming in Cabo San Lucas, with eight cruise companies — Carnival, Cunard, Holland America, Norwegian, Oceania Cruises, Regent Seven Seas, Princess, and Royal Caribbean — and at least 24 individual ships scheduled to visit at some point this year. Those ships combined represent a capacity of over 70,000 passengers, and  several of them will be making more than a dozen visits. Carnival’s Panorama, for example, has already been a frequent visitor to Cabo San Lucas this year, with more port calls upcoming.  

The Carnival Panorama, of course, is a major presence on the West Coast and has been since it launched in 2019. It was Carnival’s first new ship to be permanently homeported in Long Beach, California,  in more than two decades, and since it carries up to 4,008 passengers, it’s a welcome arrival at any cruise port in Mexico. 

However, perhaps the most eagerly anticipated visitor this year is Royal Caribbean’s Ovation of the Seas, which since May 28 , has been homeported in Los Angeles for the first time in its history, meaning it’s also making its first trips to Cabo San Lucas. Unusually, overnight stays in Cabo are often included  in its three to six-night cruises. 

It’s not a permanent assignment for the company’s biggest ever LA-based ship — 168,666 gross registered tons, with over 2,000 staterooms accommodating up to 4,180 passengers at double occupancy — as Ovation of the Seas will be redeployed in September, with Quantum of the Seas replacing it. But it does reflect Royal Caribbean’s increased focus on the West Coast. Voyager of the Seas will join Quantum in Los Angeles in October, and that same month, Serenade of the Seas is set to begin Mexican Riviera cruises out of San Diego, with stops in Ensenada, Cabo San Lucas and La Paz. 

Cunard, meanwhile, is a far less frequent visitor to Cabo San Lucas, but one of its four ships, Queen Elizabeth, will make a port call on Oct, 3, during its 18-day voyage from San Francisco to Miami. It’s a rare treat in what is turning out to be an extraordinary year for cruises in Mexico. 

Chris Sands is the Cabo San Lucas local expert for the USA Today travel website 10 Best, writer of Fodor’s Los Cabos travel guidebook and a contributor to numerous websites and publications, including Tasting Table, Marriott Bonvoy Traveler, Forbes Travel Guide, Porthole Cruise, Cabo Living and Mexico News Daily. His specialty is travel-related content and lifestyle features focused on food, wine and golf.

The post Cabo San Lucas on record pace for cruise arrivals in 2025 appeared first on Mexico News Daily

Nope, I’m talking about Tijuana making the world’s largest margarita.

How Baja California made cocktail history 

There are many origin stories for the margarita, one of the world’s most popular cocktails, and virtually all of them are set in Baja California.

The growing consensus among cocktail historians is that the iconic Mexican sipper grew out of Tijuana’s raucous bar scene during the 1920s and early ’30s, when Southern Californians looking to escape Prohibition in the United States would cross the border to slake their thirst for forbidden libations.

A favorite was the daisy, a cocktail made with many liquors, but first mixed with tequila in Tijuana; “daisy” in Spanish is “margarita,” and thus, a new cocktail legend was born.

Tijuana takes the invention of the margarita seriously, just as it does the homegrown Caesar salad, which celebrated its 100th anniversary last year. So it must have galled city officials that the record for the world’s largest margarita had, since 2011, resided on the other side of the border in Sin City.

Dubbed “Lucky Rita,” the 32,176-liter cocktail was constructed contemporaneously with the opening of the Margaritaville Casino at the Flamingo Las Vegas. 

Tijuana, the true home of the margarita, was up to the challenge of retaking the record. The Tijuana version was called Margarita Cachanilla in honor of its tequila sponsor. Cachanilla, which produces its Agave tequilana distilled liquors in Amatitán, Jalisco, but is headquartered in — you guessed it — Tijuana.

In addition to topping Las Vegas in quality, Tijuana also bested it in volume, officially capturing the Guinness World Record when its enormous lime-garnished cocktail reached 34,419 liters. For context, that’s enough to pour out two-ounce shots for over 360,000 people. 

How was this monster beverage made, you may ask? It took the efforts of over 300 student volunteers from local universities to assemble the concoction, which was stored in a steel tank 8 meters high and contained 8,890 liters of Cachanilla tequila, over 4,000 bottles of Triple Sec, oceans of fresh lime juice and Felipe’s Sea Salt. 

