Playa La Gringa and San Francisquito, Baja California Norte
We left Ensenada on the Mex 1 heading south to Bahia de los Angeles (BLA). BLA is a long drive from Ensenada and our cardinal rule is no night driving so we didn’t really know how far or where we would stop for the night, so we just decided to drive and see how far we could get. We ended up in a little town called El Rosario when it was getting dark. There isn’t much in El Rosario, but we wound up in a nice little motel/campground for the night. We had a great group of neighbors traveling in three trucks towing awesome little trailers with homemade roof top tents. These guys all have homes in San Felipe and they were gracious enough to invite us to spend some time with them, but sadly we had to decline.
Neighbor's rig at El Rosario
Two very cool trailers and their Jeeps
The next morning we continued on to Bahia de Los Angeles on the Sea of Cortez. It was the first time either of us has been to the Sea of Cortez, so we were excited to get there. The drive through this part of Baja is through the desert (much of Baja is a desert) which is both stark and desolate, yet there are all kinds of different cacti growing and if you look closely there are signs of life everywhere in what seems an empty landscape.
The desert on the way to Bahia de los Angeles
Coming down into Bahia de Los Angeles after the long drive through the dessert, you drop out of the barren hills, to see deep blue water stretching out ahead. It is a beautiful area, where the barren hillsides meet white sandy beaches and the deep blue of the Sea of Cortez.
Our first view of the Sea of Cortez and Bahia de los Angeles
We drove north of town and found a place to camp on a beach stretching around the north cove of the bay called Playa La Gringa. We set up camp just in time to enjoy our first sunset on the Sea of Cortez, and it didn’t disappoint.
Punta la Gringa, Bahia de los Angeles
Another view of Punta la Gringa
Sunset at Bahia de los Angeles
We borrowed a grill built a campfire and grilled some carne asada for dinner. That night we went to sleep with a full belly and the howls of coyotes on the hillside and Ranchera music from our far away neighbors lulling us to sleep.
Luis grilling some beef at the beach
The next morning, Mario, the caretaker of La Gringa let Luis borrow some fishing gear (a broken fishing pole with a rusty spool), and told him he could go “grab some squid” out of the surf to use as bait. At first we thought we had misunderstood, surely you can’t just nab a squid out of the water but sure enough looking down at the surf we saw squid coming right up to the beach. Each time one came up you could find it by watching the seagulls circling around and trying to pick at it. Luis walked down to the water, waded in a little and came up holding a squid! We couldn’t believe it! It seems like this only happens in the morning, because every morning they were back. The why of it is still a question we are trying to figure out.
Luis holding his baby Humboldt Squid
Armed with the borrowed fishing pole and some fresh calamari for bait, Luis spent the day fishing while Lacey relaxed on the beach. Luis had some luck with the fishing, so we had yet another excellent dinner grilled over our campfire: grilled squid and fish.
Our dinner!
To get to Bahia de Los Angeles, you have to take a spur road off the Mex 1 for about 65 kilometers. The easiest way to our next destination would have been to backtrack to the Mex 1 and even though it is not very far on a nice paved road, we really don’t like to do any backtracking. So we decided to head south on a dirt road about 80 miles south to San Francisquito. Our camping book says it is a nice little beach with good camping and the road to get there is not that bad, suitable for small RVs and even boat trailers. So we stopped in town for a few supplies and headed out. The road, as we have come to find out was probably not bad for baja standards, but it turned out to be a long drive on bumpy washboards with a few crazy switchbacks just to keep it interesting. We finally pulled into San Fracisquito about 5 hours later. Five hours to go 80 miles! San Francisquito turned out to be a small place out in the middle of nowhere. It looked like it could have been a nice low key relatively well developed place back in the day, but that was along time ago and all the structures are gone or halfway gone. To be fair, it was set in a beautiful place, with the beach stretching around a cove and the setting was very nice, which is all we like and want. The only problem was that the wind was blowing really hard and we spent a sleepless night in the tent rocking with the wind (no, this was not the good kind of rocking so you can come a knocking).
Lunch by a lone palapa on the way to San Francisquito
San Francisquito in all its splendor
I’m really enjoying keeping up on your adventure – so fun!
finding places on the Argentinean Pampa to sleep in the roof-top-tent will become an adventure in itself..
As to the wind problem I mean.