modhatter - 8-14-2005 at 01:26 PM
Just curious of your opinions of the most beautiful areas of Baja are. Also the ugliest.
JZ - 8-14-2005 at 01:44 PM
Puerto Refugio, the northern most anchorage on Isla Angel de La Guardia. 50 or so miles from Bahia de Los Angeles. It's a breathtaking bay
surrounded by several small islands. Sail Rock, off of the western most entrance, is an amazing sight, it rises 150 feet out of the water, is white
and shaped like a huge sail. But you'll need a good boat to get there. 
But if
you make it, you'll have the whole world to yourself. 
Sail Rock from cruisecortez.com
[Edited on 8-14-2005 by JZ]
surfer jim - 8-14-2005 at 02:59 PM
Worst is the view of the backed up traffic in front of you at the T.J. border crossing......
Bruce R Leech - 8-14-2005 at 03:09 PM
the best is the pretty much undisturbed inland arias of Baja south.
the Worst is the view of the backed up traffic in front of you at the T.J. border crossing...... just like surfer Jim
Tucker - 8-14-2005 at 03:13 PM
The ugliest aggregation of buildings I've seen in Baja is the town of Bahia de Los Angeles. Turn the other way and the actual B de LA might be the
best.
Bahia de los Angeles--------
Barry A. - 8-14-2005 at 03:16 PM
from the "1st view" overlook as you crest out above the bay.
A close second would be Ensenada San Basilio north of Loreto.
To me, nothing qualifies as "ugly" in Baja except my truck mired in the mud of "Boca Grande" salt flat just north of San Rafael, on the road from BOLA
to San Francisquito. That was UGLY !!!!!!
bajaloco - 8-14-2005 at 03:48 PM
The most beautiful is when you see anything in Baja for the first time...
The ugliest for me was the time I came up on a beach covered with small and baby hammerheads...butchered for their fins.
JZ - 8-14-2005 at 04:23 PM
Bahia de Los Angeles facing the bay is amazing.
bajajudy - 8-14-2005 at 04:30 PM
All of Baja is beautiful.
However, there are parts of San Lucas that are FEO(UGLY).
Plaza las Glorias for one.
All the make shift housing for the poor who are working in the hotels and resorts for another. If you want to see slums.....great for a vacation side
trip,eh?...ride up behind San Lucas to Las Lomas and you will see poverty like you expect to see in Mexico City, Nicaragua, Guatamala....not Baja.
An excellent question...
bigzaggin - 8-14-2005 at 04:55 PM
and while it's tempting to list the inside of a certain poster's head as sitio feo numero uno en Baja, I'll play it straight...
For beauty and desolation, I'll take the coastline just north of Canoas and the breathtaking stretch between Bufeo and Puertocitos. Santo Domingo has
some wonderful little nooks for intrepid nomads. And, up norte, Bahia Soledad is positively gorgeous if somewhat clouded by ominous rumors.
Ugly being relative, my vote goes to mid-season Pequena with 9,762 RVs lining the crumbling bluff or downtown Cabo, where culture goes to die. That
border line is a gimme...sadder still because it means you're leaving.
Anonymous - 8-14-2005 at 05:01 PM
Bay of Conception... hands down the best! Worst....Men's room at a Pemex station 10 years ago.
Anon------is that Requeson in the pic??
Barry A. - 8-14-2005 at 06:08 PM
roundtuit - 8-14-2005 at 07:14 PM
Barry, Yes it is
Bajaboy - 8-14-2005 at 09:47 PM
I think the most beautiful place in Baja is the trip down the mountainside into the Agua Verde area. Heading back at Christmas and can't wait.
The only ugly thing I can recall are some tourists complaining that Baja wasn't like where they came from...
Zac
Tomas Tierra - 8-14-2005 at 10:22 PM
THE most beutiful place in ALL the baja is San Jose De Gracia...
Anybody been there??? I know very few who have..
JZ - 8-14-2005 at 10:45 PM
I'm sure I'll get flamed for this... but San Felipe, while not the absolute worst of spots, isn't that attractive to me. The extreme tides make it
undesirable for water activities as well.
San Felipe not that great?????
Barry A. - 8-14-2005 at 10:47 PM
You just have not been properly introduced to the charms of San Felipe. It is a great little town, but your right, the tides do foul up water
activities.
