Lover’s Beach or Playa del Amor at Land’s End, Cabo San Lucas

Lover’s Beach or Playa del Amor (correctly Love Beach) or Playa de los Amantes (Lover’s Beach) is located on the Sea of Cortez side of Land’s End at Cabo San Lucas, Los Cabos, Baja Califorina Sur, Mexico.

Once known as Playa de Doña Chepa, Lover’s Beach or Playa de los Amantes,  is another must, but to get to this hidden cove you’ll need some kind of floating transportation. Easiest is to hire a water taxi at the marina. The captain will take you on an informative tour of the diving areas around the arch (El Arco), point out Lover’s Beach, then go around the popular point for a wonderful view of the dramatic area where the Sea of Cortez meets the Pacific Ocean. We suggest you pack a lunch of your choice, some water and plan on spending the better part of the day enjoying Lover’s Beach and the striking wind and water shaped rock formations. Ask your skipper to come back for you at a pre-determined time…all for one price. Be most careful here, the powerful waves and currents of the Pacific make swimming quite dangerous. Swimming and snorkeling should only be attempted on the Sea of Cortez side of Lover’s Beach.
Photo on right: Aerial view of Lover’s Beach (foreground) and Divorce Beach (background), Cabo San Lucas, April

2012

Playa del Amor (Love Beach) or Playa del Amante (Lover’s Beach),
also known as Playa Doña Chepa in earlier years.
Except from Los Cabos Magazine – Issue #6 – 1999

Playa del Amor is the photogenic marvel hidden behind Land’s End and is seen in many of the travel ads for Cabo San Lucas and Los Cabos. Ironically, it’s delightfully small and difficult to get to on foot. Getting there is easy by water taxi; much harder (and not suggested) is to climb the rocks from Playa Solmar. Once on Love Beach, you are surrounded by smooth, towering rocks and water on two sides. In 1940, the population of Cabo San Lucas could practically be counted on both hands, yet John Steinbeck’s description of what was then known as Playa Doña Chepa is still apt and thought provoking more than half a century later:

“The tip of the Cape at San Lucas, with the huge gray Friars standing up on the end, has behind the rocks a little beach which is a small boy’s dream of pirates . . . and this little beach must so have appealed to earlier men, for the names of pirates are still in the rock, and the pirate ships did dart out of here and did come back.”
lover’s beach – cabo san lucas

Like the pirates of long ago, you’ll dart in and back by boat from the front of Tesoro Los Cabos or El Medano beach across the bay. Kayaks and other water-sports equipment are also available at El Medano. Make sure you make return arrangements, boats are scarce after four or five p.m. Love Beach (or Lover’s Beach as it’s also known) has no services and swimming near the arch or the Pacific side of the beach is very dangerous. Stick to the bay side where schools of multi-colored fish are plentiful and the water is calmer and clearer.