If these proportions seem about right, that’s because they had to be. Susan Reyes was on hand as a representative of Guinness World Records to authenticate the feat and ensure several key benchmarks were met. One was that the proportions were the same as a normal-sized margarita. Based on the tank’s cooling and stirring systems, it was estimated that the monster margarita would remain fresh and drinkable for about three days.

Tijuana, we salute you. 

Baja California’s wine harvest festival arrives soon

Dates for the 35th Fiestas de la Vendimia (Wine Harvest Festival) are set: July 30 through Aug. 24. Yes, that’s more than three weeks long, and the list of events, for which tickets can be purchased individually, is very lengthy. It’s also very popular. Last year, over 120,000 people attended affiliated events and activities in Ensenada and Valle de Guadalupe.

Wine has been made on the Baja California peninsula since Jesuit missionaries planted vineyards in the 17th and 18th centuries. However, the first commercial winery in Baja California wasn’t established until 1888. That was Bodegas de Santo Tomás, which remains one of the state’s best producers. 

Official and unofficial events have commemorated the annual harvest of wine grapes for more than a century and predate the formation of Provino Baja California, which promotes the region’s wines and organizes Fiestas de la Vendimia. The first of these was the Primera Gran Feria de la Cosecha de la Uva, held in Valle de Guadalupe, the heart of Baja’s wine country, in 1963. Other harvest festival precursors to the Fiestas de Vendimia continued throughout the 1970s and 80s.

As the current festival has grown, so too has the regional wine industry. Only a handful of wineries participated in the first Fiestas de la Vendimia in 1990, and as recently as 2006, there were fewer than 25 wineries in all of Mexico. Today, there is over triple that number in Baja California alone, with the state accounting for over 70% of the nation’s wine production. As an example of this growth, over 80 wineries are expected to participate in this year’s wine harvest festivities, showcasing 160 labels. 

The most famous event at Fiestas de la Vendimia is undoubtedly the Concurso de Paellas, a contest in which teams compete to make the best paella, to the gustatory benefit of those who’ve bought tickets. This is the concluding event of the festival and has been since its very first edition in 1990. Over 2,500 people attended in 2023 and 2024, and during the prepandemic years such as 2019, as many as 7,000 attendees turned out. 

The paellas that feed festivalgoers are prepared by the 90 or so teams competing for first prize, an honor accompanied by a trophy and prizes Some teams feature professional chefs while others are made up of family members working off of recipes handed down over generations. But all have to follow the same rules, using pans of the same size and the same quantities of rice. Determining the winner, meanwhile, are over three dozen judges, who evaluate entrants based on both quality and presentation.

This being a wine festival, wine pairing options are abundant for the paellas. Tickets for the upcoming Concurso de Paellas, held at winery Viña de Liceaga on Aug. 17, cost 1,450 pesos per person, with children 12 and under admitted free. Tickets for this and other events at this year’s Fiestas de la Vendimia are available through Provino. However, this doesn’t include the kickoff Salón del Vino 2025 on July 30, which offers food from 10 top area restaurants and wines from 72 wineries at the Hotel Coral y Marina in Ensenada, but is invitation only.

The post MND Local: Baja California news roundup appeared first on Mexico News Daily

In 1713, Selkirk’s fame got another boost courtesy of writer Richard Steele, who published an interview with Selkirk in the magazine The Englishman about the sailor’s adventures during the four years and four months he spent marooned on Más a Tierra, 400 miles off the coast of Chile. One man who was certainly reading was Daniel Defoe, another prominent writer of the time.  Six years later, Defoe would pen what is often called the first novel ever written in the English language: “Robinson Crusoe.” In the 300 years since its first appearance, it has never been out of print.

It should be noted that “Robinson Crusoe” was a fictionalized account that doesn’t exactly match up with Selkirk’s story. Unlike Selkirk, Crusoe was stranded in the Caribbean, not the Pacific; he spent not four but 28 years on his island; and he wasn’t alone for all of it, not after the appearance of the man Friday. But one look at the book’s original frontispiece, with its hero clad in goatskins à la Selkirk, and it was clear that the man who had recently been a public sensation was also a major inspiration for Defoe.

