Day Seven: Thursday, March 22: Cataviňa to Guerrero Negro

Driving south from Cataviňa we went through more beautiful desert – the big boulders reminiscent of Joshua Tree seemed to disappear, that is until “El Pedregoso” (literally, the rocky one) which is a huge “rock pile” of boulders – it sort of marks the end of the Cataviňa-style of desert. After that we descended to Laguna Chapala, a great dry lakebed where the dirt road coming down the eastern side of the Peninsula from San Felipe meets Mex 1. Joseph Wood Krutch described it as a desolate place, but we thought it was quite beautiful, perhaps because of the weather. It was clouding up and the sky was very dramatic – we even had a few raindrops on the parabrisas (windshield) before reaching Guerrero Negro! We were entering the Vizcaino desert, which has been described as flat and barren. We didn’t agree!! The desert floor was carpeted with wildflowers! And we began to see Joshua Trees (actually their close relatives). It started feeling more like the Mojave desert at home – there were even Creosote Bushes! And with Mountains all around, and the dramatic clouds in the sky, we thought it was quite beautiful.

The roads, however, were another story! The roads were some of the roughest, and the lanes the thinnest, and since there were very long straight stretches, other cars went faster, so it was difficult driving. There were places where the white line seemed to waver as if the road painters had a few too many cervezas with their lunch! Ha. Sometimes the road painters would fool you into thinking there were actual wide shoulders, or what we’ve come to think of as “wide” after driving down here for a few weeks. Turns out it’s only an illusion, and the “wide” shoulders come at the cost of a thinner lane! I guess there’s only so much asphalt to go around…

We crossed the border into Baja California Sur, where they give you a little inspection ticket for 20 pesos and then you drive over a sprayer that sprays the underside of your vehicle for pests. Kind of icky, but it was over fast and we closed our windows in time! Guerrero Negro is a fairly nice town, with paved streets, gas stations, banks, restaurants, hotels, etc. It’s a “company town” for the salt companies, at least originally. I tend to like cities whose main economy is NOT tourist dollars. The town feels vital and like it will go on whether or not you go there. It was actually raining when we pulled into the Malarrimo hotel/restaurant parking lot, which the clerk said was extremely rare.

They had a nice gift shop with original paintings from a local artist for only 130 pesos! (that’s only $13 US) The artist wasn’t great, but was prolific, and some of his work captured the feel of the desert. The whale paintings were just a bit too cliché for my taste, though. We bought a small painting of the desert with the highway winding through it – it could have been made from one of our photos! We had dinner at the restaurant and it was good – we had grouper. The restaurant has all sorts of flotsam and jetsam displayed from Malarrimo Beach, which is a beach out on the Vizcaino Peninsula that is situated just right to catch everything that washes up from the Pacific! Lots of interesting stuff, and of course, lots of garbage. They only had the interesting stuff at the restaurant and bar – ha.
We had an osprey nest on a telephone pole next to us and heard it feeding its chicks and calling. There are LOTS of ospreys and nests in Guerrero Negro – there’s a bird sanctuary at the other end of town with rows of posts with platforms specially made for them.

---

Go back to Day One of Baja Trip