Marcus Teply
By Valerie Hamilton
Sparkling sands, Pacific sunsets, and a frosty margarita with plenty of salt: if Baja California is a postcard, it's a picture we've all seen before. Right? Well, partly. The beaches are still hot and the drinks are still cold, but as BC shakes off the old, tired clichés of spring break sun and border-town sin, a more diverse and sophisticated image is emerging, one that's worth a few new snapshots. With prices knocked back to pre-bubble levels and the peso at a two-year low, it's time to take a fresh look at the other California.
Photo Caption: Surfboards on a beach in Todos Santos, Baja California.
Northern Baja California is blazing a culinary trail that leaves its neighbors on both sides of the border in the dust. SoCal foodies flock to Ensenada for weekend seafood feasts at Manzanilla (Teniente Azueta 139; tel. 646/175-7073; www.rmanzanilla.com) and Muelle Tres (Teniente Azueta 187; tel. 646/174-0318; www.muelletres.com). The Valle de Guadalupe's 14-mile wine route is lined with boutique wineries and restaurants like top-honored Laja (On Hwy. 3 Km 83, Francisco Zarco, Valle de Guadalupe; tel. 646/155-2556) and upstart Silvestre (On Hwy. 3 Km 73, Valle de Guadalupe; tel. 646/175-7073 in Manzanilla). And critics north and south call Tijuana's Mision 19 (Mision de San Javier 10643, Zona Río; tel. 664/634-2493; www.mision19.com) one of the most exciting restaurants on the West Coast, period, with superlative wine-paired tasting menus for a fraction of what you'd pay in Los Angeles.
Photo Caption: Dinner at Tijuana's Mision 19.
Baja California may be made for road trips, but after 20 hours, that one highway can get pretty old. Wake yourself up with a spin in one of Aereo Calafia's (www.aereocalafia.com.mx) or Aereoservicios Guerrero's (www.aereoserviciosguerrero.com.mx) tiny, and we do mean tiny, nine-seater Cessnas, that buzz up and down the peninsula between Los Cabos, Loreto, Guerrero Negro, and Ensenada like airborne equivalents of Mexico's omnipresent VW Beetles. For about $200, you'll get a tiny seat strapped in behind the pilot, a lift to your next destination, and the view of a lifetime: spreading desert, soaring mountains, and the rich emptiness of a wilderness you can't possibly fathom from the ground. In season, take Aereo Calafia from Cabo for a day trip to see Magdalena Bay's calving gray whales.
Photo Caption: Aerial view of central Baja California.
That Baja California is an expert surfer's paradise doesn't mean you have to be an expert to surf it. Three thousand miles of coast mean there's a wave for everyone, and even some top surf spots, like Cerritos near Todos Santos and Old Man's in San Jose del Cabo, have sandy bottoms and predictable breaks that make them great places to learn. A string of surf schools are taking the hint, and there's a wide array of introductory lessons and tours, from half a day up to two weeks, that will have you hanging ten in no time.
Photo Caption: Surfers and surfboards on a beach in Todos Santos, Baja California
What's 500 years old, 10 feet tall, and looks like an upside-down carrot? The freakish, feathery spires of the boojum tree may only grow in Baja's central desert, but in the rest of the peninsula, you can take your pick of more than 100 different species: towering 60-foot cardoons; sunset-hued barrel cactus; pitahaya that look like organ pipes; pereskiopsis that don't look like cactus at all. Before tourism, desert Baja lived on cactus, building shelter from twisting woody cardoon stalks and eating nopal paddles and pitahaya fruit, and their continuing ubiquity is one of the few traces of traditional culture that's survived to the present day. While you won't ever have to look far for cacti in Baja, you can get up close and personal with close to 100 species at the Santuario de los Cactus (no phone; Ejido El Rosario, just off of Hwy. 1, 10 minutes south of El Triunfo) outside of La Paz, which blooms with colorful flowers after a rain.
Photo Caption: Boojum cactus outside of El Rosario, Baja California.
Sparkling sands, Pacific sunsets, and a frosty margarita with plenty of salt: if Baja California is a postcard, it's a picture we've all seen before. Right? Well, partly. The beaches are still hot and the drinks are still cold, but as BC shakes off the old, tired clichés of spring break sun and border-town sin, a more diverse and sophisticated image is emerging, one that's worth a few new snapshots. With prices knocked back to pre-bubble levels and the peso at a two-year low, it's time to take a fresh look at the other California.
Photo Caption: Surfboards on a beach in Todos Santos, Baja California.
Photo Caption: Dinner at Tijuana's Mision 19.
Photo Caption: Aerial view of central Baja California.
Photo Caption: Surfers and surfboards on a beach in Todos Santos, Baja California
Photo Caption: Boojum cactus outside of El Rosario, Baja California.