Marooned and rescued

Born and raised as Alexander Selcraig in Scotland, Selkirk, as he came to be known, was a less-than-saintly character who ran away to sea after beating up several members of his family and indulging in what the Church of Scotland judged to be illicit fornication. 

Selkirk proved to be a capable navigator, serving as the sailing master aboard the Cinque Ports, one of two ships under the command of Captain William Dampier, whose privateering mission was a legal sanction to attack Spanish ships. Although Dampier was the leader of the expedition, Selkirk answered to Captain Thomas Stradling. 

In 1704, after several skirmishes with the Spanish and the two ships being separated, Selkirk decided the Cinque Ports was no longer seaworthy, and he demanded that Stradling put him ashore in the Juan Fernández Islands, a remote archipelago west of Chile. 

Once ashore, however, Selkirk changed his mind and begged to be taken back onboard. Stradling mocked him and refused. This was a fortunate occurrence for Selkirk, as it turned out, since he was right about the Cinque Ports’ seaworthiness: she would sink, and her surviving captain and crew would be imprisoned in Peru. 

Selkirk and Rogers get rich in Cabo San Lucas

Four years and four months later, in February 1709, three ships commanded by Woodes Rogers would arrive and rescue the barefoot and goatskin-clad Selkirk from his island exile, although he had weathered it well otherwise and was in excellent health. William Dampier, along for this voyage, too, recognized Selkirk. Today, the island where Selkirk was marooned is known as Robinson Crusoe, and another in the archipelago is called Alejandro Selkirk. 

Rogers’ mission was much the same as Dampier’s had been previously: find and attack Spanish ships. It was legalized piracy that promised plenty of booty, particularly if they could capture one of the ships that sailed on the Manila galleon route, or Nao de China, as it was known in Mexico. These ships were a key link on what was one of the first global trade routes, traveling annually between Manila in the Philippines and Acapulco. They brought Asian silks, spices and other treasures, many of which would eventually find their way back to Spain.

Naturally, these treasure-laden ships were like catnip to English pirates and privateers, who would hide behind Land’s End in Cabo San Lucas’ bay to await them, since the galleons would typically make their way to the estuary in San José del Cabo to replenish their freshwater supplies before traveling on to Acapulco. 

The most lucrative of these attacks occurred in 1587 when Thomas Cavendish sacked the Santa Ana in Bahía Cabo San Lucas. Woodes Rogers and crew, including Selkirk, would write the next great chapter in this ongoing piratical history on Dec. 22, 1709, when they outfought the Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación y Desengaño, which had become separated from her sister ship en route from Manila.

A few days later, the Begoña, a more heavily armed and well-captained galleon, would repulse the English assailants and make her way successfully to Acapulco. But by that time, Rogers’ crew had thoroughly looted the Nuestra Señora, which they renamed the Bachelor, and would sail back to England with Selkirk as sailing master. Their fortunes were assured.

Robinson Crusoe and the Pericues

The attack on the Nuestra Señora is a great pirate tale, but from the perspective of Los Cabos’ history and culture, not the most interesting part of Rogers’ narrative in “A Cruising Voyage Round the World,” the book he wrote about his circumnavigation of the globe. That’s because during the months Rogers, Selkirk, and crew were waiting to attack the galleons, they spent time interacting with the Pericú, the original inhabitants of Los Cabos. 

Crucially, Rogers was one of the first to write about these now-culturally extinct people, who had lived on the southernmost part of the Baja California peninsula for about 12,000 years. In 1730, a mission would be founded by Jesuits in San José del Cabo to attempt to Christianize the Pericú, and they would be written about at length by many other sources than the early Spanish and English sailors. 

However, Rogers provided a particularly indelible historical portrait of the 300 or so Pericúes then in Cabo San Lucas: “They had large limbs, were straight tall, and of a much blacker complexion than any other people that I had seen in the South Seas. Their hair long, black, and straight, which hung down to their thighs. The men stark naked, and the women had a covering of leaves over their privities, or little clouts made of silk grass, or the skins of birds and beasts.”

