One day last week we drove an hour or two north to Todos Santos. Todos Santos is an artsy oasis village in the desert, with a rare fresh water lagoon a few miles east, just behind the beach. Some Americans and Europeans move there to truly get away from it all for good. Like that retired CIA spook on NCIS.
Our little group had lunch at Posada La Poza, a tiny boutique hotel out in the boonies with a rooftop restaurant. We requested that they make us a mixed seafood platter of whatever they had on hand. They brought us Tuna Tostados, grilled marinated shrimp, fried scallops, and grilled Sea Bass which they cooked rare - as good fresh fish should be cooked. Salad too, with peas and corn in it. Real Mexican food. Margueritas, of course (for the Vitamin C), which they mixed on the strong side:
Here's the outside of Posada La Poza, where they have to turn many people away for lunch despite its remote location. They only have 5 tables for lunch -
Lots of fun pics of that side trip below the fold -
To get from the main drag to Posada La Poza, you drive a few miles up an unlikely gnarly dirt road through desert, rickety burro farms, and typical Mexican architecture and lawn decor. You think you're lost and have taken a wrong turn:
When you get to the inn, you can take a path through the natural palm forest (ie naturally irrigated)
to a vast and utterly unoccupied playa (you could have sex on that beach all day long without annoying anybody other than your mate)
Then you get to the fresh water lagoon. Water in the desert is remarkable.
We saw Coot, Bluebill, White-faced Ibis, Osprey, Frigate Birds by the dozen, Ruddy Duck, Moorhen, Least Sandpiper, Black necked Stilt, Great Blue Heron, Raven, Brown Pelican, Harris' Hawk, Turkey Vultures (everywhere in Baja, presumably waiting for another pensioner to die), Gilded Flicker, California Gull. Here's a birding list from that area.
Around 6 feet above the water level, you had cacti and desert again. That's Mrs. BD ducking behind this 30-foot cactus just a few feet from the lagoon, so as not to risk appearing on Maggie's Farm:
After our birding hike and lunch, we went to town to meander around. Here's the town plaza:
We had coffee at Ristorante Tre Galline:
We agreed that, had we stayed until dinnertime, we would have dined at Cafe Santa Fe. Maybe next time.
