Balandra Beach, The Whale Museum, Baja California Sur Regional Museum, Tecolote Beach, Cerro De La Calavera
Thinking that it’s time to take a bit of a break, I left the USA and moved down to Baja California in Mexico. After a few days in Cabo San Lucas, where I struggled to find a place that I could relax in (and getting some recommendations for another city), I got on a bus to La Paz. Along the way I had a nice view of the desert, which was very different from the views I’ve seen so far. After an initial confusion, I made my way to the hostel, checked in, and didn’t do anything noteworthy for several days. The weather was nice, the people were nice, and although the included breakfast could have been better, overall it was a good place to relax.
A few days later, I took another bus in order to get to Balandra Beach, which according to some online resources was rumored to be the most beautiful beach in Mexico. After about forty minutes on the bus (which passed through more desert views and stopped and had several stops next to other beaches) we made it to Balandra, or more accurately to a drop off point next to a sign that welcomed people to Balandra. Along with the other people who got off the bus, I stayed in there while a man who I could only assume was a gate keeper talked for a while. Then there that man went away to greet anyone who showed up with a car and divert traffic. I had no idea what’s going on, until one of the people in my group managed to explain to me in broken English that we were waiting for other people to leave the beach first. We ended up waiting there for almost an hour, during which I got less and less enthusiastic about the beach.
The gatekeeper came back to the little group and started talking again. For the most part it was too fast for me to be able to understand, but we were finally able to go in. A few minutes of walking later I made it to the beach, which was a disappointment at first sight. It looked like a low tide, and not even the peak of it. I could see people standing in the water, barely knee high. Sure, it was a nice beach, maybe even beautiful, but certainly not the most beautiful. Or at least I hoped so. I’ve seen far better beaches in other countries, and I wished that Mexico would be able to offer something better than Balandra. Part of me also wondered if I was still too tired to be able to truly appreciate the beach.
However, since I was there I wanted to try to enjoy it. To start off, I walked along the shoreline, watching people find a spot to settle down for the day, and the birds diving into the other in search for fish to eat. It was a nice sight, and I felt myself relaxing a little bit. On my right was the water, and to my left were rocks and sand. Above me, the warm sun was shining, making everything better. I got as far as I could on foot, which wasn’t very far, before there was no visible path and I turned around, making my way all the way back to the starting point.
I sat down on the sand and got a bit of a tan before finally going for a swim, or trying to. The water was freezing, not quite like an ice bath, or that one lake I got into in South Korea, but definitely freezing. I walked for several minutes, and the water remained shallow. Eventually I gave up and tried to swim in it, with partial success. It wasn’t too terrible after I was soaked, but it wasn’t a very nice experience either. However, I did manage to get closer to the birds as they came down in search of food.
I got out of the water, dried off, and made it back to the drop off point, not entirely sure when will be the next bus back to La Paz. On the way, I decided to make a detour to an observation point overlooking the beach, which to me was the nicest part of the entire day. Unfortunately, as I made my way back down I saw the bus in the distance taking off. That meant I had to wait almost an hour for the next bus. On the way back to the city, the bus stopped by Tecolote Beach, which to me looked a lot better, but I didn’t feel like stopping there, especially after paying for a ticket back to the city.
After getting some more rest, I headed over to the Whale Museum. As was recommended to me, I paid extra to have a tour guide showing me around the place. At first, I joined two older travelers who were about half way through their tour. Occasionally the guide struggled with a couple of words, but for the most part he did a good job explaining things and answering questions.
When the other two people ended their tour, I continued alone with the guide to different rooms in the museum, looking at pictures, bones, and other items that were on display. I didn’t really have any questions, and the tour was pretty straight forward. The place wasn’t big, and it didn’t take long before my tour came to an end and I was left on my own to have a look around. I tried reading some of the signs, but didn’t understand much. I took one more look around the different rooms in the small place before I left.
Another museum in the city was Baja California Sur Regional Museum. I started my walk around the museum on the first floor, which as far as I could understand from the staff worker was a temporary exhibit. It was more or less an art gallery, displaying pictures of different parts of Baja.
Then I moved on to the second floor. It was about ancient and prehistoric history in the area of Baja California Sur. It was mainly about the people who first migrated to this part of the world, their lives, customs, and traditions. There was also some information about animals that lived in the area, as well as the land and how it changed over the years, due to both people and climate.
Going up another floor, the next gallery was about the Spanish occupation of Mexico, and of Baja in particular. There were pictures of churches and other buildings, as well as portraits of important people from that period in history. In addition to that there was a video on display, but I was not able to understand much and quickly gave up on it.
The last floor was, from what I could understand, about the independence of Mexico and the establishment of Baja California Sur. There too, were portraits and pictures, as well as some documents. While I didn’t understand much, what I did manage to learn was quite interesting and new to me.
At the very end was a display which I thought was supposed to show how it was to live in La Paz in the old days. On my way down I noticed a couple of people were going with a guide in English, and I wondered if I should’ve asked for one, as I didn’t notice it was an option when I bought the ticket. Despite that, I still had a nice time and thought it was worth the visit.
When I visited Blanadra Beach, it was low tide in the middle of the day, and I was still in need of rest, so I didn’t have a good first impression of it. Before going to El Tecolote, I wanted to revisit Blanadra and give it another chance. As I was talking about my plans in the hostel, one of the other backpackers heard me and asked to come along. After breakfast, we went to the bus station and from there took the bus to Balandra.
As we got there early, we didn’t have to wait for other people to get out. For a start, we headed over to the lookout point, to get a clear view of the area. Unfortunately, I didn’t like what I saw. While the place was nice, with very blue water, I could already see people getting far from the sand and still unable to swim properly, almost as if that beach was constantly at low tide.
We then got down to have a closer look and along the way we had to go into the water, as the low tide wasn’t as low as I initially thought. However, the temperature was as cold as last time, and I didn’t enjoy the walk very much. Eventually we rested for a bit by some rocks and then I decided to see if I could go for a swim. I got back in the water and walked for several freezing minutes before things started to change. I managed to get to the point where the water level was high enough and I could swim, although it was too cold to be very enjoyable. I tried my best to enjoy it, and at some point my companion from the hostel joined me in the water, but after a while I had enough and I got back. As it was several minutes of walking in the sun, I was mostly dry by the time I was out, and barely needed to use my towel.
It was time to leave Balandra. However, we managed to miss the bus to El Tecolote. Instead of waiting another hour for the next bus, we started walking. A couple of minutes later we came up with the idea of trying to hitchhike to the beach, thinking there has to be more people that will be going there from Balandra. It probably took less than five minutes before a nice couple stopped for us. We tried to have a little chat in a weird mix of English and Spanish along the way, although it wasn’t particularly interesting.
When we got to El Tecolote, me and my companion thanked our ride and walked along the beach to the far end of it, where we found a place to sit by the rocks. While to me El Tecolote looked better than Balandra the first time I saw it, from the bus on the way back to La Paz, up close it was less impressive. It was still quite nice, but for some reason in my head I had a better picture. It was bigger, and there were a couple of places to buy overpriced food and drinks. The most important thing, however, was the water level. Considerably higher than Balandra, I didn’t have to walk a lot before I could start swimming. Here too, the water was very cold, but I could swim, tan, and enjoy the sunny day. The hours passed by, and eventually I felt it was time to leave. I could not tolerate being in the water for much longer, and the low tide was present at that point. My companion agreed, and after drying off we made our way to the bus stop, where we unsuccessfully tried to hitch a ride back to La Paz, until the bus finally came.