He wrote of their chief, whose head was “adorn’d with feathers,” and raved about their skills as fishermen, noting that “we saw no nets or hooks, but wooden instruments, with which they strike the fish very dextrously, and dive to admiration. Some of our sailors told me they saw one of ’em dive with his instrument, and whilst he was under water put up his striker with a fish on the point of it, which was taken off by another that watch’d by him on a bark log.”

They also engaged in an active trade, exchanging knives for the fish the Pericúes so easily and deftly caught. So yes, not only was Robinson Crusoe in Cabo, he’s an example proving the area was a hub of activity long before the modern age of tourism. 

Chris Sands is the Cabo San Lucas local expert for the USA Today travel website 10 Best, writer of Fodor’s Los Cabos travel guidebook and a contributor to numerous websites and publications, including Tasting Table, Marriott Bonvoy Traveler, Forbes Travel Guide, Porthole Cruise, Cabo Living and Mexico News Daily. His specialty is travel-related content and lifestyle features focused on food, wine and golf.

The post Robinson Crusoe in Cabo San Lucas appeared first on Mexico News Daily

The latter — better known as the Los Cabos Tennis Open — is an ATP 250 competition staged annually at the Cabo Sports Complex. The tournament opens Monday and runs until July 19.

In 2024, these two tournaments — whose series numbers reflect their respective prestige, prizes and available ranking points — took place back-to-back on the ATP schedule in February and March. This was so that the Los Cabos Tennis Open could serve as a lead-in for the Mexican Open, a symbolic gesture that reflected the importance of the latter to Acapulco as the city recovered from the devastation wrought by Category 5 Hurricane Otis in October 2023. 

But this year, the ATP dictated that the Los Cabos Tennis Open would return to its traditional summertime calendar slot on the tour.

This means that not only will 32 of the world’s best men’s singles players and 16 of the best doubles players be battling each other for a share of the US $873,000 in prize money, they’ll be battling the intense seasonal heat, with temperatures this week predicted to stay at around 90 degrees Fahrenheit with up to 50% humidity.

What the Open means to Los Cabos

The Los Cabos Tennis Open is one of two premier spectator sporting events in the area. The PGA World Wide Technology Championship, held in November, is the other. 

Yes, Los Cabos is famed for sport fishing too. But it’s not as though one can watch fishing tournaments live, since boats range as far as 50 miles from the coast and spectators are not welcome aboard. You can watch the fish being weighed, but that’s not exactly an activity brimming with athleticism or sustained action. The same could be said of golf, although it’s certainly interesting to see how top players perform from an up-close perspective.

No, in Los Cabos, the ATP event is the only one that offers real action, which is why it’s a highlight of the summer sporting season, even for those like myself who typically choose to watch it on television in air-conditioned comfort.

The Los Cabos Tennis Open’s history

When the tournament first premiered in 2016 at the Delmar International School, it seemed something of an oddity: Los Cabos is a resort destination, and although some of its luxury properties do feature tennis courts, it didn’t seem as if vacationers could support a big-time tennis tournament. Nor did natives seem likely to, given the relatively high prices for tickets and the fact that few local youngsters then played the sport.

Over time, though, an appreciation for tennis has bloomed in Los Cabos, due in part to family-friendly initiatives like this year’s Kids Nite by Disney, an event in which children can interact with tournament players. 

Attendance, too, has grown steadily, despite the 2020 open being cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2021 iteration having no spectators. In 2022, 25,000 people attended the weeklong Los Cabos Open. In 2023, that figure increased to 30,000. By 2024, attendance had grown to 34,000, and the tournament generated an economic impact of over $6 million. This year, the numbers should be even higher.

The level of tennis, meanwhile, has been high from the start. Past champions of the event have included Ivo Karlović, Sam Querrey, Fabio Fognini, Diego Schwartzman and Daniil Medvédev, the 2021 US Open winner and the world’s number-one-ranked player when he captured the Los Cabos Tennis Open trophy in 2022.

Which players are participating in the Los Cabos Tennis Open this year?

Unlike the Mexican Open, which features both top men and women, the Los Cabos Tennis Open is solely a men’s event, as the list of former winners indicates. No, Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, the winners of the last six Grand Slam singles titles, will not be participating this year. Nor will Novak Djokovic, the winner of a men’s record 24 Grand Slam singles trophies. 

