BajaNomad - Hotel Presidente La Paz

Hotel Presidente La Paz

4x4abc - 10-12-2023 at 08:57 PM

does anyone know where the 1970's Hotel Presidente of La Paz was located

mlspottery - 10-13-2023 at 08:09 AM

That looks like the old hotel at the beach we go snorkeling at east of La Ventana and just north of Ensenada de Muertos. Completely abandoned but with 24 hour security presence. Great shell collecting on the beach to the north.
24.043968, -109.827007

bajagregg - 10-13-2023 at 10:21 AM

Could this be what was at one time called the Punta Arenas resort?

David K - 10-13-2023 at 12:08 PM

In the Instant Mexico Insurance Guide of the1980s, Hotel El Presidente is listed as being 3 miles north of town on Playa Caimancito.

One other guide (Baja Book II) puts it 2 miles south of town!

I will keep looking. But, I think the first answer may be where to look, Harald.

Today, it is called the Hotel La Concha.

[Edited on 10-13-2023 by David K]

boatworksjon - 10-15-2023 at 08:15 AM

This is the old Las Arenas Hotel

boe4fun - 10-15-2023 at 08:44 AM

Back in the mid 80’s our fishing group (organized by Ed Tuleja from San Luis Obispo, Alta California) stayed at what he referred to as the Hotel El Presidente. Some of our group would split the cab fare in to LORETO for supplies, a couple of miles to the north.

[Edited on 10-15-2023 by boe4fun]

Some history

David K - 10-15-2023 at 10:39 AM

Quote: Originally posted by boe4fun

Back in the mid 80’s our fishing group (organized by Ed Tuleja from San Luis Obispo, Alta California) stayed at what he referred to as the Hotel El Presidente. Some of our group would split the cab fare in to LORETO for supplies, a couple of miles to the north.

[Edited on 10-15-2023 by boe4fun]

The El Presidente was a chain of hotels in Baja and in Mexico mainland. In Baja, they were opened in 1974 and later for the needs of travelers on the newly opened trans-peninsular highway.

Some years later, the La Pinta hotel chain bought the El Presidente hotels in Baja (at least the ones along the new part of the highway).

Some years after that, the Desert Inn hotel chain replaced La Pinta.

The most recent change was the northernmost two (at San Quintín's Santa María beach and Cataviña) became Misión hotels (owned by the Los Pinos tomato packing house). The one at the state border/ Eagle Monument became the Half-Way Inn. The one in San Ignacio is still a Desert Inn. I am not sure about the one in Loreto at the former Playas de Loreto hotel, on the beach north side of town. They were also El Presidentes in La Paz (see above) and Los Cabos.

El Presidente, Cataviña-Santa Inés, in April 1974

David K - 10-15-2023 at 10:47 AM

Photo taken across the highway at the parador rest area

vacaenbaja - 10-16-2023 at 02:46 PM

I remember back in the early 80's there was a rather rough coastal road from Los Barriles that would lead you up toward La Ventana. Las Arenas looked real nice kinda high end. But remote to get to
By the mid 80's it appeared to be a still born idea that suffered from something .Lack of funds? hard access? Here is a story from the L.A. Times in part back in the 80's

"LAS ARENAS

Bill Payton, 62, and Tim Train, 65, have invested countless years of research into the subject of fishing. Here’s what they’ve come up with: The heck with fishing.

Payton and Train, both from Sacramento, are pilots. Once a year, they fly down to Baja and spend a few days at every fishing resort they can find with an airstrip. But they never fish.

What’s going on here?

Payton: “Basically, our program goes something like this: We take several naps during the day, we sit by the pool a lot, we drink c-cktails and we never miss a meal.”

A reporter and a photographer touring Baja recently had the feeling they were being followed. At Loreto, they first met the Payton-Train team. A day later, at Las Arenas, the two pilots were waiting by the pool. Two days later, they turned up again at Punta Colorada.

Train (His middle name is Swift): “We learned a long time ago that good Baja fishing resorts have three things in common--good food, good bartenders and pretty scenery.”

As he said that, while sitting on the shaded pool deck at Las Arenas Hotel, whales were passing by, less than a mile off the desert point that juts into the Sea of Cortez. Las Arenas offers one of the most spectacular sea views available at any site on the entire peninsula, almost 180 degrees.

Completed in 1980, the 40-room hotel is relatively new on the Baja fishing front. It was built by a pair of Southland trucking company owners, James Cardwell of La Habra Heights and William Brady of Long Beach.

“The original idea was for the two of us to build a nice vacation home and a nearby airstrip someplace down here that our families could share,” Cardwell said. “The hotel concept came later, after our builder, George Escodero of La Paz, found this spot. We fell in love with it.”

