Taco de Baja
Super Nomad
Posts: 1913
Registered: 4-14-2004
Location: Behind the Orange Curtain, CA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Dreamin' of Baja
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Loreto in the Orange County Register
May need an account to access the link, so I copied the whole article here too. If you get access there are photos too.
http://www.ocregister.com/ocr/2005/05/22/sections/travel/mex...
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Breezy Baja
Living is easy under a palapa in Loreto
By MARLA JO FISHER
The Orange County Register
2 P.M. SUNDAY, APRIL 10, 2005
We are standing at the AeroCalifornia ticket counter at LAX, where I have just been asked to hand over the paper tickets for me and my two kids,
Michael and Sandy, to get on a plane to Loreto, Baja California Sur.
This would be a problem.
Because, basically, I forgot them. Who uses paper plane tickets anymore? This funky old airline, obviously. Sigh.
The ticket agent says I have to buy new tickets and that if I bring the old ones in, they will refund my money. In 30 days or more. Sigh.
Usually we drive to Baja ? this is the first time I've flown, and I'm not sure I made the right decision. I've never been to Loreto. What if we need a
car? We'll have to rent one. Oh, well, too late now. I hope we won't hate the hotel that I booked off the Internet.
10 P.M. MONDAY, APRIL 11
Sitting on the veranda in front of our hotel room at the Hotel Oasis, watching the Sea of Cortez, drinking a bottle of Pacifico beer. The kids have
finally settled into their beds and I can relax.
I love this little hotel. It is rustic but comfortable, with desert landscaping and a lot of natural rock trim. There are no beautiful people here, so
I can let all my middle-age flab hang out. Most of the guests seem to be here to go sport fishing.
My friend Ana and our total of three kids, ages 5-8, arrived at the town's tiny airport last night just as the setting sun turned the bay a rosy pink.
A taxi van took about 15 minutes driving past a desert landscape of tall cardon cactuses and ocotillos nearly in bloom to get us into the main part of
this small, sleepy town, which is squeezed between the picturesque Sea of Cortez on the east and the Sierra La Giganta mountains on the west.
Julie, a former resident of Dana Point who now runs an inn here, told me the town "has three stoplights but only one of them works."
The taxi deposited us at the Oasis, where we are paying about $600 for a huge old-fashioned room for a week. The room is big enough for all five of us
to sleep in four beds, with simple cotton bedspreads and high beamed ceilings. The staff seems very friendly. We arrived just in time to have dinner
at the restaurant, which has a lovely flagstone patio with tables overlooking the sea. The food is OK, but not an attraction here.
This morning, it took us about seven minutes to walk into the historic district, along a sea walk that was built in the 1960s when this little village
was being developed as a Mexican resort. To the right, a sea wall built of rocks protects the malec?n from the brilliant blue sea. The sea walk itself
is built of concrete molded to look like rock, and has periodic wrought-iron benches where people can stop and contemplate the bay.
To the left is the not-very-busy ocean drive, where a car passes perhaps every five minutes or so. Restaurants, campgrounds and hotels line the bay,
but some look damaged or unfinished, as if they were either victims of the area's periodic hurricanes or under construction.
Loreto was founded by a Jesuit priest in 1697 as the first permanent settlement in Baja California, in an area previously occupied only by nomadic
Indians.
Juan Maria de Salvatierra oversaw construction of Our Lady of Loreto, the first Spanish mission in the Californias. Later, in the 18th century,
Franciscan friar Junipero Serra used Loreto as the base from which he launched his effort that ultimately led to the founding of 17 missions as far
north as San Francisco.
The town was the early Spanish capital of Baja California, but after it was nearly destroyed by a hurricane in 1829,the capital was moved south to La
Paz, where it is today.
Loreto remained a sleepy fishing village until the 1960s, when the Mexican tourist agency began promoting it as a destination, including refurbishing
the mission and surrounding historic areas.
Today, it has about 14,000 inhabitants and is the big town for many of the area's isolated ranchos. But it still isn't free from hurricanes ? a storm
a few years ago destroyed a popular bayfront restaurant.
