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MEXICO
-- Early in the spring of 1940, a burly, bearded California novelist,
his wife and a marine biologist buddy skirted their leased fishing
boat along the steep arid headlands of Baja
California in the southern Sea
of Cortez before turning south into a huge, aquamarine bay.
After they dropped anchor, it wouldn't take long to check in with
the port captain and customs ... and fall in love with the magnificent
city and bay of La Paz.
It's not hard to see why, since it would take one truly hardened
soul not to fall for La Paz, a lovely old bayside town renown for
year-round sunshine, a romantic boardwalk and spirit of true Mexican
amistad. Yet even at that early date, John Steinbeck worried that
planeloads of tourists from Los Angeles couldn't be far behind,
and that the town would soon bloom "with a Floridian ugliness."
Steinbeck was not entirely off base in his fears, which he expressed
in "The Log From The Sea Of Cortez," the best-selling tome of his
month-long cruise along the Baja California coast. Not long after
World War II, Hollywood big shots like John Wayne, Bing Crosby and
Clark Gable would be winging south between film shoots to fish the
prolific offshore waters, and legions more joined them when word
of their exploits spread north. La Paz has since grown to nearly
200,000 souls, sprawling far beyond its charming old waterfront
-- and yet it remains one of the true sweet spots in all of coastal
Mexico and still lives up to its name, Spanish for "The Peace."
In many ways, La Paz represents all of Baja California, 800 miles
of mountains and desert jutting southward from San Diego, forming
the world's third-longest peninsula. Much has changed since Steinbeck
called here, yet Baja largely remains wide-open frontier and one
of North America's premier outdoor playgrounds. The Sea of Cortez
still reigns as one of the world's great fishing holes, divers can
choose among dozens of outstanding dive sites on two coasts, the
phrase "secret spot" still rings true for surfers in their eternal
quest for the perfect wave. The degree of isolation can be staggering.
You may drive for hours down some bedraggled desert road without
passing another vehicle. Or stand on a hilltop and gaze down at
dozens of miles of coastline without seeing a single building or
other sign of human life. |
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BACK ROADS
Baja has long been like a Mexican version of the Wild, Wild West
-- a place with enough room for all, where a man's free to do as
he likes without causing harm to his neighbor. Perhaps it's no wonder
then, that where human intrusion has occurred, it has not always
been kind to Baja, which has had a decidedly mixed legacy in protecting
its resources and open spaces. Pundits have declared for many years
that Baja sits at some sort of crossroads, toward unbridled growth
and development, or conservation and preservation. |
Steinbeck believed so when he lamented the growth of La Paz and
tiny Sea of Cortez outposts like Bahia de Los Angeles, and the
mass destruction of sea life by Japanese shrimp trawlers. In 1973,
many old-timers warned the completion of Mexico Highway 1 would
spell the end of the old Baja, bringing thousands of gringos south
on the first overland link from the border to Cabo San Lucas.
Baja has change plenty since then -- cities have boomed along
the highway, resorts have sprung by the dozens in the Los Cabos
region and near "solid city" has spread most of the way from the
border at Tijuana to Ensenada, 65 miles south. Yet between Ensenada
and La Paz -- 850 road miles -- the old Baja remains much intact,
with only two towns of more than 20,000 people.
If most of this land remains untouched, it's in no small part
due to the lack of more roads and other infrastructure. Beyond
Highway 1, most of the back roads are narrow, unpaved, and in
some cases downright awful -- riddled with bowling-ball boulders,
cavernous ruts, harrowing drop-offs and impassible wash-outs.
Some of the "better" roads go years between grading, resulting
in long washboard sections that leave your body in shakes long
after your journey is over. Say what you will about them, those
roads have effectively preserved Baja's natural state. They not
only keep out development, but also deter casual tourists who
sometimes have little regard for the environment. It's been your
author's experience that the farther you stray from the pavement
and the worse the road is, the more genuinely interested and respectful
the travelers are of the land and its people. |
INFRASTRUCTURE
Some of those bad roads may soon be tamed. In northeastern Baja,
state and federal officials have for years mulled plans to construct
a paved expressway south from San Felipe to Highway 1 at Laguna
Chapala, deep in the Central Desert. Such a highway would attract
an unknown number of motorists currently dissuaded by the broken-pavement
and dirt road that currently extends south of San Felipe. Surely
it would bring economic benefits to the region, but it would also
leave an indelible mark on a 130-mile stretch of desert.
Elsewhere, it seems only a matter of time before a paved road runs
the entire length of Baja's East Cape, replacing some 50 miles of
bone-jarring dirt road between San José del Cabo and La Ribera.
Paving it will open the way to far greater development along one
of the Sea of Cortez's most beautiful shorelines, which includes
Cabo Pulmo, home to one of just three coral reefs in North America.
Already, a 2000-acre "master-planned community" dubbed
Puerto Los Cabos is in the works here, spreading across three miles
of beachfront east of San José del Cabo. Slated for completion
in 2006 is a 535-slip marina, to be joined by a pair of championship
golf courses, gated residential communities, and an assortment of
restaurants and shops. Alas, it shall also include an "ecological
oasis," designed to preserve a remnant of Estero San José.
Pleasure boaters, meanwhile, may soon get a "road" of their own
-- a huge shortcut to the Sea of Cortez if the Mexican government
proceeds with plans to build an overland boat-way about a third
of the way down the peninsula. Spanning 70 miles from the Pacific
coast village of Santa Rosalillita to Bahia de los Angeles, the
proposed "land bridge" would lop hundreds of miles off the boat
journey from California to the Sea of Cortez. Semi trucks would
shuttle boats up to 55 feet long across the desert, where only rough
dirt roads now exist.