The Las Arenas Hotel is about 40 miles from La Paz, at the end of the road running off the Baja Highway to the small town of Los Planes. The road is paved for about 25 miles, to Los Planes, then is hard gravel to the hotel, which rests spectacularly on Punta Arenas. It’s an astonishing sight, to drive through miles and miles of a rocky desert wilderness, then crest one last small hill and come upon the only structure for perhaps 10 miles in any direction, the Las Arenas Hotel.

Six miles off the beach is Cerralvo Island, the last and one of the largest of the nearly 30 islands hugging the peninsula’s Sea of Cortez coast.

“A lot of our guests have great interest in Cerralvo beyond fishing,” Cardwell said. “We’re going to build a shaded area over there for a barbecue, and start some ‘island safari’ trips. There are some plants on Cerralvo that grow nowhere else, and they’re of interest to botany-oriented people.

“Most of our fishing occurs over there, and it’s a natural windbreak for us. When it’s blowing, we just get on one side or the other.”

Cardwell and Brady are both pilots, as are roughly one-third of Las Arenas guests. A 6,200-foot dirt strip is nearby. A 50-minute taxi ride from the La Paz airport costs about $80.

Las Arenas is a desert hotel without air-conditioning, and it was designed that way. The hotel’s two hacienda-style, two-story wings were designed so that each room catches the Sea of Cortez breezes.

Yellowtail, yellowfin tuna, wahoo, dorado, roosterfish, jack crevalle and billfish are the main gamefish. The most productive waters are close at hand for anglers fishing from the hotel’s 20-foot skiffs or 28- to 32-foot cruisers.

May and June are rated good months, when warming waters bring in blue and striped marlin, wahoo and dorado.

Cardwell and Brady inadvertently constructed a bird sanctuary when they built Las Arenas. In the spring, the palm-planted areas are a riot of raucous small birds--sparrows, finches and orioles--building nests in the palms and atop iron lanterns. The area is also home for numerous species of marine birds, such as frigates, and the always-present pelicans, sailing lazily over the surf line.
May be the fly in Access became a problem.

msteve1014 - 10-16-2023 at 03:16 PM

I stayed at las arenas in the 1980s. I remember it as one large house wih 8 or 10 bungalows near by. Meals included, served family style. Very nice, and the best way to fish the south end of ceralvo

vacaenbaja - 10-16-2023 at 04:54 PM

Back in the "Old Days" it seemed like the best places were the ones that had small airstrips alongside . as it was much harder and longer to drive in especially remote places. Hotel Punta Chivato is a good example . after a few hours of driving off the main highway you came up to an impressive compound of houses and a resort that
boasted some pretty good higher end cooking and if you missed it Coors and Budweiser beer.
I think that the then owner even kept some wild animals caged up outside They had some nice cottages with a fireplace inside. One hell of a view from the bar. The beach was excellent for shelling. People started building houses along the beach front of the shell beach. I believe that Bill Alvarado had a hand in making it.
Rancho Buena Vista had its little airstrip as well as Bahia San Francisquito, Mulege, and BOLA

I imagine that Captain mike could chime in and regale us with tales of
dirt strip Baja.

Although BOLA had planes landing by the old gas station in the middle of town, Sr Munoz had his own airstrip south of town that sadly out of use now.

David K - 10-16-2023 at 05:55 PM

Since we are off on a sidebar, here is a Capt. Muñoz history from 1995:
https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/1995/sep/21/cover-ive-go...

Oh, and I bumped up the Nomad Private Aircraft forum if the dirt runways are of interest! Most have been ditched by the military, supposedly to halt drug runners (which they do in the remote desert strips that pop up for that reason, and Harald can show you those from his huge Google Earth list). No, the military also has ditched strip right in the backyards of many only to demand big fees $$$ to reopen "with a necessary permit"!

The big Camp Muñoz airstrip, just past Camp Gecko, south end of L.A. Bay, is one such runway.

Alan - 10-17-2023 at 09:06 AM

Quote: Originally posted by David K

In the Instant Mexico Insurance Guide of the1980s, Hotel El Presidente is listed as being 3 miles north of town on Playa Caimancito.

One other guide (Baja Book II) puts it 2 miles south of town!

I will keep looking. But, I think the first answer may be where to look, Harald.

Today, it is called the Hotel La Concha.

[Edited on 10-13-2023 by David K]

Playa Caimancito was the Governor's residence but I believe it has just been reopened as a hotel

Alan - 10-17-2023 at 09:12 AM

Quote: Originally posted by boe4fun

That was the El Presidente - Loreto which was down near the airport. El Presidente was a hotel chain around the late 70's.

Marc - 10-19-2023 at 03:51 PM

Quote: Originally posted by David K

Quote: Originally posted by boe4fun

I've stayed at all of these you mentioned and seen all the (confusing) name changes in the past 45+ years. I miss walking up to the monument at G Negro.