Los Barriles

January 2006

Los Barriles is a small town near the southern tip of Baja about 50 miles north of San Jose del Cabo.  It is on the Sea of Cortez.  We stayed in a campground called East Cape.  We were not on the beach but only about 100 yards from it.

We had a large, beautiful campsite.  The entire park is covered in tropical trees, shrubs, and flowers.  The tree next to the driver's door is a banana tree.  Just beyond the banana tree was a small orange tree.  It had only one branch but, on that branch, was an orange that was ripe.

One week is a long time for us to stay anywhere.  We stayed here one month.

There were literally hundreds of flowering plants in the park.  I don't know the name of this one but it is intriguing.  It has a flower within a flower.

The swimming pool was welcome on the warm afternoons as was the hot tub after a one mile round trip to the grocery store.  A number of the campers gathered each day at the hot tub.  We found out about it when we were invited to the "four o'clock meeting".

The beach was across the street and about 100 yards down the road.  the beach is nearly deserted because there was no wind that day.  This beach is a favorite hang-out for wind surfers.  Since there was no wind, they stayed home.

Both kite boarders and sail boarders were out in force this day.  The wind was about 20 knots.  You can see that the hotdogger in the foreground is out of the water.

A little closer view shows that he is well out of the water.  There is a competition held here later but we left before it happened.

Sail boarders were also well represented.  For some reason, they were all well down the beach.  Apparently, the various forms of wind surfing are not well integrated.

The back side of the beach was a solid row of beach houses such as these.  I didn't inquire as to the price but I was told that all property, especially beach property, was expensive.  A good indicator of that was the fact that there were at least three realty offices in a town of about 1000 inhabitants.

There are a number of very good restaurants near the campground.  All of them had at least one part that was outside.  The food was very good and inexpensive, especially sea food.  This restaurant featured the Catch-of-the-Day.  The owner went fishing in the morning and served that night whatever he caught.

Technically, Los Barriles is not in the tropics.  This sign is on the highway a few miles south of town.  However, it is close enough for all practical purposes.  The weather is good, the beach is beautiful, and the town is interesting.  All in all, it is a nice place to park for a while.

This was our first trip to the Baja and probably our last.  It is a nice place but nearly indistinguishable with southern California.  Most people speak English, dollars are as readily accepted as pesos, most of the people you pass on the street are US or Canadians, and you can get a hamburger and french fries at any restaurant.  If we go to Mexico again, it will be to the Gulf Coast part of the country.