At the same time, Fonatur, the Mexican government's main tourism
development agency, wants to build or expand 22 marinas along the
Pacific and Sea of Cortez, allowing pleasure boaters to easily hopscotch
their way up and down the coast. (A few of the ports would be in
the mainland states of Sonora and Sinaloa.) If the most optimistic
estimates came true, the land bridge and ports could attract more
than 76,000 yachts to the Sea of Cortez each year. Meanwhile, Fonatur
also wants to construct or expand 20 airports or airfields in Baja,
with the same goal of attracting more yanquis and their greenbacks.
Individually, none of these projects would likely destroy Baja
as one of the world's great natural jewels, and it's hard it's hard
to condemn Mexico for seeking economic development. In a nation
whose per-capita income is roughly one-tenth that of the United
States and more than half the people are classified as poor, saving
some unspoiled beachfront from a Club Med may seem wrongheaded,
or even extremist. But in Baja, which is 75 percent desert and natural
grandeur is one of its greatest cachets, "sustainable development"
is more than a trendy catch phrase. |
TODOS SANTOS AND SAN QUINTIN
Take the case of Todos Santos, population 6,000, on the Pacific
coast some 45 miles north of Cabo San Lucas The sugar industry once
employed thousands here, but the cane fields ran the underground
aquifers dry and by the mid-1950s the local mills had shuttered
their doors. Since then the town has rebounded as a sublime tourist
destination and artist colony, nestled between the sea and craggy
7,000-foot mountains. Elsewhere, some recent developments suggest
that Baja may not plunge aimlessly toward unbridled growth.
The year 2000 struck a major blow against heedless development
when the federal National Ecology Institute rejected a proposed
$700-million seaside resort at Bahia San Quintin, on the Pacific
coast 185 miles south of Tijuana. Had it gone through, it would
have brought eight hotels, hundreds of condominium units, three
golf courses, a 350-slip marina and more to the shores of this remote
bay, lined by a chain of extinct volcanic cones. Instead, Bahia
San Quintin will remain, at least for now, the domain of hardy anglers
and hunters from across the border, winter feeding ground for thousands
of black brant geese, and home to a prospering oyster and clam industry. |
WHALE OF A STORY
Also in 2000, the federal government nixed plans to build a huge
salt-evaporating facility at Laguna San Ignacio on the central Pacific
coast, one of three winter calving grounds for the California gray
whales. The proposal had sparked a firestorm of international protest,
including calls to boycott Mitsubishi Inc., which would have joined
the Mexican government as a joint partner in the project. Odds are
the salt operation would not have jeopardized the survival of the
whales, seeing how they still bear their young amid a similar one
80 miles up the coast at Scammon's Lagoon. Either way, San Ignacio
shall remain the last of the calving lagoons to be completely undeveloped,
and perhaps it's no wonder that its whales are known as the friendliest
of Baja -- mothers and calves frequently swim right up to whale-watching
boats.
It's a sad commentary, however, that it took the whales, and their
inevitable emotional tug, to raise outside awareness of Baja's environment.
After being hunted to near-extinction twice in the last 150 years,
the grays have rebounded to almost their original numbers -- 21,000
strong -- all the while many long-term issues receive little or
no attention. |
LORETO
Take the case of Loreto -- the oldest permanent settlement in
the Californias -- which seems poised for mass-scale development
after several false starts in the last couple of decades. Without
great fanfare, construction began in February 2004 on The Villages
at Loreto Bay, a $2.2 billion resort and residential community along
the coast south of the current town.
If seen through to completion, it will have 5000 homes, which would
likely double the size of the town (currently about 13,000). The
project is the brainchild of the Loreto Bay Company, a U.S.-Canadian
consortium partnering with the Fonatur, the Mexican tourism development
agency that turned Cancun, Ixtapa and Los Cabos into world-class
resorts.
If the company website is to be believed, then Loreto Bay seems
committed enough to sustainable development in its project area,
a three-mile slice of desert between the Sea of Cortez and foothills
of the Sierra de la Giganta. Examples include a heavy reliance on
solar power, water desalination plants, landscaping with native
flora, and "new urbanism" techniquesÌthat is, high-density,
pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods that encourage interaction and
reduce automobile dependency.
Those are all admirable measures, and the future quality of life
on the peninsula (and elsewhere) depends on their use in the resort
communities of tomorrow. But forgive this writer if he remains skeptical
about Loreto Bay and its impact on the environment. Blame it on
the community's size in a fragile desert setting, the record of
other large-scale projects in Baja (Cabo North, anyone?) and nagging
fears that this historic town -- founded in 1697 -- may yet morph
into another Cancun.
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POPULATION PRESSURES
Surely the biggest, and perhaps most ignored, concern facing Baja
California is population growth. In the past 30 years, Mexico has
doubled its population to 102 million, and while the growth rate
has slowed dramatically since the 1970s, it remains close to 2 percent
a year. Across the border in California, demographers say the state
is poised to grow from the current 36 million people to about 60
million by mid-century. It seems safe to assume that more than a
few of them will head this way in their search for increasingly
scarce solitude and open space.
Barring some unforeseen trend, Baja California's business, tourism
and government leaders will be challenged as never before by a dilemma
that Steinbeck undoubtedly once mulled: How to manage the influx
of people without destroying the virtues that created it in the
first place. |
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