Alex Temblador
Mountainous islands arose from the crystal blue Sea of Cortez just off the coast of a small city lined with black sandy beaches. I didn’t know it at the time, but the bay I was looking at was a national marine park full of 800 species of marine life, including blue whales. The small city that curved along the bay was Loreto, Mexico – a lesser-known gem of Baja California Sur that I had the opportunity to explore.
When I was invited to visit Loreto, I had no idea where it was or even that it existed. I was surprised that American Airlines offered a two-hour direct flight from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and even more shocked when I learned that Loreto was the first Spanish settlement of the Californias.
Despite my unfamiliarity, I had traveled often enough to know that sometimes the best trips result when you have no expectations. Loreto didn’t disappoint in this, especially when it came to experiencing the region’s cultural and outdoor offerings.
Loreto is a six-hour drive north of Los Cabos on the eastern side of the Southern Baja Peninsula. When I landed in the city, which has a population of 20,000 people, in January, the weather was sunny and in the mid-70s with a nice breeze. In the summer, it can reach the 90s.
During the short drive to Hotel Rosarito, a quiet boutique hotel with stylish rooms and an open courtyard with a pool and breakfast area, I realized that Loreto was the kind of Mexican destination I love. Although tourism makes up a big part of the economy, there isn’t a specific “tourist area” separate from the citizens of the city. In fact, visitors and locals mix in restaurants and the city center, allowing for authentic interactions that you can’t have in many popular coastal destinations in Mexico.
My hotel was within walking distance to the plaza, Malecon (the boardwalk), harbor, beaches, and restaurants, like Casa Carmen where I had the most delicious grilled and fried seafood cooked on an open flame by Carmen herself.
My first full day in Loreto started out with a run along the Malecon at sunrise. As I ran from one black volcanic beach to another, I admired the fiery shades that rose behind the mountainous islands in the bay. Fishermen were heading out for morning catches, and later, I’d witness catamarans and boat tours taking visitors to scuba and snorkel around the reefs.
I spent a few days in Loreto eating a lot of seafood and Mexican dishes at places like Pepegina’s Restaurant and Zopilote Brewing and Co. My love for history was satisfied with visits to the first and second missions of the Californias. The first, Misión de Nuestra Señora de Loreto Conchó, sits in a beautiful plaza in Loreto, near artisanal stores that line a cobblestone avenue under a beautiful canopy of trees. Misión San Francisco Javier was an hour’s drive into the nearby mountains. The baroque architecture was like something I’d seen in Spain years ago.
My trip was far from confined to Loreto, though. My tour guide was adamant that a visit to Loreto wouldn’t be complete without exploring the outdoor offerings around the city. So, I went whale watching.
Alex Temblador
I made my way to the Mangrove Inn in Adolfo López Mateos, a small fishing village just a two-hour drive from Loreto. This destination on the west coast of Baja California Sur provided the most incredible animal encounters I’ve ever had.
Over two days, I went on two whale-watching tours with Garcia’s Tours. My camera quickly filled with images of whales flipping their tails, lifting their heads out of the water, and gliding their 50-foot bodies over the surface mere meters away. I even caught video of a gray whale who spent 15 minutes directly beneath our boat. She stuck her mouth above water so we could pet her slick skin covered in barnacles and playfully blew water from her blow hole.
Whales were not my only animal encounter in the bays of Adolfo López Mateos. I saw the fins of dolphins, pelicans diving for fish, and one night, Garcia’s Tours took me to a sea of golden sand dunes where I watched coyotes trot from the mangroves.
After two days, I left the whales and went north of Loreto to Heroica Mulegé, a beautiful town that sits in a tropical oasis of palm and date trees surrounded by arid mountains. Visitors can kayak and paddleboard on the river that runs through the town, and all can watch them from a high vantage point at Misión de Mulegé.
I stayed at Historico Las Casitas, once the home of a famous poet of Baja. Today it’s owned by a man named Javier, who welcomed my tour group into the historic space with its courtyards full of lush plants. In the dining room, we had delicious Mexican food laid out in hand-painted traditional platterware. Historico Las Casitas was not merely a place to eat and sleep but offered karaoke in the evenings with mango margaritas.
Heroica Mulegé is a jumping-off point to many outdoor adventures like a 20-minute hike to the oldest cave paintings in North America. The San Borjitas cave paintings are located on the Rancho San Baltazar in the Sierra of Guadalupe Mountains. In the cave, my neck strained as I marveled at the ceiling in awe. Figures of men, women, children, shamans, and animals had been painted in red, black, white, and yellow 7,500 years ago – and they were still there for me to see.
Alex Temblador
The day after I visited the cave, I left Heroica Mulegé to return to Loreto. On the way, I stopped for a boat tour of Bahía Concepción, where Americans and Canadians, who had parked their RVs and popped their tents on the beaches of the bay, sailed, kayaked, paddleboarded, and fished in the turquoise waters.
Our boat captain got us close to rocky islands to see blue-footed booby birds and the geological structures that time, water, and wind had sculpted. We anchored a few times so that his son could grab us fresh oysters from their oyster farm, jump into the ocean to spear a halibut, and gather scallops off the sand bar of a white sand beach. One of these times, I suited up in a wet suit and jumped into the ocean, but the water was too cold in January to stay in for long. With all the seafood in hand, we found a sandy beach along one of the bays, and the boat captain and his son prepared a delicious lunch of fresh seafood with tortillas and chips.
I returned to Loreto that evening and checked into La Misión Hotel, an elegant property with a pool, spa, restaurant, bar, and views of Loreto Bay. My last day and a half in Loreto were spent relaxing on the beach, buying souvenirs, and scarfing down a foot-long burrito at Super Burrito. Sitting on the black beach in front of my hotel, I scrolled through my photographs of the last week. Was this experience as remarkable as I thought it had been?
The photographs said yes, as did friends and family. They messaged me constantly throughout the trip to respond to my pictures of wildlife encounters, the beauty of the beaches and the bays, the baroque architecture of the Spanish missions, and the amazing food I ate. All remarked that they had never heard of Loreto or all that it had to offer.
I told them they better visit Loreto now — before the word gets out.
