Mike Breiding's Epic Road Trips: February 2025

February 7th to February 15th 2025
Betsy Tours the Baja Peninsula

The Baja Peninsula consists of Baja California and Baja California Sur, two of Mexico's 32 states. It is about 760 miles long, making it the second longest peninsula on Earth. Topographically it encompasses shorelines on both the Pacific and the Bay of California (also known as the Sea of Cortez), deserts and shrublands dotted with oases, and a backbone of mountains.

On February 7th 2025 Tucson friend Cindy and I boarded a plane headed for the Baja Peninsula and our Road Scholar trip. We would land in San Jose del Cabos where we would meet our group, our tour leader Luka, her son, Emiliano and our bus driver, Alfredo. From there we would all continue up the peninsula with overnight stops at La Paz, Loreto, San Ignacio, Cataviña, and Ensenada and finally cross the border with the group and be dropped off at the San Diego Airport to make our way home.

What follows are the pictures and stories of the highlights of this trip for me. I hope you enjoy the ride.

 

The trip begins! Cindy and I were determined not to let our trip be hampered by illness so we dutifully wore our masks on the flight.

While hotels are NOT the focus of a trip, special touches are always appreciated. Our first hotel was the Tropicana in San Jose del Cabos and it was a favorite of mine. When I opened the door to my room I was met with this tasty little snack.

Reflections on a hotel room.

I thought the wooden door hangers were pretty nice and would make a good souvenir to take home. But when I asked at the main desk what the price would be they told me 200 pesos! Yikes - that's about $10 - I decided I would just take a picture instead.

After checking in and getting settled into our rooms, Cindy and I soon set out to explore the hotel. There were interesting sculptures and art everywhere and, being a cat fancier, I found this sculpture particularly interesting. It is called The Fishbowl of Life and is said to be "a profound metaphor for the fragility and beauty of existence."
But enough of art, sculptures and stuff. What should Cindy and I be doing on our first afternoon in Mexico? Drinking margaritas of course - so off we went to find some.

This lovely small bar and cafe just begged us to stop in for a drink. (All the bottles above the first two rows were for decoration only!)

No time for for a dip in the inviting looking pool.

We settlted instead at the small poolside bar for our margaritas. The Mexican bartender tried to tell us all the different ingredients we could choose from but it was just too overwhelming and we finally wimped out and ordered beers.

As we sipped our drinks I noticed the bartender was quietly mixing up something. What was he doing?

You guessed it - his own concoction of free margaritas for both of us. They tasted as good as they look.

We wandered out to the public courtyard where people were strolling and children were playing. Here's an interesting sculpture that was made out of all kinds of famliar looking ofjects.

Pictured is a recycled painted metal parts sculpture of the Coat of Arms of Mexico in Mijares Plaza in San Jose del Cabo. A golden eagle is devouring a snake while perched on a prickly pear cactus. The national coat of arms was inspired by and Aztec legend regarding the founding of their capital, Tenochtitlan. Huitzilopochtli, the patron God of the Aztecs asked them to look for an eagle devouring a snake perched on a prickly pear cactus to find the precise spot where they were to build their capital.

Source: www.dreamstime.com

In the early evening we joined our group for dinner and introductions.

The next morning we were packed and out of the hotel early to begin our adventures. Luka made it very easy for us to keep track of our schedule by posting this whiteboard in the hotel lobby each evening. We could take a picture of it with our phones and know the next morning exactly what we needed to do.

On this morning we were headed to Cabo San Lucas for a boat trip on sparkling waters amid towering cliffs. One outstanding feature was the famous rock Arch which rises three stories above the meeting point of the Pacific Ocean and the Bay of California.
"Known locally as El Arco or Lands End, this natural wonder is a testament to the forces of tidal and wind erosion shaping the Baja Peninsula over millennia."

So back on the bus and on up the road to La Paz, the capital and largest city of Baja California Sur.

In the late afternoon we meandered down the boardwalk filled with people strolling, recreating, socializing, and listening to the festive music spilling out of the many sidewalk cafes and restaurants. We were told we would be treated to a fabulous sunset but where was it? To begin with, the skies did not seem too promising.

But later as we walked back toward our restaurant, we turned behind us for a look and gasped at the brilliant sky which seemed to be aflame.

