San Cosme

Parque Nacional Bahía de Loreto is the largest marine park (800 square miles) on Mexico’s Pacific Coast. Park regulations prohibit spearfishing (except for subsistence by Mexicans), so I was looking places to launch my kayak outside the park. I plotted the park’s boundaries in Google Earth (they’re not shown on local maps) and looked for access roads. The first good access to the Sea of Cortés south of the park was San Cosme, 26 miles from Loreto. The 13-mile road from the Transpeninsular Highway to San Cosme reminded me of the road to Caleta Agua Armargosa in Gene Kira's King of the Moon: A Novel About Baja California:

…men fought their way from the main road in the west, over the high mountains, and down the very cliffs themselves, to the floor of the canyon. It was not a legitimate road they cut, but more of a plunging, twisting trail clinging to the sides of the cliffs. Is was so narrow in places one could not get out of a pickup, for on one side the door would be stopped by the face of the cliff, while on the other, it would open over noting but air.

Feral burros along the road to San Cosme

The first five or six miles of the road from the Transpeninsular Highway to San Cosme are paved; the rest is a winding, rutted, dirt road dropping 1,200 feet through the steep, reddish-brown alluvial foothills of the Sierra de La Gigante to the Sea of Cortés. Feral burros were grazing along the road. Gray and brown and muscular with narrow black stripes on their legs and shoulders, they looked healthy, but were skittish and retreated into the scrubby vegetation when we approached.

Bridge at Ultima Agua

Someone had placed large rocks on the right side of the bridge at Ultima Agua (Last Water) forcing vehicles to the left. When vehicles break down on highways in Mexico, rocks are often used to brace the tires, and they are usually left on the highway after the vehicle is repaired and drives away. No deje piedras sobre el pavamiento – don’t leave rocks on the highway – is a common sign along Mexican highways. Rocks are also used as warnings, for example, for large potholes and breaks in the roadbed. Rarely do you see orange plastic cones or barrels; they’d probably be stolen soon after they were placed.

Ultima Agua

I crossed the bridge on the left side, parked and walked back to take a look. Water was backed up behind the bridge and flowed over it like a dam. The concrete wall supporting the roadway had collapsed on the right side, probably from flooding and poor engineering. Maybe the builders couldn’t decide whether it was a bridge or a dam. The rocks in the roadway warned drivers to move left – a heavy truck could collapse the bridge. The paved road ended a short distance down the road at a smaller, washed-out concrete bridge. I had to leave the road to drive down the bank, cross the dry streambed and drive up the other side.

Alluvial foothills of the Sierra de La Gigante (background)

Arroyo on the way to San Cosme

The road wound over and through several shallow arroyos. Skinny cows were foraging among the creosote bush and acacia; the feral burros looked in better condition than the cows. The last two miles of road descended from Mesa Siquito into a large arroyo that extends several miles inland. The road is narrow and switchbacked and carved into the canyon wall with a steep drop off on the other side. