CABO SAN LUCAS, Baja California Sur, Oct. 25 — It’s quiet and cool off the strip. The abarrotes are just opening, and there’s an old man in a vest up the block pushing a shopping cart full of empty beer cans. That might be mop-up duty from last night’s debauchery, or this morning’s. Stray dogs patrol the streets, trotting from one garbage pile to the next like derelict show ponies. In their glory days, they guarded the now-abandoned buildings that flank the street, too pure for this world with their barbed-wire crowns of thorns.

Baby birds are just waking up, warbling. They were promised a worm, like all early birds, but maybe they’ll settle for the gnats buzzing around my face, plentiful at these hours when it’s still not hot enough for the sun to burn them out of the air midflight.

It doesn’t take much to drown out the noise they make. Every half-minute, buses rattle up the sand-dusted Narciso Mendoza and down the Leona Vicario. As I turn onto Lázaro Cárdenas, I’m presented with a beautiful bouquet of belching tubas courtesy of the music blaring from the back of a black vocho. One doesn’t question who would blast banda music at this hour. “Reveille.” “La 4 x 4.” Same tiger, different stripes.

The soundtrack of the Cabo San Lucas Marina

The playlist in the Cabo San Lucas Marina is different. You might still hear some classics, depending on whose boat you walk by, but the shops and kiosks pander to a different demographic. I still haven’t quite figured out which. Daft Punk begets Murray Head, which begets Katy Perry. Speaking of which, Señor Frog’s is still thriving. Even at this hour, I spot a gringo retiree in board shorts and a tank top loitering in front, presumably curious about hours of operation. He’s in good company.

Along the esplanade, you hear far more English than Spanish. Much of that comes from merchants stumbling through back-of-the-napkin phrases they’ve committed to memory to entice newly arrived tourists to buy their wares. Though I also hear an old woman muttering something to her dog about one of the boats they pass by, so I guess even the dogs here are fluent.

‘A parking lot for yachts’

Along a wall, a line of men wearing Oakleys, long-sleeved shirts and visors sits idly, taking it easy before heading out on whatever excursions they’ll be leading. Nearby, a bored-looking clerk in a dockside store that looks like Cabo’s version of J. Peterman scrolls on his phone, unfazed about the urban sombrero sales quota he’ll need to meet by the end of the day. Even aboard the boats, on the eve of the world’s biggest marlin tournament, local fishermen prattle, hosing down decks and trying to be heard over the dull roar of idling boat engines.

This marina is like a Costco parking lot for yachts, though instead of an associate in a neon vest checking your ID, there’s a tall, wrought-iron gate with an entrance like a cage that only those with a key can get through. I pause to size it up, then look around to see who’s watching. “I could hop that,” I say to myself.

Ethan Jacobs is a freelance writer and writing coach based in Playa del Carmen. He has written extensively in narrative and short fiction formats, and his work has received recognition both domestically and internationally in microfiction, short fiction and narrative essay formats.