Some quirk of the navigation application diverts us from the expected evasion that Saturday morning, towards the outskirts of the capital La Paz, lost almost at the entrance to the desert and which we quickly classify as suspicious. We've revamped the search.
Instead of the long road, we took an alternative that skirted the city and pointed north, towards its back.
From a desolate peak, already full of cacti, we recognized the port of Pichilingue where we had disembarked days before, when arriving from Los Mochis, state of Sinaloa.
We skim the ferry terminal, reject the port's homonymous beach.
The road rises, bends inland.
He enters a new desert valley, full of saguaros with green, striped and thorny arms that so longed for the sky that their colonies multiplied up the hills.
A boat lost in the sea of cacti and nothingness suggests that the ocean was close by again.
Without warning, instead of desert, on our left, we found a dense mangrove that concealed the bottom of an arm of the sea.
Playa and Balandra Bay: an Immaculate Baja California Sur
When we go around them, we find the entrance to Playa Balandra that we were looking for.
A respective park employee approaches us. He clarifies for us what we remembered having read somewhere, that the parking lot had a maximum number of cars.
“Either they come back another day or leave the car here. Thirty people are already waiting. Many will only go there towards the end of the afternoon.”
We knew how special Balandra was, which was worth the privilege of its imminence. We put our backpacks on our backs. We proceed. Less than ten minutes later, we are at the entrance to the beach, next to trailers and stalls that sell a little bit of everything.
Just above sea level, the view from that base on the hillside revealed to us, above all, the human, tourist side of the place and failed to enrapture us. Accordingly, we make our way to a trail that ascends to a panoramic summit.
From the summit, finally, to Playa Balandra, its shapes and exuberant colors grant us a dazzle that would only intensify.
Playa Balandra: On the shores of the Sea of Cortés or the Gulf of California
Mexicans still prefer to refer to the vast expanse of dark sea to the west as Mar de Cortés, in honor of the conqueror born in the region of Badajoz who brought down the mighty Aztec Empire and was one of the first Europeans to sail there.
Unlike the Gringos and most of the foreigners who call that dead end Pacific Ocean, Gulf of California. Whatever the name, what we had at our feet was very out of tune.
A deep creek stretched inland, bordered by high, steep, barren slopes. The bed that covered it was sandy and shallow.
With the tropical sun at its peak, depending on the tides, the sea that barely covered it took on incredible shades of emerald and slightly cloudy turquoise that contrasted both with the coral sands and with the surrounding earth tones and ochre.
In the middle of the lagoon, a patch of dark blue revealed an exceptionally deep section.
The general shallowness of the cove allowed bathers to splash and cross it, from one side to the other, on foot, on mattresses, inflatable boats or in rented kayaks.
To the west of that point of view, between volcanic rocks, cacti and a panoply of thorny bushes, a trail descended to a dune and seaside in the shape of a crescent moon.
It is there that we move, in the same way of discovery in which we had arrived, however, in the company of other explorers already given over to rest.
We crossed the dune.
We went up again to a new summit, overlooking a cove and beach more exposed to the open sea and which the wind punished with a violence that the snug Balandra was spared.
In this already long wandering up and down, we found that the sun was getting ready to dip into the Pacific. Wearily, we agreed that it was time for Balandra to reward us.
We return to the base of the dune, dive into the water, splash around, cool off as much as we can, bearing in mind that we were barely above our knees.
Afterwards, we retrieved our backpacks and started a walk out to sea.
First, without destination or great meaning.
El Hongo: the most Emblematic and Disputed Rock in the region of La Paz
As soon as we go around the cliff from which we had descended, guided by the appearance of the main geological attraction of Balandra, the reason for countless selfies, family and group photographs and their respective adventures and misadventures.
The dark side of the cliff reveals us "The mushroom”, the famous mushroom rock of the beach, unofficial symbol of La Paz, present in all its promotional materials.
So emblematic that, whenever its precarious hat is knocked off by storms or by visitors who climb it, the authorities of the protected area rush to reconstitute it.
Because, when we arrive at its base, we are faced with a mere four or five bathers waiting to have it all to themselves. The great star, however, displayed its last light of day, turning orange the Sea of Cortes that attracted it.
In those pre-twilight moments, we noticed an unexpected migration.
Coming mainly from the beach's equipped sand, dozens of bathers, on foot and on kayaks, converged to “The mushroom” and grouped together on the side of its shadow, adjacent to a concave bottom of the cliff that formed an almost tunnel.
We knew that the mushroom dispute, with the additional benefit of the sunset, would earn us rewarding photographs. We assume, therefore, a necessary amphibious posture.
We adjusted ourselves back and forth, depending on the positions of those posing and suggesting poses, always in such a way as to have the mushroom highlighted above the sea line and the opposite slope.
We shot countless times, still attentive to who was coming, with all our clothes on, as if that was the only worthy photo of the vacation.
Seagulls that flew over us, attracted by the concentration of people, also contributed to that visual frenzy that we only took for granted when the twilight tones faded.
Return to La Paz and then back to Playa Balandra
We join the new migration. Balandra's, returning to the urban shelter of La Paz. We were so fascinated by the beach that in the middle of the next afternoon, on Sunday, we returned.
Instead of heading straight towards the main entrance. We stop a kilometer or two before, determined to enjoy the scenery from the top of the opposite slope, much higher, and the panoramic view to match.
We walked several kilometers, again among cacti and desert bushes that did not forgive distractions.
We descended from the crest of the slope to photograph Balandra with very graphic cacti in the foreground.
In the meantime, the only other wandering being in those parts, interrupts his meditation on the rock, approaches us and greets us.
“Surreal, this here, isn’t it?” asks us Sven, a German backpacker still born in East Berlin, formerly East Germany.
We effusively agreed. Sven offers to photograph us with Playa Balandra in the background.
Afterwards, we went back to the cars exchanging compliments about Baja California, from other no less surreal places in Mexico and World. Sven gets a ride back to La Paz.
El Tecolote: Incursion to the Neighboring Beach
We fulfilled the plan thought of the night before to go check out the neighboring Playa El Tecolote.
If Balandra is protected and exclusive, we find its popular sister in El Tecolote.
Vehicles park as they please on the beach and in front of the many bars serving the beach. Some get into trouble and, as we have witnessed, even have to be towed from sandy areas.
Facing east, with a view of the large island of Espirito Santo (another mythical place in La Paz), El Tecolote is windy. It welcomes shoals that renew themselves endlessly.
One of the favorite pastimes of those who frequent it has thus become drinking beers, micheladas and others.
Snacking on the terraces while chatting and enjoying the swooping flights of the countless resident pelicans.
Birds are often keen to claim their dominance.
They dive, unceremoniously, among bathers or in amusing or frightening raids, depending on the profile of the victim.
At almost the same time as the day before, the falling sun was beginning to shine “The mushroom” dyed the sepia-toned coastline of El Tecolote, dotted with wooden establishments and palm trees.
With the wind becoming infernal, only a few swimmers survive among the pelicans.
Along the bars, a crowd of restless figures prolongs that airy breath of life between the desert and the Sea of Cortés.
Of Baixa, that Mexican California, there really was only geography.
