“Wait, what?” I can hear you saying, “You ARE away!”. Well, yes, this is true, but you see, we are living here for the moment and so, we decided after a month and a half, we needed a little break from our every day life in La Paz. “Ok” you are saying, “but what about the whale sharks! I want to read about the whale sharks!” Yes, we did, in fact, go swimming with them and it was glorious! However, the water was pretty murky and we understand that in February it should be a little clearer. So, rather than doing two blog posts about swimming with these amazing creatures, we decided to hold off and go again, hoping to get some better pictures to share with you. But, just so you know we really did go, here are a few pics from our first whale shark adventure.
So, now we can talk about our little getaway. Not having a car does present a few problems down here in La Paz, if you want to go anywhere other than the part of town we are living in currently, near the malecon. We very much enjoy our daily walks along the water, and have ventured out using the local version of Uber, called Didi, as well as the little Collectivos which go pretty much all over town. The local Playa Bus can take us to nearby beaches such as Balandra and Tecolote, but to reach some of the further away places we wanted to try snorkeling at, we needed a car. So, we rented a car for 5 days, intending to do a little more exploring of beaches and get ourselves to Todos Santos, a well known town in the Baja where many artists have their work on display.
On our first day out, we drove over the hills to the beach at Ensenada de Muertos, on the other side of the peninsula. The drive took a little over an hour and we were there in the early afternoon. Although we had intended on snorkeling, we found the tide was way out and it was pretty windy. We decided to just do a beach walk on this day and then come back on another day a little earlier to catch the calmer weather and higher tide. Our walk along the beach was so enjoyable, although we wondered about the strange prints we saw in the sand. They looked a lot like bike tire prints, but were not deep enough.
Of course, later, as we sat at the nearby restaurant and enjoyed a wonderful lunch with the most fabulous views, we figured out that those tracks had been made by snakes! Now, if you know Jim, you know that the thought of walking along the beach and running into a giant snake is one of his worst fears. As Indiana Jones would say “snakes! Why did it have to be snakes!” Needless to say, we were happy to have made this discovery well after leaving the area!
The following day we drove in the other direction to Todos Santos, where we had booked a room for the night, wanting to be able to relax and enjoy checking out this town without having to worry about driving back to La Paz late in the day. They tell you not to drive at night in the Baja and for a few good reasons.
As you can see, there are spots where you just can’t know what to expect, so best not be out driving in the dark! So, we drove into Todos Santos knowing we had lots of time and wow, was it worth it! Our little place, called Gallo Azul, was just a few blocks from the main streets of town and just the perfect set up for a short stay (we wished we could have been there longer!). The loft was enchanting and we really enjoyed the space.
Having settled into our little space, we set out to explore Todos Santos. Now this is what Jim and I like to refer to as a real “chick town”, meaning that it is full of lovely little shops to wander in and out of. Honestly, in a 6 bock stretch there are more shops, galleries and restaurants than we have seen in all of La Paz! The many galleries contained original art, from paintings to sculptures, and in between were shops full of all the little tourist trinkets your heart could desire! And, of course, in the middle of town is the famous Hotel California. Now, you may think that this is the hotel named in the Eagles’ song of, but you would be wrong. This is simply, The Hotel California, located in Baja California Sur! Although they don’t play the song outside, or make any reference to the Eagles, I’m pretty sure they enjoy the connection that people naturally make.
We stopped for coffee at lovely little cafe inside a gallery (of course), before wandering the streets, looking at the endless displays and surprisingly buying no little trinkets to take home (although I did manage to buy a new dress!). Towards the end of our afternoon, we stopped in at the entrance to the Oystera, and oyster bar that is housed in an amazing looking older building. We were a little sad to know it was an oyster bar, since neither of us is fond of oysters, but were happy to find out that they also served breakfast, thus becoming our destination for the following morning.
One of our reasons for wanting to spend the night in Todos Santos was to catch the sunset. Over in La Paz, the sun sets behind the hills and so we were on the hunt for that perfect sun, setting over the water picture. To that end, we made our way down to the ocean (about a 10 minute drive from the centre of town) where we enjoyed watching the giant waves splashing up onto the beach before finally getting the sunset we were hoping for, and boy was it spectacular!!!
We finished our day with pizza at the little place attached to our hotel and turned in feeling very satisfied with our day. The next morning, we made our way back to Oystera where we were served the most delicious breakfast in their enchanting garden.
We wondered about the history of the building (why is there a canon in the garden?) and so talked to the manager for a bit. It turns out that this building housed a sugar mill at one time. And the cannon? Your guess is as good as mine! Later we wandered through the main building, where the Oyster bar is set, along with another couple of art galleries (of course) and a coffee bar. If you are ever in Todos Santos, make sure you stop in at Oystera!
We still had our car for a couple of days and, wanting to head back to the beach the next day to snorkel at Ensanada de Muertos, we took an inland route back over the mountains to the town of La Ventana. We had heard that this is a hot spot for kite surfing and so had booked a room for the night right on the beach so we could watch the kite surfers. We were so pleased with the room that we found at Villa Paraiso that we pretty much didn’t leave the room, other than to run out and grab a pizza the nearest place we could find so we wouldn’t miss the view – spectacular doesn’t even seem to come close to the view we experienced! When we arrived, we went out onto our private deck and just sat there in awe, as more than 100 kite surfers performed their elaborate dance on the waves. It was incredible to watch and amazing that never once did anyone cross over someone else’s line. How do they do that? Just crazy!
The next morning we awoke with the sun, watching the most beautiful sunrise from our amazing suite.
We checked out and a short while later were back at Muertos beach. We donned our wetsuits, thankful for their warmth in the cool morning air, and swam out to spend a most pleasant hour gently floating along and watching the abundant life below the surface. The pictures really don’t even come close to the reality of what we saw. It was so totally relaxing to just go along with the current and observing everything. It was relaxing, that is, until it came time to swim back! Ha! What had been such a lovely little float became quite the workout as we swam against the tide, eventually making our way back to our starting point, both tired and extremely satisfied with our morning’s swim. Our snorkeling for the day done, we packed up our gear and headed back to La Paz, stopping briefly to check out the lighthouse at Punta Arena. What a wonderful getaway!
Coleen
January 20, 2022 at 1:48amLove all the photos and description……so many cool places you’ve been!
enjoy the sun!
Sue and Jim
January 21, 2022 at 5:37pmThanks! We most certainly are enjoying the weather, especially when we see what’s going on up there!