What was for dinner? Well the Sea of Cortez was referred to by Jacques Cousteau as the "aquarium of the world" and you can see why when you look at this platter of all manner of seafood treats.

Since we're on the subject of food, this was my favorite lunch on our trip. Paella - (pronounced "pai ay uh") a Spanish rice dish characterized by its use of saffron and its combination of meat, seafood and vegetables.

And my favorite breakfast - Mexican Huevos Divorciados, or “divorced eggs” in English, so-called because it consists of one fried egg drenched in salsa roja and one egg drenched in salsa verde, usually separated by a serving of refried beans or potatoes to keep them “divorced.”

Now on with the trip. We were now in Loreto our next stop up the coast, and on our way to Coronado Island. This is our trip guide extraordinaire, Luka.

As we travelled to the island we saw not only incredible cliffs and rock formations, we also got up close and personal with lots of sea lions, pelicans, cormorants and other assorted waterfowl.

 

This fellow may look like a statue but he was for real. He is a sea lion - sea lions have visible external ears and seals do not.

Our destination - Isla Coronados, an island in the Gulf of California, uninhabited and part of the Loreto municipality.

We were told to wear our swimming suits and I was not about to miss the chance. The water was very cold!

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Eventually we headed back to our hotel in Loreto - La Mision. This one was Cindy's favorite. Tonight was to be dinner on our own and since we had been having so many large meals, Cindy and I opted for chips, guacamole and margaritas by the pool. We were soon joined by other members of the group and we all enjoyed the beautiful evening and the tranquil views off shore.

Serene views.

 

It seemed like no time at all until we were headed up the road again. As we travelled we were treated to views of the Gulf of California including this roadside shrine above the beautiful Bahia Concepceon (Bay of Conception) which features over 50 miles of beaches.

Two kayakers were enjoying the waters of the bay. I would have loved to be down there with them.

Our next stop was Mulege where we wandered the sleepy streets on our way to visit the mission. I saw this interesting wall painting and stopped to take a photo.

The Mulege Mission (Misión Santa Rosalía de Mulegé) was founded in 1705 by the Jesuits. It is the second oldest mission in Baja California.

A sense of quiet pervaded the interior, inviting one to sit and rest.

Mulege is actually an oasis in the desert with palm trees and waterways. After visiting the mission we ascended to a high point above the village. From there we could watch frigate birds and ospreys as they swooped and soared, diving into the water now and then to catch a fish for lunch.

Soon it was back to the bus. In order to get from the tip to the top of the Baja Peninsula we did spend quite a bit of time riding in the bus, however sleeping was not the only bus activity. Luka gave us loads of background information on the places we were visiting. We also watched a documentary of Christopher Reeves and the gray whales entitled "Wild Animals Journeys - The Friendly Grey Whales". You can watch it here.

Sometimes on the bus I was glad to have my eyes shut as our fearless driver Alfredo took us down winding roads where we sometimes had to stop for oncoming trucks and large vehicles as there was not enough room for two vehicles to pass.

In Santa Rosalia we visited the Santa Barbara church. It was designed by French architect Gustav Eiffel for the 1889 Paris exposition and brought to Mexico in 1897.

Luka explained how this pre-manufactured church was transported in pieces to its present site by sheeps. I stood there among the other attentive visitors trying to envision this. Did the sheep pull carts or were various pieces tied to their backs? In an "aha moment" it suddenly dawned on me what Luka had actually said.

View video on YouTube.

At one of our stops we were entertained with a dancing performance presented by some of the local students. This is the Dance of the Viejos, a parody of some elderly folks going out for a stroll. It was really quite funny and all of us viejos laughed a lot. To add to the fun was something you cannot see in the video - behind the dancers was a tree full of vultures flying to and fro as if awaiting their chance!

View video on YouTube.

This is the traditional Mexican Skirt Dance. Very flashy and excellently presented by these young dancers.
There was one other dance about a rabbit in which the dancers pulled in members of the audience to help. I got to dance with them! Unfortunately (or fortunately?) I do not have a video of that rabbity dance.