However, the open will, as always, welcome many highly ranked men’s players. This year, the roster of 32 singles competitors includes some ranked among the world’s top 50 players: Russian Andrey Rublev (No. 14) — the tournament’s top seed and a 17-time ATP tour-level winner — Alejandro Davidovich-Fokina of Spain (No. 28) and Denis Shapovalov of Canada (No. 31).

Also competing is 20-year-old Mérida native Rodrigo Pacheco Méndez (No. 219), who garnered excitement at February’s Mexican Open in Acapulco when he made history by being the first Mexican player in decades to win a main draw match. He was ultimately knocked out in the quarterfinals by Davidovich-Fokina. 

Top-50 players Lorenzo Musetti of Italy (No. 7) and Australian Jordan Thompson (No. 37), the latter who was last year’s champion, were scheduled to compete at this week’s tournament but withdrew, Musetti due to a leg injury.

How to enjoy the action live or on television

Prices for 2025’s Los Cabos Tennis Open start at 1,075 to 1,280 pesos (US $57–$68) for individual tickets and climb to 11,715 to 12,890 pesos (US $625–$688) for the three-day weekend series covering the quarterfinals, semis and finals. Full-week passes for all six days of live festivities are even more.

As it has since 2021, the tournament will take place at the Cabo Sports Complex, home to five hard courts, including a stadium court that can accommodate up to 3,500 spectators. The complex is located across from Solaz Resort Los Cabos at kilometer 18.5 of the Carretera Transpeninsular.

For those unable to attend, television coverage of the tournament will be available courtesy of ESPN and Disney+.

The post Baja heats up as the Los Cabos Tennis Open begins appeared first on Mexico News Daily

I use the word impressive because if Los Cabos meets the projected 4.13 million tourists it’s on pace to receive this year — a highly likely outcome, considering it’s already halfway there — then not only will it have increased the number of tourists by 5% from the 3.93 million that arrived in 2024, and 7% from the 3.86 million in 2023, but it will have set a new record for annual visitors to the destination for the fourth straight year. 

However, not all the trends this year are upward.

Hotel rates are lower in Los Cabos in 2025

For the first time in a very long time, the average hotel rate in Los Cabos has dropped, albeit not drastically so. Still, the $498 average daily rate registered in March 2025 was a significant 10% decrease from the $553 average daily rate only a year earlier, in March 2024; and in April 2025, the hotel rate dropped yet again, to $488.

Do these decreasing rates have anything to do with the slight increase in tourists? Probably not. Los Cabos’ conscious rebranding of itself as a tourist destination has been ongoing for a decade, and the destination’s record-breaking growth during that timeframe happened as hotel rates were continually rising. So there appears to be little to no correlation between tourism numbers and hotel rates, although for those who think Los Cabos has gotten too expensive, lower rates are certainly a welcome change. 

What’s interesting, though, is that these rate decreases haven’t happened consistently across the board. In Cabo San Lucas, home to 9,474 hotel rooms (more than San José del Cabo and La Ruta Escénica combined), room rates haven’t decreased at all over the past year. Indeed, they’re up 5% to US $355 nightly on average. The biggest decrease in rates has occurred in San José del Cabo, where room rates are down by 18% relative to 2024 numbers, and are now positively bargain-like at $279 nightly. Room rates have also dropped by 6% in La Ruta Escênica, by far the most expensive area, decreasing to $665 per night on average.

Why? It likely has something to do with maintaining desired occupancy rates, as Cabo San Lucas was at 78% as of April 2025, compared to 70% for San José del Cabo and La Ruta Escénica. It might also have something to do with the larger number of domestic travelers.

Domestic travel to Los Cabos is up in 2025, while international travelers are slightly down

Through the first four months of 2025, domestic tourism was up 8.5%, accounting for nearly half a million visitors (463,200, to be exact). International tourism, on the other hand, was down slightly (0.4%) from the same period a year previously, although this segment still provided the bulk of visitors (913,000). 

The origin proportion for travelers in 2025 (67.9% international, 32.1% domestic) represents quite well the number of airport destinations serving Los Cabos from the U.S. (32) versus those from within Mexico (16). But because the domestic flight destinations are double what they were a decade ago, that segment is providing a much bigger piece of the overall pie.

