During our time in La Paz, we’d been looking forward to making our way back up the Baja. The whole peninsula is dotted with small towns and stunning beach coves that we were excited to explore. In fairness, this area deserves a lot more time than we were able to give it!
“Tiquete”
Just as we are heading out of La Paz to start our journey north, we went through a right-of-passage with the police. We got approached by the police because they did not like how Mr Snacks pulled over the van to wait for me to run into the pharmacy. Since we weren’t doing anything wrong, I was pretty certain this was the traditional gringo shake-down for a bribe. I felt confident and went into the discussion with the cop feeling like I could negotiate this well.
The officer approached my window and told me we were obstructing traffic (we weren’t) and that he’d have to write us a ticket. I said that there were no signs, but if we were breaking the rules we were very sorry but he should give us a ticket. He spent five minutes chatting with us, rifling through his notepad, and then telling me how expensive the ticket would be. I said that was unfortunate, but if we were in the wrong we’d follow him to the station with our ticket and pay the fine. I just kept insisting he give me a ticket. As expected, he showed me all the tickets he’d written and had no blank ones left to write for us.
After some jokes about how lucky we were that he couldn’t write us a ticket, he asked if I wanted to make a donation to him–to help buy chicken or soft drinks (these were literally the items he mentioned). I was fully prepared to pull out my phone and threaten to take down his name, but first I perked up at the request of money for “refrescos” (pop). I had a fridge full of individual sized Topo Chicos (Mexican brand sparkling water). When we offered him that, he was happy to take one for him and his partner. So, the fine for our gringo bribe was about $0.50 worth of beverages, in exchange for this fun story.
Beach Camping
A decent amount of our time heading north was spent camping on beaches. This was the piece we were looking forward to the most.
Our first beach camping was at Los Coyotes/El Coyote (depending on who you ask) on Bahía Concepción. A long, protected bay that offered a calm bay of water—and a bunch of Mexican holiday revelers. Semana Santa (the week of Easter) is a huge deal in Mexico. I’ve experienced it in mainland Mexico, where it’s a series of religious focused festivals. Unbeknownst to me, the Baja version is to take every friend and family member to the beach for a week of camping. Not quiet, hang out in the National Park USA camping–but bring a generator to power your music and twinkle lights, plus a grill made from half a metal barrel and 20 of your closest family members to party into the night. The first few days, sleeping was a challenge as nightclub music was blasted across the beach until 2am—but our nearest camping neighbors were super nice and brought us fun snacks that they had leftover—snail ceviche, Mexican pastries.
During this time, the beach vendors were amazing. While I’m used to vendors on the Hotel Zone areas who sell nothing but jewelry, hair braids and T-shirts, the vendors at this beach had the most useful stuff! I think you could arrive with nothing but a tent and be fine. A sample of the things that were offered for sale directly to our camp site included: a huge barrel of fresh water (or half barrel, if preferred), day use of kayaks, ice, firewood, fresh fish and clams, ceviche, pineapples, carrots, pizza, fresh sliced fruit in a cup, pie, cheesecake—plus the usual T-shirts, jewelry and braids. It was really impressive.
After a few days, the crowds thinned and the bay was so tranquil. The water was perfectly flat for sunrise and sunset making for beautiful times out on the SUP. While I wasn’t thrilled to find the crowds when we arrived, it was nice to be able to have both experiences.
Our last beach camping was at Bahía Gonzaga. Also very beautiful, but less protected than Concepción. There was more structure to the camping, which meant that you were much farther from your neighbors. Each site also came with a sizable palapa. It became evident to us in the afternoon that these were to protect you from the screaming winds that occurred on occasion. I’m sure a hot, 100 degree beach being right near the water means that you are going to get big winds often. The winds were only twice for about an hour each—so this didn’t ruin our time there. But, if you were in a tent you’d be very grateful for the palapa.
One great thing about Gonzaga, it that at the far north end of the bay there was Alfonsino’s restaurant someone had clued us in to The prices are fairly high by Mexico standards, but the seafood was cooked to perfection and the views were hard to beat.
Our last morning ended with a whale sighting just offshore as were having breakfast. A fitting farewell to our time on the beaches.
Oases (oasis-es?)
Since April is such a “spring” month in the US, it hadn’t occurred to me to be prepared for hot desert temperatures for our drive home. It was regularly close to 100 degrees as we zigzagged across the peninsula, cooling to a lovely 75-85 at any of the coastal areas. A couple of places we chose to stay were literal “oases in the desert”.
Mulege is on a large river, which flows into the Sea of Cortez which makes it an extremely lush city. There was a lot of colorful flowers throughout town, but my hair really noticed the increase in humidity! Parts of the town felts very authentic still, but other parts it was clear that there was a large contingent of Baby Boomer expats living here. A visit to the Mission and to eat fish tacos and scallop tacos at the counter at Taqueria Los Pelatos made this a worthwhile stop over.
We also went to San Ignacio—just a few hours outside of Mulege. This oasis is so small that when our GPS said we were 4 minutes to our destination, we were certain it was wrong—all we could see still was sand. The GPS was correct, and over a small rise were tons of date palm trees. We took a few days off from the van and stayed at the San Ignacio Bed and Breakfast—which is actually a handful of yurts near the edge of the San Ignacio river. The wide, slow-moving river is great for swimming and paddling in. The jardin (town square) is very quaint and seems like little has changed for the 700 residents of the town—with the exception that a few times per day town gets busy as people come in to begin or end their whale watching tours to the San Ignacio Lagoon.
Other stops
A few places worth mentioning don’t truly fit into a good category, so I’ll just pop them here.
San Javier is a village about an hour into the mountains from Loreto. It’s the home of (another) Jesuit Mission—this one is said to be the oldest in the Baja. It’s an entertaining drive to arrive at this tiny town of about 100 people to see it.
On the way back from San Javier to Loreto, I wanted to stop at a “rancho” to taste some cheese and other local products—they do this on official tours to the Mission. On a map we were given, a rancho was labelled and pulled over when we saw it. I jumped out and talked to a young boy to ask him if they had a store, or products to buy—in hopes of understanding if this was the same place the tours came. His family yelled to him to let me in, so I entered the gate and found the family sitting around a table while the mother cooked beans. I asked again if they had a store, products to purchase or things to try. In the end, they did not and I’m sure they’ll spend the next few days telling the story of the poor white girl who was trying to buy food from them while they prepared their lunch.
Santa Rosaliá was another surprise hit for us. You may recall us being stopped on the way down for a pay dispute protest that closed the highway. This was the same town. Fortunately, a Baja local clued us in that if you got off the highway this town was super unique.
It was originally a company town, built to support a French mining company. The core of the town was built in the early 1900’s so has a super distinct feel of era. They still have many of the mining remnants displayed around town, and the church is rumored (and disputed) to have been designed by Gustav Eiffel. While most people stop at the Panaderia El Boleo which has been running since 1901, we got empanadas from the bright orange Empanadas de Carne y Frijol which were so good we went back for seconds.
We barely scratched the surface of places to stop in the Baja. You can easily do this in a low clearance vehicle, but something you are willing to take down long dirt roads, or sand will give you even more options. I was shocked how hot it was already in April, so if you go consider starting earlier than we did.