HOME

Click here for more photos of our trip to Baja California

Baja California Sur

October 2003

Click on photos below to see full size

In a major departure from most of our longer trips we joined several friends for a truck trip to Malarrimo Beach, west of Guerrero Negro in Baja California Sur. This beach is located on the south side of Bahia de Sebastian Vizcaino, and is famous for accumulating all manner of washed-up sea junk -- from shipwrecks to antique glass bottles.

Apparently, northwest-facing beaches tend to trap items floating on the Pacific Ocean currents, and Malarrimo is in the crook of a 70 mile peninsula jutting out of the west coast of Baja. We had heard that a hurricane in the 1970's buried or washed away most of the good junk, including the shipwrecks, but we hoped for the best. We started the trip from the beach house of our friends Chuck and Karen, which is about 50 miles south of Ensenada. That made it a relatively short drive to Guerrero Negro

on Highway 1. We had made this trip before, so no surprises. We were pleased to find the highway in pretty good shape, at least compared to our last trip. Our only concern was how we would be able to handle the off-road portion of the trip, with our new non-four wheel drive truck. We stayed the night at the Malarrimo hotel, and enjoyed some good seafood at their restaurant.

Heading south and west out of Guerrero Negro toward the cut-off for Malarrimo Beach we were surprised at how good the road conditions were. The highway appeared to have just been repaved. Then we ran out of pavement and we were back on the Baja gravel roads we know so well. After about 50 miles of washboard road, we located the road to the beach which starts at San Jose de Castro. Not a town, just a rancho. From there it is about 25 miles more to the beach. We were a little concerned that we could make this trip without 4-wheel drive, but two of the other trucks carried winches so we figured we could get pulled out if we became stuck. As it turned out we had no problems, other than hanging the differential up on a rock once. We were pulled free without difficulty.

Late in the afternoon we arrived at the beach, only to find that the arroyo we were driving down was flooded, keeping us from getting all the way to the ocean. We set up camp at the end of the road and decided to assess the situation over a couple of beers.

The tide was fairly high and the beach area was covered with trash – mostly plastic bottles that had been washed ashore. Undaunted, we decided to stay a couple of days and get some beachcombing time. The less determined set up

beach chairs and pulled out the reading material. Fortunately all the trash was well washed and didn’t smell. Our dog Zena thought it was a great place to look for lizards!

Three days of this fast pace was about all we could take so we headed back to Guerrero Negro for some R&R at the

Malarrimo Hotel, and for repairs to one of the trucks.

Since we were to be in town a couple of days, we decided to take a tour of the salt works. This is one of the world’s largest and a major source of export for Mexico. The salt fields are so large you can’t enter without a guide, which we arranged at the hotel. We saw

these trucks hauling salt and they just kept getting larger and larger as they approached us. Our guide waved down one of the drivers who stopped for a picture. Then we really got an appreciation for the size of the trucks and the amount of salt being taken out of here every day.

When we left Guerrero Negro we drove up the coast to Punta Santa Rosalillita, which is to be the Pacific Coast end of the planned Escalera Nautica, or “nautical ladder”. This is a very controversial project intended to benefit the economy through development and increased tourism. The scheme is to provide a facility to take boats out of the water at Santa Rosalillita, load them on trucks, and move them to Bahia de Los Angeles on the Sea of Cortez. We watched the construction of part of the piers, shared a few beers with the workers, and drove on up the coast.

Our next stop was Boca de Marron. This is another relatively deserted beach, with just a small fish camp at one end. The beach gradient is rather shallow, and the tides were high, so we had to pick a camping spot well away from the water. The only problem with this location was that the sand is very fine and black, so we found we were got pretty dirty. However, we were able to buy a dozen lobsters from local fishermen, so that made up for some other shortcomings.

You soon to take things as you find them in Mexico. That’s part of the fun!