Anonymous - 8-15-2005 at 06:32 AM
Agua Verde in a sailboat..anchored with a margarita and a Margie!
David K - 8-15-2005 at 05:46 PM
The Best of Baja is anywhere on the peninsula you are at with friends or loved ones to share the charm with.
Beautiful, isolated beaches with clear, warm water as in this photo taken about 20 miles from San Felipe, are some of my favorite places...
I agree with Surfer Jim on the ugliest part of Baja... leaving it!
I agree on the being with loved ones part...
Anonymous - 8-15-2005 at 06:42 PM
Makes a camping experience in Baja an event that is priceless. Keep camping! In whatever your style is...
JZ - 8-15-2005 at 07:09 PM
Best anon post yet! One even Bruce would agree with!
David K - 8-15-2005 at 07:22 PM
Yes that person should be elevaded to Super Nomad the day he/she registers!
damn,coming home from work to see this post...
eetdrt88 - 8-15-2005 at 07:30 PM
is awesome,i swear to god i just took about a five minute break from daily life and kinda strolled right thru a few heavenly moments as i read the
posts here....i have to agree on the border being the worst part ofthe deal of coming down to baja....as far as the best there are quite a few
beginning with Gonzaga Bay and especially Punta Final...that place i'm finding very hard to ever stop thinking about
Bob H - 8-16-2005 at 07:56 AM
A most beautiful spot in Baja for us is Gonzaga Bay! One of the ugliest places are those apartment buildings just south of Ensenada on the way to
Maneadero, on the West side of MX-1 that have the patio areas with fence screening on them. U-G-L-Y
Anonymous - 8-16-2005 at 08:30 AM
Most beautiful Baja areas are: Dawn and hot cowboy coffee on a foggy mountain camp in remote Gigantas with the quail and white-wing doves making
their sooothing morning wake-up calls...which really does sound like...."Wake up, you fool, ..wake up, you fool." Then glassing a bighorn sheep on a
hike up into the heights, or surprising a desert muley in the valleys. Watching a crested hawk take a rabbit...or seacliff-lunch eaten by an osprey.
Being in the middle of a pod of finback whales as they circled and eyeballed us...only once, but wishing for more of the same, please!
Least beautiful?...manmade scars mostly..I try to forget them quickly. Viva Baja!~ samhain/ambrose j. small.
Mike Supino - 8-16-2005 at 12:39 PM
Did you have your gun or harpoon with you?
Anonymous - 8-16-2005 at 12:49 PM
Yes, indeed I did, Mike....great shooter, too...a Leica Model R9 35mm SLR w/ssp of 16-1/8000 seconds. Got quite a few good shots and never missed
once.
DanO - 8-16-2005 at 02:00 PM
I agree with Bigzaggin on Bahia Soledad as one of the prettiest places in El Norte, just breathtaking, but yeah, some weird juju is goin' on over
there. And there's some ugliness happening too -- earlier this year, the guy that owns the land on the south end of the bay, on the other side of the
ridge from Puerto Santo Tomas, put a trailer on the road on the PST side of the ridge and posted a "security guard" there 24/7/365. He'll let you
pass if you tell him you're just going to make a phone call (the peak of that ridge is the only place to get a solid cell signal down there).
According to the locals, he's there to prevent the PST fishermen from setting up squatter's camps on his boss's land on the other side. However, the
rumor mill says his boss is locked in a feud with the guy that rents cabins just south of the port, over land rights which are now in the spotlight
because of all of the development rumors. People are peeed off that they are being hassled when they go up there. One of my Mexican buddies told the
security guard that he had no right to prevent people from using a public road (apparently, there is a dispute as to whether the trailer is on the
owner's property, someone else's, or a public thoroughfare) and drove on past. The security guard's response was to heave a couple of rocks at my
friend's truck. I suspect this will not have a happy ending.
bajalera - 8-16-2005 at 02:09 PM
Can't make up my mind on the best, but the worst is easy: the Guerrero Negro but station in the middle of the night, with an icy wind blowing open the
doors no matter what the season. I've made that trip twice, but even once would have been too many times.
