LA PAZ, MEXICO — As traffic stalled along the palm-lined street, we peered from our taxi and spied the cause. A little parade came our way: boys in crimson church robes, young women balancing flower baskets on their heads, and a flatbed truck carrying a raucous band. Crackling fireworks zipped every which way.
A local festival? We asked the cabdriver. He shrugged. No idea. Maybe a wedding? Perhaps a girl’s 15th birthday — they call it Fiesta de Quinceañera.
Who knew? It was just one of many little street celebrations my daughter and I observed in a spring visit here. That’s La Paz, said 30-year-old Chabelo Castillo, a local dive guide.
“Any excuse, any excuse, for a party! ‘Whose birthday is it today?’ Hey, PAR-teee!”
La Paz, a city of 220,000, about a two-hour drive north of Cabo San Lucas, isn’t a major tourist center (though it has hopes, having recently launched its first-ever U.S. ad campaign). The state capital of Baja California Sur — the southern half of this desert peninsula — it has few big hotels, with no American names such as Marriott or Hilton.
Unlike Cabo, most partying in the street is done by locals, not by drunken gringos on college break. For visitors looking for authentic Mexico, that’s a big part of the charm.
While the Spanish explorer Cortez landed here in 1535, author John Steinbeck hung out in the 1940s and Jacques Cousteau called local waters “the world’s aquarium” in the 1960s, these days La Paz is mostly a normal, mid-size Mexican city, unsullied by drug violence and untrammeled by tourists. Costs are much lower than in touristy Cabo, prompting CNN Money to call La Paz one of the best places for Americans to retire.
A holiday here is kind of the Mexican equivalent of vacationing in Spokane, Wash. — which also made that retirement list. What La Paz has that Spokane doesn’t: world-class diving, saltwater fishing and kayaking, found nearby on the Sea of Cortez. Just a few miles north of the Tropic of Cancer, La Paz has a pleasant winter climate, enjoyed by many as they stroll the city’s sea-wall promenade, ormalecon.
“I love just walking or biking the malecon,” we heard from George Hastings, a Seattle friend who had journeyed here with his wife, Celeste Bennett, on their sailboat. “The people here are happy!”
That showed in the evenings when the temperature cooled and crowds flocked to the malecon, a wide swath of red tile lined with wrought-iron benches and liberally dotted with sculptures of whales, manta rays and other marine subjects. Old couples walked past arm in arm. Groups of self-conscious teens shuffled like herd animals. Twenty-somethings zoomed by on skates and bikes while young marrieds pushed strollers.
In 1995, my family had come to La Paz from the Northwest on our sailboat. I noticed a few changes 16 years later:
Local character
But much is unchanged, and the local character remains strong.
On Via Revolucion, a family-run stand on the sidewalk still sold tasty fish tacos for the equivalent of 45 cents. And if you need shoes, La Paz seems to have enough shoe stores to take care of every foot in Mexico.
We happened on big doings at the downtown primary school. Blockades stopped traffic, kids in school uniforms ran up and down sidewalks, and the local police band stood in formation, ready to play.
It was in observance of Benito Juarez’s birthday, a national holiday for the 19th-century Mexican leader famous for separating church from state. And another chance to celebrate!
La Paz — the name means “the peace” — doesn’t do “quiet” very well. OK, yes, it’s a party town. But with a big touch of class.
La Paz Insider’s Guide
Get there: Horizon Airlines (part of Alaska Airlines) has direct flights on midsize turboprop planes into La Paz from Los Angeles. See .
Get around: Combine La Paz with visits to Cabo San Lucas and Todos Santos using inexpensive connections by modern buses operated by Aguila bus lines and you can take advantage of cheaper airfares into Los Cabos, the big airport serving Cabo tourist centers.
The La Paz bus station is off the malecon (Paseo Alvaro Obregon) at the corner of Cinco de Mayo. Buses depart hourly every day. Or combine a La Paz visit with Mazatlan, on mainland Mexico. A passenger ferry connects the two cities; about $75 one way; .
Stay: Rates start at $75 at La Casa Mexicana, a restored 1940s Spanish art-deco villa with five guest rooms, some with shared bath. Our room with a large balcony overlooking the bay, a short block away, was $85 (including tax and breakfast at a nearby restaurant); .
A popular option for kayakers and budget travelers is La Posada Luna Sol, , on a back street three blocks from the malecon. Rooms with private bath start at $65, with communal kitchen.
Centrally located on the malecon is the full-service, 110-room Hotel Perla, which claims to have been the first hotel in La Paz (circa 1940). Rates start around $75; .
Dine: La Costa is a favorite of locals as well as visiting boaters, at the end of Calle 5 de Febrero, near Marina La Paz. A memorable dinner for two of deep-fried snapper (the whole fish!) and the local chocolate clams was $16.
Safety note: Mexico’s nationwide war on drug cartels is evident in southern Baja, even though drug violence is virtually unknown there. Last spring, “Policia Preventiva” squads, armed like soldiers, cruised the La Paz waterfront in open trucks, and police randomly flagged down vehicles for inspection.
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Brian J. Cantwell
