Day 8 – Loreto Mexico (424km)

We woke up in Guerro Negro, a town that obviously celebrates its celebrity status as a whale breeding groud, yet seems to be in more disrepair than most places we’ve seen and is missing the charm of towns like El Rosario that celebrates its staus as a Baja 1000 destination.

We take the road across Baja to the Sea of Cortez on the east coast of Baja. Our first glimpse of the Sea in the town of Santa Rosealia.

Sea of Cortez

My buddy John who had rode to Baja a few years earlier told me about an old steel frame church that was purportedly a production from Gustave Eiffel, the same man who was the architect of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Apparently 3 of these churches were built in France to be sent out to colonial destinations. One was lost a sea, this one ended up in Baja. There is a controversy regarding whether this was truly one of Gustave’s creations or a recreation, however, it was impressive and interesting regardless. The town was busy and children were shuffling out of schools at in their matching uniforms as the school day was ending. Was great to be in a town where people looked happy and relatively prosperous (compared to some of the dustbowl towns we have gone through). As we hung out in front of the Church we could see it was an important focal point of the town, people came and left visiting the church and chatting with friends. I’m not religious but there was obviously something special about this impressive building.

Santa Rosalia

We continue on and arrive at an oasis in the middle of the desert. After days of sand and scrub brush was cool to see freshwater and palm trees.

We follow the coast and stumble into many isolated bay that look ideal for beach camping. Unfortunately we skipped the camping gear and just hung out for lunch instead.

For the most part the road is smooth and empty, this far south we would ride for hours before passing another car. I’m guessing it was because of the summer heat, but we never passed a motorcycle since entering Baja.

We roll into Loreto which was built by the government to be the tourist destination in Baja. The highway down was purpose built by the government to get Americans to drive down to the destination of Loreto on the Sea of Cortez (Gulf of California). For some reason Loreto never picked up, even with an airport built. Instead funds were diverted to build out Cabo which is now an international destination and eclipses the neglected town of Loreto.

That being said, many nice resorts were build and now sit operational, yet totally empty.

We had our pick, payed little and had first class service and cold beers. It felt like we were the only ones at the resort (see The Shining), which instead of being creepy gave us an opportunity to relax a bit.

Our room was on ground level and backed out towards the ocean. The beach was more gravel than sand which may have been an intermediary step before sand was brought in when the town was ditched in favor of investment in Cabo. Regardless it was nice and the weather was perfect.