Lera
Soledad...
bigzaggin - 8-16-2005 at 02:43 PM
I had heard a little about that but am sorry to hear it confirmed. That place has always been so damn odd...so beautiful and isolated and yet kind
of creepy. I have camped there a few times but always felt like I was being "watched." Maybe I was? At some point, the entire bay was for sale...is
it still (not that I'm buying, but curious).
bajalou - 8-16-2005 at 02:52 PM
First time I heard a banos called a "but station"
Anonymous - 8-16-2005 at 03:39 PM
no...that would be a 'butt station' at the bus station.
BZ
DanO - 8-16-2005 at 05:01 PM
I'll bet you were being watched. My wife and I went over there once in the early 90s, when the road was nearly impassable even on a motorcycle, and
found what looked like a recently abandoned drip fertilization and irrigation setup. And a travel trailer across the canyon with its windows open and
the curtains moving, but there was no breeze. One of the Gomez brothers at Bocana told me later that I was crazy to go over there. I suspect it's
different now, since someone has built a couple of pretty nice houses on the site.
I don't know if the bay property is on the market, but there is an apparently land-locked parcel up on the mesa overlooking it that's listed for a
paltry $350,000. Get it while it's hot (and report back on how crappy the road is getting in).
http://www.bajaquest.com/re560/
Diver - 8-16-2005 at 07:15 PM
Sam,
Your photo shows the best view I have ever seen of my favorite place to relax in Baja ! I have already sent it to a few friends that could never
before understand my feelings for the place. They can all understand now !
Thank you, thank you !!
grace59 - 8-17-2005 at 03:23 PM
The most beautiful spot in the Baja is the one you are seeing for the first time...I love Baja because there are so many beautiful things to see:
desert, the sea, waterfalls, the people The ugliest thing in Baja...the
border crossing on the way back home...I hate having to leave...someday hopefully, I won't have to.
LaRibereņa - 8-22-2005 at 02:05 PM
Worst is the drive between Constitution and La Paz - BORING! Especially when we're so close to home (East Cape) and the drive seems to last forever.
bajalera - 8-22-2005 at 02:32 PM
And speaking of the butt facilities at the buS station, those were pretty dang windy too.
Airy bathrooms in Baja?
Anonymous - 8-22-2005 at 04:15 PM
these in Tokyo are very open and airy...although maybe a teeeeny bit cleaner than the butt stations in Baja !
best and worst
Skipjack Joe - 8-22-2005 at 05:28 PM
best: a moonless starry night sky as viewed from a beach on the northern cortez when the winds are absent.
worst: running the gauntlet through Ensenada. Also, the drive from san quintin to colonet is no longer baja for me.
Good thread. I often think about this sort of thing. The 'best' changes from year to year for me.
capn.sharky - 8-22-2005 at 08:29 PM
Tijuana is pretty ugly. For me, Loreto is the most beautiful place. I have been all over the world and there is one other in Australia---Noosa north
of Brisbane.
Why Loreto? I have been going there for over 30 years and still love it. At night when they turn on the lights in the bell tower of the church, it
is just magnificiant. Yes, Conception Bay is beautiful too. And many other areas. But for me, my love is Loreto. So tranquil, the people so kind
and friendly and the sea and mountains. Loreto is paradise to me. Hopefully, the Canadians won't ruin it too much.
The best part is just being there...but the worst!
Anonymous - 8-22-2005 at 09:01 PM
Is when those sudden cold snaps hit the Cortez in February...muy loco!
bajalera - 8-24-2005 at 12:18 PM
Here's a little something I got from a friend who saw my "but station" typo:
Fulano went to a proctologist's office for a rectal probe, and the doc's new nurse took him to an examining room, gave him one of those backless
robes to put on, and said the doctor would be there shortly.
While waiting, Fulano noticed the three things on a stand next to the exam table: a tube of K-Y jello, a rubber glove, and a beer.
When the doc finally arrived, Fulano said, "Look Doc, this is my first exam and I'm a bit confused. I know what the K-Y is for, and I know what the
glove is for. But the beer?"
The doctor stormed to the door, flung it open, and yelled to his nurse, "Dang it Maria! I said a BUTT light!"
Anonymous - 8-25-2005 at 09:54 AM
MY favorite place is with my face in the water,snorkel above, endlessly floating around the reefs @ Cabo pulmo.Tortugas,eels,reef fish,even a wahoo
within 3 feet.Absolutly unforgettable.....
Who IS that masked man?????????
Barry A. - 8-25-2005 at 09:57 AM