Detour #248: Driving Top to Tip on Mexico 1, Mexico
Tracing both the Pacific and Sea of Cortez coasts and crossing majestic mountains, Mexico 1, which runs the length of the Baja peninsula, is one of the great North American road trips.
Between Rosario de Arriba and Villa Jesus Maria on Mexico 1 in Baja California there are no fuel stops, except for a stand on the roadside in Catavina where an enterprising local dispenses petrol from jerrycans. With 323km between top-ups it’s clear that parts of the Carretera Transpeninsular, as this highway is also known, can be a wonderfully lonely drive.
It features long, arrow-straight stretches with distant vanishing points floating on shimmering horizons, a hallmark of desert roads the world over. But there’s much more to Mexico 1 than this, including twisting and testing mountain sections and idyllic stretches along both the Pacific and Sea of Cortez coasts. In fact, when it comes to road trips this has it all, as I discovered when I drove this 1,700km route down the length of the Baja Peninsula in a hire car picked up in Tijuana.
The first stop on this seven-day adventure was in the bustling resort town of Ensenada, but before that the route briefly traced the ‘wall’ between Mexico and the US – which meant taking an erroneous right turn here was unlikely – before heading south along the Pacific coast. But it was on day two, with the traffic evaporating and Mexico 1 turning sharp left into the desert, that this trip really seemed to start in earnest. I saw my first cactus at this point, and they were then with me for much of the way down; proper cowboy film candelabra cacti, with one arm raised as if to say ‘howdy’. Some of them were as big as they were prickly, too – the giant cardon variety have been known to grow as high as 18 metres.
My first stop in the desert was Catavina, a sleepy little place enlivened by the rugged beauty of the land around it, which is studded with surreal piles of large boulders so that it almost feels as if you’re driving through a Dali painting. But the road here is also winding and exhilarating, and I had to remind myself to go easy on the throttle as I was supposed to be conserving fuel. It was surprisingly smooth, too, the sort of place you wish you’re in a sportscar or even a supercar, rather than a Kia Rio.
Then again, the next day I hit a patch of road between Punta Pieta and El Rosarito which was badly potholed in parts, so maybe not for supercars after all. I also saw a particularly grisly roadkill, a steer that was being pecked into mince by a dozen hungry Mexican eagles. Pairs of these splendid birds of prey seemed to be gliding overhead nearly all the way down the peninsula, while other ornithological delights included walnut-sized hummingbirds, pelicans skimming the sea and even a roadrunner darting out in front of the car – it had gone before I could beep-beep.
Potholes aside, it’s always a sublime experience, driving through a desert, both mindful and tranquil, especially with so little traffic on the middle stretches of Mexico 1. But it was still nice to reach a true oasis on day three, at San Ignacio, where I swam in the cool green waters of the river overlooked by towering palm trees. Its quaint village square is also the location of one of the prettiest missions in all of Baja.
Another wonderful leg, mostly along the Cortez coast with shimmering turquoise seas and dazzling sun-bleached beeches, took me to lovely Loreto for two days, one of quite a few towns in Baja where whale watching trips can be arranged and a great place for tasty fish tacos and potent margaritas.
This was followed by yet another exciting drive, this time through the Sierra de la Giganta mountains and on to La Ventana – a Mecca for kite surfers and a small but very worthwhile diversion from Mexico 1 – before a surprisingly still-scenic short final leg down to San Jose del Cabo at the tip of the peninsula, which included crossing the Tropic of Cancer.
But before La Ventana there were also two of those very long and straight, some might even say monotonous, stretches of road. Actually, I enjoyed them, and it was nice to be able to safely park up, get out and soak up the solitude and silence, and savour a breath of the hot and flinty desert air.
And that’s Mexico 1 in a taco shell really: simply breathtaking.
Words: Mike Breslin
Photography: Bresmedia