One late afternoon we all got to try our hand at making tortillas. This woman was patting them out in the wink of an eye and each turned out perfectly round and when cooked looked exactly as you would see them in the store or a Mexican restaurant. Needless to say the ones we made did not look quite like that, but she repaired them before she put them on the griddle. We ate them filled with refried beans and cheese. They were delicious!

There was no regular dinner scheduled after that. As dusk settled in, we wandered through the little town square and found a small cantina strung with outdoor lights, complete with a man playing soft guitar music to accompany his singing. We joined some friends who were sitting inside and toasted the evening with mouth watering margaritas.

To help us prepare for our two whale watching excursions, we had a guided visit to a whale and marine life museum - Museo de la Ballena. Besides a wealth of information, the museum also had numerous skeletons showing the size and structure of these huge creatures.

We also had an on-site short talk at the whale watching destination. Our lecturer commented on one very interesting fact about the whales. Mating is one of the activities the gray whales engage in during their time in the Baja and our speaker mentioned the male gray whale has a very impressive "member", in fact there at the site they had nicknamed the large appendage "Pink Floyd!"

A little later in the trip during one of our bus activities we all made origami whales, decorated and named them and hung them on the bus windows. You can see here what I called my whale.

And now for our time with the whales! We visited two lagoons on the Pacific coast of the Baja Peninsula. These lagoons, part of the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, are well known for the gray whales who make the trip from the Arctic every year to mate and have their young in these protected waters.
Our group split up and loaded into pangas, small outboard motor fishing boats, in order to make our journey to meet the whales.

There is no feeding or coercing of the whales in any way to bring them in to the boats. Gray whales are curious creatures and we were told to sing and splash the water to get their attention. It wasn't long before the whales arrived.

View video on YouTube.

They surfaced again and again around our boats, rolling and spouting and coming up directly beside us for a look. At the end of our time it was hard to tear ourselves away from our amazing interaction with these great creatures.

Another highlight of the trip was walking the desert areas of the Baja. This may look like a saguaro but it is not, it is a cardon. The saguaro is native to the Mexican state of Sonora and Arizona's Sonoran Desert, while the cardon is native to the Baja Peninsula. If you want to know more about the differences between the two you can click here.
Cardons are somewhat larger than saguaros. This is a good example.

Hundreds of cardons stretched out before the silhouette of the distant mountains.

Crestate or crested Cardon cacti display weirdly beautiful features.

 

As we wandered through this strange landscape I felt almost as if I had stumbled onto another planet. The brooding skies added to the "other worldly" atmosphere.

The tall hairy boojum trees looked as if they could have been drawn from someone's imagination.

"The Boojum tree gets its wonderful name from Lewis Carroll's nonsense poem, 'The Hunting of the Snark: An Agony in Eight Fits?' In the poem, a boojum is a particularly dangerous kind of snark that, if encountered, will cause a person to 'softly and suddenly vanish away, and never be met with again.'"
Source: Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

 

 

I loved all the various sizes and shapes of the Elephant Trees. I call them artistically scraggly!

 

Google lens says this hairy devil is a Senita Cactus.

This colorful, ornate close-up looks almost artificial

The desert, which stretched as far as the eye could see, had the look of a landscaped outdoor museum, but it was completely natural. I was truly awestruck!

I was told this is fan yucca. Google lens says palm yucca.

This last desert shot shows the flowers of this Adam's Tree waiting to unfurl. The Adam's Tree is a relative of the boojum and the ocotillo.

Our hotel that night in Cataviña featured many of these strange looking figures which were said to be representative of some of the cave art in the region.

The next day we headed into the desert again but this time it was to ascend this rocky slope and crawl into . . .

...this cave highly decorated with colorful pictographs said to be about 3,000 years old! What a find!

 

A beautiful seascape to be seen from our hotel in Ensenada, our last overnight stay of the trip. We celebrated that evening with a goodbye dinner filled with happy reminiscences and of course, margaritas!

The next day our bus would take us across the border and drop us off at the San Diego airport to complete our journey back to Tucson.

"Thank you!" to my traveling companion Cindy. The trip wouldn't have been the same without you.

And "Thank you" to the whole group of so many interesting and congenial people. It was truly an experience to remember.

My thanks and love to my husband, Mike, who graciously gives his blessing to my travels and helps me document them afterwards.

 

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