Copa Las Americas Surf Contest – San Jose del Cabo July 25 – 27

Southern Baja is hosting its first big time surf contest at Playa Acapulquito in San Jose del Cabo, in front of the Cabo Surf Hotel. Dates are July 25 – 27. Total prize money to be distributed is $7500 US. Local surfers Irak Collins (winner of the recent Los Cerritos Surf contest), Nathan Bronnig and Rodolfo Garcia will be competing.

For more infomation, visit their website:

Copa Las Americas

(I was not able to correctly view their site with Firefox but it does display properly with Internet Explorer.)

Galeria de Todos Santos is Moving!

Yes, it’s official. The Galeria de Todos Santos, run by Michael and Pat Cope with the assistance of Erick Ochoa, is changing locations. They have been on the corner of Topete and Legaspi in the Todos Santos Inn building for 14 years or so. The annex located on Hidalgo and Centenario will also close. Michael and Pat will be taking over the Maya Roca Real Estate building on Calle Juarez, in between the Cultural Center and Milagro Real Estate. The location is large enough that they will be able to house the gallery, art studio and continue Michael’s tapas bar that had been part of La Copa wine bar at the Inn. Details about the restaurant aren’t totally settled yet, but I’ll post more when I know more.

Felicidades Michael and Pat!!!

Todos Santos Art Festival Possible Dates

Already several people have emailed asking about the dates of the 2009 Todos Santos Art Festival. I contacted the local organizer and he informed me that the scheduling of the festival has become a bit of problem.

Here’s the explaination I received. The festival is funded by the government and hence cannot be scheduled at a time that would conflict with any other government funded or sponsored event. Historically the festival is held during the week that contains February 5. So it would start the Friday/Saturday before February 5 and then end the Saturday after February 5. I was told this has become a problem, in part due to the dates of Carnival in La Paz. There is talk of changing the dates from the winter months to the late spring months. Nothing is certain yet but there is a chance this may occur. The organizers like this idea since they could pick a date and stay with it.

I personally believe that moving the festival to the end of the tourist season would be a big mistake. Many people plan a vacation to Todos Santos around the festival dates and I don’t think they would be as willing to do so in the late spring. We normally have a late spring slowdown in tourism. Perhaps changing the dates would alleviate that slowdown but I think there is a greater chance that the festival won’t be as well attended and tourists that would have come in February simply won’t come at all to Todos Santos. My 2 cents only, I don’t have any special knowledge.

Rain In Todos Santos!!

Wow! Rain in July. Not unheard of but very rare.

It rained this morning for about 1 1/2 hours. Sometimes heavy, sometimes moderate but steady. The very dry ground soaked up a lot but there are puddles in low areas and lots of mud. All the plants are clean and the air, while humid and heavy, has a freshness to it. If the sun comes out tomorrow, it will be scorching with high humidity. All this is due to those storms south of us.  Hurricane Fausto is predicted to become Cat 2 soon and he is churning away, sending warm moist air and a mild hurricane swell our way.

Here’s the early afternoon enhanced satellite imagery:

July 18 Satellite Imagery - Hurricane Fausto

It’s pretty easy to see why we had rain this morning. It wouldn’t be surprising to get more rain in the next couple of days.

FYI, night time low temps are around 77F.

One last thought, the last time we had a Hurricane Fausto and he made landfall near Todos Santos, it was mid-October. This Fausto popped up in mid-July. Think about that…