While not directly on route 1, Bahía de Los Angeles ("LA Bay")
is a common destination about 45 miles off the main highway.
This is the first (heading south) easily accessible of the
exceptionally beautiful areas on the Sea of Cortez. Since I
haven't driven into the area since the early 80's, I'll pass on
some comments from a recent traveler.
In September '99, Ray Orkwis reported on a very positve experience
staying at "Larry and Raquel's" in LA Bay:
You can hardly beat the location: north of town, adjacent
to Daggett's, near the turtle project,
and right on the beach.
We had a large, sparsely furnished but
comfortable room - or it would have been comfortable,
except that it was very hot in LA Bay the nights we stayed and
Larry only ran his generator from 7 - 11 PM. It
only cost us $55/night for the four of us.
What made the visit so pleasant was the friendliness of our
hosts: Larry is chatty and makes killer margaritas, and Raquel
is very maternal. Her meals - which consisted of whatever Larry
or his friends caught that day, along with a bucket of fresh
clams - were very inventive and tasty (cheap, too, about $4-5 a
person).
We were traveling with our daughter who is a vegan, and
that means not only no meat or fish, but no dairy products or
eggs either. Raquel hadn't been prepared for that radical a
diet, but she whipped up very tasty meals with whatever
seemed good to her. For my wife and I, who love fish, it was
heaven, and for Selena, it was a great change from just
beans and rice on tortillas, her typical meal on the peninsula.
Being on the beach, Larry and Raquel's gave us access to the sea.
They lent us snorkels and rented us sea kayaks, and we spent as long
as we could just lounging (which, given the intense
heat and sun, wasn't too long). Ah, it was beautiful there. I
should say that they also have a house for rent, which
I think is about $100/night, and some young people from California were
staying there. They were intending to dive
off Guardian Angel but mostly I just saw them snorkeling.
Quite a
few hotels and restaurants in LA Bay, especially for such a small place, but
we spent all of our time around Larry and Raquel's. My wife even took her
jog from there, north to the landing strip and up
another dirt road. Larry really knows the area, having lived
there for about seven years. He directed us to some
out-of-the-way cave paintings near Mision San Borge.
Oh, I almost forgot Reno. He's Larry's son and a
fixture at the place. Very friendly and always asking to
be mentioned, which is what I'm doing for him here. Reno helped
in lots of ways, including waiting table for us,
chatting and joking, and spotting whales in the main channel.
All of us want to go back to that beautiful location, and we'd
definitely want to stay at Larry and Raquel's. If people want to
get in touch with them, they can only do it by email through
their daughter, Pam, at BahiaTours@yahoo.com.