Bahia Concepcion

The weather was nice at Bahia de LA but we wanted more – every mile South is a mile into better weather in this part of the world. I’m sure we’ll get fed up with the heat before too long but at the moment we are seriously craving it.

So from Bay of LA we drove South on Mex 1 to Mulege which is at the top end of Bahia Concepcion.  We had meant to stop for the night in San Ignacio but when we got there we went to a couple of campsites and didn’t really like them. I just had a bad feeling about one and we both figure that in this part of the world you have to follow your instincts. This meant that we drove through and only made it to Mulege (Mul-a-hay) close to sunset.

The good thing is that just before passing Guerrero Negro you pass into the state of Baja Sur. This involves going through an agricultural checkpoint. For us this involved being asked if we had any fruit  — a quick no sufficed (good thing too as we had some potatoes and avocados in the truck and they’d have taken these if they had found them). They also asked us to pay 20 pesos (around £1) for the privilege of driving over a grate which sprayed our tyres with insecticide. The reason this was all a good thing though was that there was a time change and sunset would now be around 6pm which is much better.

On arriving at Mulege we headed for a campsite we had heard about called Hacienda De La Habana. This involved turning off the main road onto a pretty rough track and taking two or three turns onto backroad tracks. This place was an oasis of green grass and a beautiful restaurant in the middle of barren land. As soon as we arrived we were greeted by the owner, an expat American called Ray. He promised that the first two margaritas would be on him. We settled in and then went to the restaurant for what is probably our best meal since starting our trip.

The margaritas were strong and the food (seafood is the speciality) was excellent. We shared a plate of Oyster Roquefellas for a starter – the first time either of us had had cooked oysters and we both thought they were so much better than the raw !. For our main courses I had Calamari and Sarah had Papagallos (stuffed shrimp wrapped in bacon) – both were excellent. We were both full after this and Ray bought us Brandy Alexanders for a digestif both on the house.  The whole meal was under USD50. What a Bargain !

In the morning we drove back to Mulege and had a walk around the town – this didn’t take long. We also checked out the local MIsion (Santa Rosalia) which was founded in 1705 by Jesuits but moved to its current location on a bluff above the river in 1770.  We then drove a few miles South to Playa El Coyote which was a gorgeous beach in Bahia Concepcion.

We settled into a day on the beach with more snorkelling and a BBQ in the evening.

The next day we thought we would move to another beach and so upped sticks and drove around 10k down the road to a beach called El Requeson. This was a spit of sand that connected the mainland to an island but that was patially submerged at high tide.  There was water on both sides – one side was slightly deeper and there was a lagoon to the other side.  At low tide we walked across the sand to the island. In the afternoon the wind picked up and it was really strong so sitting outside wasn’t that great – the wind stayed strong throughout the night but in the morning died off again.

On these beaches someone comes along in the early evening to collect a payment for staying there. Its only around USD 7 but I’m not sure what you are paying for !