Baja California Roadtrip

01 Jan, 2025

Hey,

I'm glad we called last night. You seemed to be somewhat interested in what happened on the trip, though you didn't want to admit it, and I didn't have enough time to tell you everything. Perhaps I never will have enough time to tell you everything - I wish you were here.

I traveled with H and R, and as we were looking for one other person, C told me one of her friends is interested; none of us have met A, but she seemed to be easy-going, and after I showed her the agenda, we settled it on a Zoom call.

The blue line indicates the route we took on our way from Tijuana to Cabos, and the purple line indicates the route we took on our way back (I didn't color it again if it was the same road).

We pre-planned everything and made reservations for all the hotels, since it was our first road trip in Mexico and we wanted to be safe. Thankfully, we found that we were (mostly) able to stick to the agenda, and in each place that we stayed at we felt safe.

1. Tijuana -> Valle de Guadalupe
2. Valle de Guadalupe -> Ensenada -> La Bufadora -> San Quintín
3. San Quintín -> Bahía de los Ángeles
4. Bahía de los Ángeles -> Guerrero Negro
5. Guerrero Negro -> Loreto
6. Loreto -> La Paz
7. La Paz
8. La Paz (Isla Espiritu Santo)
9. La Paz -> Playa Balandra -> Todo Santos -> Cabo San Lucas
10. Cabo San Lucas
11. Cabo San Lucas -> Cabo San Jose -> Loreto
12. Loreto -> Mulegé
13. Mulegé -> San Felipe
14. San Felipe -> Mexicali -> Tijuana

We had lobsters for our first meal in Mexico, at the same place we had lobsters back in May. Puerto Nuevo was still beautiful. The drive from Tijuana to Valle was beautiful, but the car we rented from Hertz was terrible (or so we thought, at first).

We got to Ensenada in the morning the next day. It was misty when we were there. We drove all the way to La Bufadora, but we couldn't see anything due to the mist.

We saw this on our way to San Quintín. It reminded me too much of Tibet. The mountains looked like the mountains in Tibet, the architecture was somewhat similar, and instead of blue lakes, here you have blue oceans.

San Quintin had a few tiny volcanos. Funny side story: as we were half way through hiking up one of the volcanos, we saw two suspicious cars arriving and lingering; there were 4-5 men. We got a bit nervous and descended as soon as possible, and the second we arrived, they left. We may have just saved all our belongings.

I've never seen cacti like these. It's a cacti forest. This was in Valle de los Cirlos. This day I also saw one of the best drivers I've seen. As we drove into the mountains we saw a trunk in front of us. I tried to overtake it but it wouldn't let me, so I followed, a bit dismayed. But as the turns got sharper and roads got steeper I realized I could no longer keep up. I could not keep up with a truck: it knew exactly when to brake, when to steer, when to accelerate. After we drove out of the mountains it signaled for us to overtake him. I honked briskly to show my appreciation, and in half an hour when we stopped for photos, he passed us again and we waved. He smiled.

We made our way to Bahía de los Ángeles. Here we also got a flat tire; it was getting dark and we were getting nervous. H was driving fast and couldn't avoid one of the holes on the ground. We pulled over and realized there was no signal, and we thought the best way to go was to drive with a flat tire to get to Bahía, because we couldn't risk stopping in the middle of nowhere.

That said, beaches here were beautiful.

The next morning we took a car to a mechanic. He laughed at our tire. (Look! This place looks like Tangra Yum Co. Do you still remember?)

This was around Santa Rosalía. There were many camping sites in that area. I went up to one of the hills to get a view of the bay, and it was worth it. Before this, we were at Guerrero Negro because we heard it was one of the best places for whale watching, but we woke up at 6 on that day only to be told that the whales weren't there yet.

We went on a boat tour in La Paz to see Isla Espiritu Santo, where we saw sharks (note the shark fin in the image!), and swam with sea lions (I raced it, too). It felt like a combination of our boat tour in Paracas and our scuba diving experience in Cancún. We were talking with the tour guide about safety and convenience in China versus other places in the world: security at the loss of privacy. He said privacy doesn't matter to him, but he still wouldn't want to live in China. I asked him why, and he said no hay hierba en China (there's no weed in China). I laughed a bit too hard.

We met a lot of interesting people on the trip. I wrote about another conversation we had on the boat here.

Playa Balandra and Playa Tecolote were among the most beautiful beaches I've seen. Playa Balandra was a protected area, and Playa Tecolote was a shallow and beautiful public beach (with not many people!). I dipped inside and the water was so clear that I saw everything under, including fishes and a one-meter long snake-like creature swimming around me, which scared the shit out of me. So I got up and started drinking beers instead.

Todos Santos was beautiful. We saw this as we drove from Todos Santos to Cabo San Lucas. It was a cliff facing west, so we pulled over to watch the sunset. Another thing I love about Mexico: the people are wholesome.

But Cabos San Lucas wasn't Mexico. It was Cancún but worse. Cancún had a downtown area that was vibrant; but Cabo San Lucas itself was a hotel zone: no culture, expensive and mediocre food, beaches packed with tourists. Centuries ago colonization happened through weaponization, but now it happens through economic means.

Overall, the restaurants are amazing. Even the ones in Los Cabos were great, only a bit pricey. We had some amazing food in Loreto (shout out to Mi Loreto!), La Paz, and Guerrero Negro. But street food was even better. Drive away from downtown and visit one of these taco stands. You will not regret it.

I loved being on the road. I loved being able to go anywhere that I thought was beautiful. I loved opening up the windows when it gets too hot. I loved blasting Con Todos Menos Contigo and shaking my head to it. And driving was hell of an experience: dodging holes, overtaking cars, overtaking vans, overtaking trucks, and even overtaking our selves. We learned so much on the trip. There are so many more pictures to show and stories to tell, and they're not gonna fit here.

But hey - if you wanted to hear more - you can always just come talk to me.

All yours,

M