Domestically, Mexico City has the biggest market share, accounting for 35% of national visitors to Los Cabos, followed by Jalisco at 21%. Internationally, the U.S. continues to be the biggest market, with 37% of visitors to Los Cabos hailing from California. Canada, the second largest international market, has provided over 4.1% more travelers to Los Cabos in 2025, somewhat offsetting the 4.9% fewer from the U.S.

Big picture, as noted, tourism is up in Los Cabos by 5% in 2025. This is in contrast to Cancún, which dwarfs Los Cabos in overall numbers, but has seen a nearly 5% decrease in overall tourists arriving by air this year.

The return visitor rate to Los Cabos is up again, and it’s a significant marker

The return visitor rate to Los Cabos was 38% as of March 2025, close to the high-water mark for this stat (40% in 2021). It’s significant as it reflects the satisfaction level of visitors with the destination, but how significant is somewhat hard to tell, since so few destinations around the world track it (or at least report it). 

Las Vegas is one of the few, and noted that 86% of its visitors were repeat visitors in 2024, versus only 14% first-timers. Los Cabos isn’t in that range, but since no other destinations in Mexico released repeat visitor figures in 2024, it may well be setting the standard domestically

Why does this matter? Because it’s reportedly 15 to 20 times more expensive to get new visitors than it is to retain old ones. 

Los Cabos is doing well on wellness

In the past 25 years, Los Cabos hotels and resorts have increasingly competed with one another to provide the best spa and wellness options. There’s a reason for this: namely, that the world wellness market is now valued at over 650 billion dollars annually, a staggering number that is only expected to increase in the years to come. 

In Los Cabos, about 18% of visitors report that wellness is an important part of their travel experience. That’s something those in the hospitality realm locally love to hear, since wellness-minded guests typically have a high satisfaction rate (about 91%) but spend $3,000 per trip on average, a number in line with the destination’s focus on luxury. 

Chris Sands is the Cabo San Lucas local expert for the USA Today travel website 10 Best, writer of Fodor’s Los Cabos travel guidebook and a contributor to numerous websites and publications, including Tasting Table, Marriott Bonvoy Traveler, Forbes Travel Guide, Porthole Cruise, Cabo Living and Mexico News Daily. His specialty is travel-related content and lifestyle features focused on food, wine and golf.

The post Tourism trends in Los Cabos 2025: The year in graphs appeared first on Mexico News Daily

He had his moments at his first European tournament at Baden-Baden, Germany, against all the best players in the world but two: former world chess champion Emanuel Lasker, who held the title for 27 years, the longest reign in history, and the current champion, José Raúl Capablanca. But Torre was nervous, played too cautiously, and finished only 10th in a field of 21 players, despite a notable victory against Ernst Grünfeld, inventor of the Grünfeld Defense. 

He started to find his form at the next tournament in Marienbad, Czech Republic, where he played with his more characteristic boldness and artistry. He finished tied for third with Marshall, defeated Grünfeld again, and during another of his thrilling victories, Aron Nimzowitsch, the man the Nimzowitsch Defense is named after, declared, “A new genius has arisen in the world of chess.”

The Mexican Immortal

That statement would prove prophetic at Moscow, in the then Soviet Union, where the first state-sponsored chess tournament in history was to be held. All the top players in the world were there, including Capablanca and Lasker. Torre drew against the former and won in 43 moves against the latter in a game so iconic it has also gone down in history as “The Mexican Immortal.” 

Indeed, just as his miniature against Marshall aboard the Cunard ship Antonia would be canonized in chess lore as the Mexican Defense, his opening against Lasker would come to be known as the Torre Attack. This initial sequence, characterized by the moves d4, Nf3, Bg5 for white, helped to set him up in a great position. But it was his creative queen sacrifice on the 25th move that would enable a devastating windmill tactic that allowed his bishop-defended rook to lay waste to Lasker’s black defenses. 

After this victory, which took place four days before his 21st birthday, Torre was famous in the chess world and would remain so even after a nervous breakdown the following year ended his career. Nearing the peak of his powers in Moscow, he would play in only two more tournaments, among which was a victory at Mexico’s national chess championship in Mexico City in 1926.