Before I arrived, I was curious to find out if a week in Loreto would seem too long ? or too short.
We had breakfast today at Cafe Ol?. It was very windy all day, which seemed to be the main topic of conversation among fellow diners. We sat at resin
tables and chairs on the sidewalk, overlooking cobblestone streets with virtually no traffic, while we waited for our names to be called to pick up
our orders.
A folklore troupe performed across the street on the museum plaza, the dancers swirling their colorful skirts, apparently to entertain people who just
arrived from a cruise ship anchored offshore.
After breakfast, I would have liked to walk around and poke my head into some of the small, attractive Mexican folk art stores lining the plaza, but
it was hot and the kids were begging to swim. So we walked back to the hotel. Ana headed back into town to take some photos and talk to real estate
salesmen, as she's interested in buying property in Baja.
The kids and I hung out at the turquoise-blue pool, which is clean and shaped like a Z. Tall palm trees, bushes, flowers and other landscaping create
a miniature oasis around the pool.
The kids dove into the water while I staked out a lounge chair under a thatched-roof palapa.
Life is good, I thought. The only thing that would make it better would be a frosty pi?a colada. Hello, can this be true? There was a waiter coming
toward me.
A few minutes later, aah. My dream had come true. Recently, I've been driving down the freeway with a recurring image of myself under a palapa,
drinking a pi?a colada.
And now I had one.
Did I mention that life is good?
The only problem was that I was feeling a tiny bit, well, guilty for enjoying my iced drink and deck chair so much.
Usually, coming to this side of Baja means a long, arduous drive, followed up primitive camping, getting dirty, experiencing life in the wild.
Getting whipped with sand in windstorms, dealing with toilets that don't work, trying to cook over balky stoves.
Something is wrong with me, I thought, that I'm enjoying this trip so much, just flopped in my chaise, ordering food by the pool. I have either sold
out to the bourgeoisie, or just gotten old and fat. Or maybe both.
Sigh. But it's so easy here, I thought, especially with little kids. You just sit here and they bring you refreshments. The kids haven't even noticed
that our room doesn't have a TV.
I looked up and saw a gila woodpecker overhead, boring into a 40-foot-tall palm tree, while a turkey vulture circled one way and a frigate bird went
the other.
Who says I'm not on a nature tour?
The bird songs were the only sound I heard, other than our kids playing in the pool. This town is big enough to offer things to do, but small enough
to be peaceful, especially at siesta time.
We had a lunch of quesadillas at the pool.
Thank God for quesadillas or my children would starve to death in Mexico, as there is almost nothing else they will eat.
After two pi?a coladas, a very small voice in the back of my brain was telling me I should be doing something productive, but I couldn't think of what
that would be.
Eventually, at dusk, we showered and ate dinner at the hotel, too lazy to walk to town.
Ana finally got back just in time for bed. She has been taking pictures and talking to real estate agents and has become entranced with Loreto. The
town is built around the mission plaza. Cobblestone streets surround the historic district, along with small restaurants and shops selling Mexican
crafts, T-shirts and sporting goods. Outside the historic district, townspeople live in small, colorfully painted concrete bungalows. Dirt yards have
no grass, but have flowers, banana trees and cactus.
We have turned the air conditioner on to sleep. It provides a breeze and enough white noise that we won't have to listen to anyone else snoring.
TUESDAY, APRIL 12
In the morning, I buy the children snorkeling gear at the local sporting goods store. Ana wants to look at some real estate, so we put the kids in the
back of the agent's pickup and drive to a few locations.
Unfortunately, we have already missed the boom here, so the land has soared in price. Beachfront property is scarce and expensive. We look at a lot
about four miles north of town on a rugged dirt road with no utilities. We drive past what looks like a motel with a Tecate sign, far out of town.
"Is that a motel or a restaurant?" I ask the real estate agent in my pidgin Spanish.
"Neither," he answers. "It's for girls."
Hmm. For girls? Oh. "You mean there are bad girls there," I say, comprehension slowly dawning.
