We had done nearly every attraction before it, but could not put it off any further without missing it entirely. It was the day to finally rent a panga boat and visit Lands End at the bottom of the Baja peninsula!
Only problem being…we’d need to drive through Cabo to get there!
Rather than drive our RVs further south, we decide to stay parked in La Paz and do 3 separate day trips to the sights we want to see—Land’s End at Cabo San Lucas, snorkeling at Cabo Pulmo National Park, and exploring Todos Santos and Playa Los Cerritos on the Pacific side of the cape.
First up is the day trip to Todos Santos (which translates to “All Saints”). The town promotes itself as an upscale artist and culinary tourist destination and is described in many tour books as an upcoming “Santa Fe of Baja.”
The biggest building in town also happens to be the most well-known, the Hotel California (and yes, they indeed play the Eagles’ “Hotel California” album seemingly non-stop throughout the hotel lobby and bar).
After “ruffing it” on the beach at Tecolote for a week, we headed back to AquaMarina RV Park in La Paz to meet back up with Hans and Ursula. The owners here are so warm and friendly, and park is so immaculate, that we decided to just stay here and do day trips down to various spots on the cabo rather than move RVs further south.
So, I got the View all parked and planted for the next 2 weeks just a few spots down from Hans and Ursula’s View.
One of the first orders of business was to celebrate Millie’s 10th birthday!
Some days, I struggle to come up with adventures that are blog-worthy…but this day was certainly not one of them! Hans and Ursula had been reading the online forum of La Paz Gringos that had glowing reviews of the Espiritu y Baja Private Tour group and their day trip offering to Isla Espiritu Santo just off the northern coast of La Paz. After friends Wendy and Bobby graciously offered to dog-sit Millie, and finding a few calm, sunny days in the forecast on WindFinder.com, we booked our all-day tour for the coming Saturday.
I was not too sure about the “swimming with sea lions” part of the tour. I didn’t have my own wetsuit or snorkel gear, and rental equipment didn’t sound very appealing. But, when we arrived to the Espiritu y Baja office along the La Paz malecon, all our worries immediately began fading away.
A few short kilometers west of Tecolote Beach (north of La Paz, Baja Sur), sits an absolute gem of a aquamarine beach—Playa Balandra. When the north winds are howling at Tecolote, the protected, shallow inlet of Balandra can be as calm as a baby. The waters here are so shallow that you can walk nearly across the inlet (especially if its low tide).
But for our visit today, we had two objectives—swimming for Millie, and kayaking for me, Hans, and Ursula. So, we arrived to Balandra right at high tide to enjoy our day.
After a week of full-hookup, high-speed WiFi luxury at AquaMarina RV Park in La Paz, I wanted to try out the free boondocking beach 15 miles north of La Paz, Playa Tecolote. While perhaps slightly less scenic than the Best Boondocking Beach in Baja (Playa Santispac on the Bahía de Concepción), Tecolote was free and even offered quite a rarity for beach boondocking in Baja-- a decent Telcel signal for internet surfing!
