The Real Baja

Coromuel Beach

bajasurblog — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:56:39 +0000

Going north and U turning at the La Paz Pedregal you will find the most popular beach in La Paz (for locals anyway). Why? because it’s the closest to town yet it’s not at the Malecon. Rocky slopes frame the sandy beach (I swore I wouldn’t sound like a post card but how else can I describe it?) gets sooo full during summer weekends. All beaches are very crowded during summer, since movie theters came to town we have two things to do: go see a movie or go to the beach.

Allot of people who have no car can still walk to the coromuel beach and you can stroll all along the Malecon to Coromuel Beach at night it’s very well lit. I remember when my husband and I would take our bikes and ride to Coromuel as exercise, then take a swim on the warm ocean at night then ride back. I wonder if that’s why we didn’t have love handles? (pondering)

We are so close to the equator that no La Paz native will go to the beach during the winter months ( hey, we’d really freeze even though it only gets to 54ºF average lowest at sunup, really, it’s freezing).

Right now Coromuel Beach is being remodeled and it looks like a mall with no parking (wonder who had that genius idea) cars during building actually have to park on the hyway. We went to Tecolote Beach on a very crowded summer sunday and it took us over an hour to go from la Concha Beach to el Coromuel, normally it would take 2 minutes.

So obviously like everywhere in Mexico the authorites lack imagination and spend money so that tax payers see that, well they’re doin’ somn’.

I’ll post again when they finish the project and I’ll let you know how it turned out.

La Paz gets fit

bajasurblog — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 16:46:16 +0000

I have always been fascinated with triathlons, and tomorrow there will be one held here in La Paz, on the Malecon. It will be called “The First Anual Tourism Day Triathlon” (in spanish of course), have no idea what the distances are exactly, just know that’s from hither, to yonder then back, and back again on foot. Something like that. It starts at 7:00 am (not likely I’ll find out if they start on time) and as far as schedules, they plan a wakeboard exhibition on the Malecon at noon in front of the Kisko (between 5 de Mayo St. and 16 de Septiembre St.). I’ll probably go and see what happens at the finish line and might stay to see what happens at the wakebording exhibition. I hardly ever find out what happens around town unless it’s Offroad stuff everyone talks about or Lucha Libre my kids want to go to. It seems everyone who is anyone is into offroad racing. I only went once to the Baja 1000 finish line it was fun just being in the crowd cheering the arrivees. When I moved back to La Paz in my teens after having lived in big cities and in the US, the La Paz for me was so boring, no movie theater for a while, no malls, no skating rinks, no teen hangouts just the beach. And if you come to a place like this for a vacation it’s such a dream but as a teen coming to live here and not having friends was awful. I only started to appreciate the calm beauty until I had children. No way did I want them to grow up anywhere else. Of course now we have Mcdonalds, Burger king: need I say more? Big department store chains are coming and we have now a small mall with a movie theater and an arcade. Now everyone goes to the Malecon to workout, have coffe at a cafe, just stroll around with the kids or if it’s late at night go club hopping. It is still nice, will take it anyday to Cabo. Crime rate is up everywhere but here it still does not compare to other cities of course. Best little city in the world.

Welcome to paradise

bajasurblog — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 20:03:35 +0000

Almost everyone has heard of Baja, the land of eternal sunshine, endless sand and turquoise waters, all of wich contrast with beautiful deserts. But most people have heard of cabo on some tv show and mentioned as a weekend getaway, a place to drive to, yet it’s over a thousand miles from the border. and most, just drive across the border to Tijuana or Rosarito even San Felipe but all this blog is about is southern baja NOT nothern baja.

Our state begins with the town of Guerrero Negro from there on it’s called Baja California Sur, home of Loreto, famous for it’s missions, La Paz the state capital and largest city of the state, and of course the very famous Cabo there is actually two cabos San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas hence the name Los cabos. They are so close to each other and growing toward each other that soon you won’t tell where one ends and the other begins.

Since most people come to see our beaches, I decided to talk about them first and I will start with my home town: La Paz. Once you have lived here you won’t want to leave, it is so peaceful!. Sure, it’s growing and traffic at certain hours isn’t pretty, but , it still has a small town atmosphere. I think.

The city is on La Paz bay where you will see palapas (shading made of palm leaves) and you won’t find many locals bathing in tha waterfront (a.k.a. Malecon) because there used to be sewage water drained in to the bay so it was a no no (as far as I know) and so it was almost tabu, yet I remember as a child the Malecon would be full of people bathing so who knows, also so many people go riding in cars in the malecon that locals don’t want to be seen froliking in the water by everyone that goes by (small town mentallity) I mean really, what would they think.