LA PAZ MALECON SUNSET

Driving Baja California – Part Eight

Updated July 2022

This is part eight of the “Driving Baja California” series. Click on the Travel menu at the top for the other parts.

Ciudad Constitucion

Driving further south, from Bahia Concepcion (Conception Bay) to Ciudad Constitucion (Constitution City), on the way to La Paz, the road turns inland to cross a mountain range called Sierra De La Giganta.  While not as gigantic as the Rocky Mountains, which I have crossed with my trailer several times, they are a fair-size mountain range.  Unlike the Rockies, they do not have a four-lane freeway. Instead, we travelled uphill on a very narrow and windy road at an average speed of about 40 kph.  After crossing the mountains, the road is very good for the remainder of the trip.

The highway crosses the peninsula back and forth.  Our next stop was Ciudad Constitucion in the centre of the peninsula.  There is nothing interesting to see there, but we stopped here for a couple of nights for grocery shopping and other supplies.

The campground that we stayed at in Ciudad Constitucion is nothing but a dust-bowl with nocturnal ants and giant grasshoppers.  There are a few campgrounds in Ciudad Constitucion.  Go to one that has trees, flowers and a pool.  Missiones Campground is pleasant.  We chose the wrong campground this time.

Note that we skipped a couple of places, such as the lovely town of Loreto, as we plan to visit them on the return trip.

La Paz

Next, we travelled to La Paz, a lovely city on the coast of the Gulf of California.  It has a population of about 200,000 and has all the modern conveniences, including a Walmart.   It is the capital city of the state of Baja California Sur.   La Paz means the City of Peace.   This outstanding monument to peace greats you as you enter the city.   Note the dove made as part of a whale’s tail.

   The campground is a couple of kilometres out of the city, and we went downtown on a rickety old bus.  Ask the campground owner about the bus if you want to use it.  Walmart sells things that you won’t find in a Walmart in Canada, such as prickly pear cactus that the people eat (called nopales in Spanish), sugar cane, and octopus, to mention just a few things.  I watched as they cleaned the spines off the cactus and chopped them up for sale.  We tried some, and it was not too bad.  I thought it tasted a bit like asparagus.  If this is not already done for you, chop it up into small pieces and then fry them in oil.

The Malecon

The city’s highlight is the Malecon, a five-kilometre paved promenade.  It covers the whole length of La Paz, with the city on one side and the beach on the other.  It is lined with palm trees and plenty of benches to relax or enjoy the view.  The water is a beautiful blue colour and very clear.  We walked out on a dock and could see right to the bottom of the water.  There are many sidewalk restaurants with tempting treats.  It is really lovely.

Many sidewalk vendors sell a great variety of things but mostly food.

Many old VW beetles can be seen on the streets.  The cars don’t rust here as in Canada because they don’t get snow.  I am very fond of the beetle as I owned a few of them in their heyday.

After spending the next day in the campground, Laura and I went into La Paz for the evening.  Few people are on the Malecon during the day’s heat, but as soon as the sun starts to go down, many people come out for an evening stroll.

Sunset on the Malecon

It was a wonderful evening.  We walked the Malecon and watched the sunset.  Then we went to a restaurant called the Kiwi that was right on the beach.  We ate dinner on the back porch of the restaurant, just steps from the sea.  We watched the sun sink behind the mountains, the little waves hitting the shore and the people walking on the beach as we waited for our meal.  I had a fish of some type (I don’t know what kind).  It was cut open and the bones removed, and then it was filled with all kinds of seafood such as bits of shrimp, octopus, crab and several other unidentified sea critters.  Then the whole thing was covered with some kind of sauce.  I was not sure what I was eating, but it was delicious.  We had a few drinks and another stroll on the Malecon before taxiing back to the campground.

Carnival Queen

There was an election in La Paz for the carnival queen while we were there.  La Paz is a carnival city like New Orleans and Rio de Janeiro.  Several young ladies were campaigning for queen, and all their friends were out with loudspeakers, balloons, and signs to convince people to vote for their favourite.  It was quite interesting.  We are planning our trip to stop in La Paz again on the way north in time to see the carnival. If you read all parts of “Driving Baja California”, you will read about the carnival in part 12.

Driving Baja California Part Nine

In part nine, we reach Cabo San Lucus. Click here for fun in the sun at Cabo Driving Baja California part nine