Baja Road Trip Part 3: Bahia de los Angeles to Tecate

Scammon's Lagoon or Laguna Ojode Liebre — Scammon’s Lagoon or Laguna Ojode Liebre

(In case you missed it, here’s Part 1 and Part 2.)

We stop for provisions in Guerrero Negro since we’ll be camping again the next two nights. On our way out of town we turn off the highway to Scammon’s Lagoon. We walk out on the dock to the very end, and whales are everywhere. We can hear them so clearly and see them in the distance. This would be another great option for a whale tour. Back on the road, the stretch from Highway 1 to Bahia de los Angeles presents an awesome display of cacti. We arrive in town expecting it to be bigger, and maybe more touristy? It’s actually turns out to be quite peaceful.

We drive to a couple of camping locations on the beach north of town led by the book Camping Mexico’s Baja. We settle on Camp Archelon. The palapas here are a bit bigger than the ones at La Perla (they have shelves and cabinets too). Then we notice a couple of cabins that appear vacant. They have an odd kind of charm with electricity that runs on a couple of car batteries charged by solar panels.

We decide to stay in the cabin for the next two nights. After dark, we sit outside with a lantern and play cards. A German shepherd we had seen earlier wanders over to check us out… And then stays with us the entire time we’re there. (We find out later that her name is Julie and it wasn’t until we were leaving that we realized she does not belong to the owner of the cabin, but someone who lives down the beach.)

The next morning the tide is out really far so we explore the rocky shoreline; there are tiny hermit crabs and other sea life everywhere. Next we visit the museum in town which is surprisingly packed full of artifacts and photographs of the history of Bahia de los Angeles. We spend the remainder of the day at Playa la Gringa, until the heavy cloud cover and wind drives us away. There is so much more to the area to check out but we are limited by time (and our transport).

It’s hard to leave this place because the sun is shining, and it looks like it’s going to be a beautiful beach day, but we still have a couple of places we want to visit before we have to be back home.

It’s a long haul up to Ensenada and we decide to check out La Bufadora (where incoming waves push water into an underground canyon and out through a hole in the rocks), and then find a place to stay in Ensenada for the night.

We park the car and walk the gauntlet of hawkers. (I get that they’re trying to make a living, but it’s really annoying and kind of like a slap in the face after the last two weeks of mellow travel.) La Bufadora is okay but we can tell the vibe has shifted. The coastline is beautiful, but when you’re in the tourist zone, Ensenada just seems like a port city that has a gussied up façade for the folks coming from the cruise ships and we don’t want to spend much time there.

The next morning we check out the wine route in the Valle de Guadalupe. We taste some delicious wine and talk about coming back to the area for a long weekend. We go to the border crossing in Tecate and since there are no other cars around we are back in the states in minutes.