Our first stop in Baja Sur was San Ignacio, an oasis in the middle of the desert. It was also our first glimpse of an old colonial mission built to convert the natives of Mexico. Although beautiful structures, the missions carry a sad history linked to European diseases that decimated native populations. We saw more of these missions along the peninsula, including the next stops in Mulege and Santa Rosalia.
We only spent one night along the Bahia de Conception, but wish we had stayed longer. It was a beautiful place to ride the SUP around, snorkeling and relax.
Our first city camping experience was in Loreto, along the Sea of Cortez. We spent two nights here to do some chores (laundry, shopping, etc) and found ourselves camped next to two other Swiss couples! We exchanged some stories and enjoyed hearing about their adventures. Loreto was a charming town with great food and a fun brewery, Zapote Brewing. We highly recommend checking them out if you’re in Loreto!
After Loreto we headed to Agua Verde, which had been recommended to us by some snowbirds we met on a beach earlier. The drive down was beautiful, but the camping opportunities were not so great and only stayed a night.
After a night in La Paz we headed to Agua Caliente, another recommended spot, for hot springs and hiking. This wasn’t as exciting as the snowbirds had led us to believe – while it was definitely pretty, the “hike” took all of 10 minutes, and the hot springs were full the whole time with families up for the weekend.
Enough with the mediocre camping – on we went to Cabo Pulmo National Park. We spent two nights on the beach in a cove with amazing snorkeling. We saw lots of colorful fish, and Ben even spotted an eel and manta ray. Yikes! The campground had some confused roosters that crowed at 2am each night – confused by the time change?
From Cabo Pulmo we took the Camino Cabo Este to San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas. It’s a bit a bumpy drive but has nice coastal views. Unfortunately shortly after San Jose del Cabo the road is washed out completely and we didn’t dare to cross the one of the gaps, the danger of falling down the cliff was a bit too high, thus we turned around and took the paved road to Cabo San Lucas.
In Cabo San Lucas we camped in a dirt parking lot between two resort hotels and about a 100m from the beach. It was an interesting experience to say the least 🙂 Suddenly you are everybody’s “amigo” and restaurants are proud that they import everything from the States. Nevertheless the beach is really nice and in the end we managed to find another brewery and just around the corner from it a Taqueria with amazing Tacos del Pastor!
After a loud and hot night, we started early and drove to Todos Santos. On the way there we stopped at one of the many surfing beaches and watched some surfers. It was the first time that Ben saw waves that big and real surfing, quite impressive!
Todos Santos is another “Pueblo Magico” and is really pretty! There are many shops with arts and crafts, great Ice Cream shops and restaurants. We decided to treat ourselves with a hotel stay and enjoyed a long warm shower and a room with AC and a comfortable queens sized bed.
Now we are back in La Paz at “Big Sur”, a coffee shop with great coffee and fast WiFi! On Sunday evening we will take the TMC ferry to Topolobampo, which will take about 8-9 hours, more about this in the next blog post!