"No," he says, smiling lasciviously. "GOOOD girls."
I try to point out to Ana, who is sitting in the bed of the truck with the kids, that we have just passed the town bordello, but the wind blows my
words away.
I hadn't looked forward to hauling three little kids along on our real estate hunt, but it turns out they're thrilled at the rare chance to ride in
the bed of a pickup and to hunt for shells on the pebbly beaches we visit.
Most of Loreto's beaches are pebbly; there are few white sand beaches in this area. The beach at our hotel is dark sand, which has a less appealing
texture.
After our real estate tour, we head back to the pool, the kids play with the snorkels and I discover they will eat fish tacos for lunch. I am
thrilled, because this basically doubles their gastronomic opportunities in Mexico.
Ernesto, the owner's nephew who runs the hotel's sport fishing business, tells me the Oasis might be leased to a European company that wants to use it
as a convalescent hospital and spa for ailing Europeans.
I hope the deal falls through, as I'm already planning to come back.
THURSDAY, APRIL 14
We eat breakfast at the hotel, early, then take off at 7:45 a.m. on the 15-minute boat ride to Isla Coronado. Yesterday, I was sick all day, but today
I am feeling better. We stop at a sea lion colony on one end of the island to watch the animals cavort in the water and sun themselves on the rocks.
They roar at each other and ignore us even though we stop only a few yards away. A manta ray leaps out of the water near us.
Later, I sit on a beach towel under a shade palapa. We are on an island white sand beach, looking at the distant mountains. To the right, a small,
flat-topped mountain appears to be the extinct volcano that formed this island. To the left, the white sand of this shallow cove renders the
aquamarine water transparent. A small rocky point, where the water is shallow enough to wade, has lots of small colorful fish.
I have brought all the snorkel gear, but the two boys simply refuse to snorkel, even though I keep pointing out that the fish are tiny and could
hardly harm them.
Only my 6-year-old daughter will put on the snorkel mask and swim out with me.
This is hardly undiscovered paradise. There are at least two dozen other people on this beach with us, including a large group of teenage
schoolchildren picnicking and playing volleyball.
But it's still pleasant to be here.
A seagull walks over to Ana's backpack, reaches inside with its beak and snags her sandwich inside a plastic baggie, then runs away with it.
My daughter finds some bleached bones that look like they might be the flipper of a sea lion in the sand dunes.
At 1:30 p.m., we get back in the boat and motor back to the hotel, where a man from Chicago has just caused a lot of excitement by catching a
152-pound marlin.
"Mommy, I touched its eye! I touched its eye!" my son yells as he comes back from seeing it on the weighing table.
SATURDAY, APRIL 16
Ana takes the kids to the marina to fish at sunrise, while I sleep in.
Then, I stroll into town alone and have a delicious Veracruz-style fish lunch.
I visit the ancient plain mission for the first time, with its high beamed ceilings, gilded altarpiece and checkerboard floors, and just miss seeing a
group baptism. The proud parents, dressed in Sunday best, stand on the church steps talking to relatives or friends.
I get back to the Oasis to discover Ana in a taxi preparing to depart ? her plane is scheduled to leave two hours earlier than she had thought. We say
our hasty goodbyes, then the children are overjoyed to show me several small fish they caught this morning. Enrique at the restaurant promises to cook
the fish for dinner.
Later, over the cooing of doves, the songbirds and the crowing of roosters, we clearly hear Ana's plane depart.
I would like to go back into town for dinner, but the kids want to eat their fish. They arrive deep-fried. We finish off the meal with lime sherbet
and I drink my last Pacifico, watching the Sea of Cortez. Tomorrow we have to go back to real life. I am not ready.
One week is not enough.
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Tucker
Senior Nomad
Posts: 664
Registered: 10-31-2002
Location: El Centenario, BCS
Member Is Offline
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Marla also posted a trip report here.
http://www.forums.bajanomad.com/viewthread.php?tid=9856#pid7...
\"I think it would be a good idea.\"
-- Mahatma Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization
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