The remarkable rise of Carlos Torre

Born in Mérida, Yucatán, on November 29, 1904, Torre learned to play chess beginning at age six from watching his father, Egidio, and brother Raúl play.  From this early stage, chess was a matter of fun for him. Later, when he started to become well-known for his abilities, he would see each game as a work of art. However, he always hated the competitive aspect, which was inevitably accompanied by unwelcome anxiety.

That competitive aspect became inevitable when he met Edwin Ziegler Adams, who became his mentor after his family moved to New Orleans when he was 12. By then, Torre’s talents were already apparent. He was so good within a few years of his arrival in New Orleans that no one wanted to play against him. By the age of 14, a local magazine hailed him as the second coming of Paul Morphy, a native New Orleanian who had dominated U.S. chess in the 1850s and was acknowledged as the world’s best player before abruptly retiring at age 22. In an odd twist of fate, Torre would retire at the same age.

However, that was still three years in the future when Torre, after winning the New Orleans city championship, won the Louisiana state chess championship in 1923. Seeking better players against whom to match his skills, he set his sights on New York, where he became a member of the Marshall Chess Club and went on to win that state’s championship in 1924. Marshall himself didn’t compete in that event, but as would later become apparent, on shipboard and in tournament play over the next two years, Torre was at least the equal of Marshall. 

The only player then in New York (and indeed the entire U.S.) whom he probably wasn’t the equal of was Capablanca, the Cuban world champion whom he had yet to play against. But after Torre followed up his New York State Championship victory with a dominating performance in the Western Chess Association Championship in Detroit against the best players from around the U.S., winning 12 out of 16 games and drawing the other four, comparisons were being made. An issue of the American Chess Bulletin afterward was almost solely devoted to Torre, with his game compared to that of Capablanca.

It was this rapid rise that set the stage for Torre’s trip to Europe in 1925 and his immortal game against Lasker.

Torre’s abrupt retirement

Torre’s nervous breakdown in October 1926, nearly a year after he returned from his triumphs in Europe, has long been shrouded in mystery. One story has it that he broke down and began taking all his clothes off on a New York City bus. Another claims that his breakdown was brought on by being jilted by his fiancée for another man. Neither has ever been verified.

Torre himself, speaking more than 50 years after it occurred to Gabriel Velasco, who would later write “The Life and Chess Games of Carlos Torre: Mexico’s First Grandmaster,” said he was in fragile health due to dietary difficulties and was stressed out from being so far from home. The lack of dietary discipline — Torre often ate 12 pineapple ice cream sundaes in a single day — was likely a factor. So too was the lack of sleep, since he reportedly was only getting two hours per night. 

After the breakdown, Torre quit tournament chess and returned to Mexico. He took a job in a pharmacy owned by his brother and was anonymous to all but chess players, who would often seek him out for advice. He spent his final years in a nursing home in Mérida, his hometown.

A legacy in chess

Although the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) didn’t create the grandmaster title until 1950, nearly a quarter of a century after Torre played his last competitive games, the memory of his brilliancies remained. Thus, in 1963, FIDE awarded him the title of International Master (IM), and in 1977, it upgraded him to Grandmaster (GM) status, making him the first Mexican player to receive such an honor. Torre died soon after this announcement, in 1978, and it’s not known whether he ever knew about it. 

But his legacy was secured and has only continued to grow thanks to the Torneo Internacional Carlos Torre Repetto, which since 1987 has been held annually in Mérida. Founded by physicist and philanthropist Alejandro Prevé Castro with the ambitious goal of raising the profile of chess in Mexico, it’s now considered one of the country’s finest tournaments, with the most recent iteration taking place in December 2024. 

Chris Sands is the Cabo San Lucas local expert for the USA Today travel website 10 Best, writer of Fodor’s Los Cabos travel guidebook and a contributor to numerous websites and publications, including Tasting Table, Marriott Bonvoy Traveler, Forbes Travel Guide, Porthole Cruise, Cabo Living and Mexico News Daily. His specialty is travel-related content and lifestyle features focused on food, wine and golf.

The post Shooting star: The story of Mexico’s first chess Grandmaster appeared first on Mexico News Daily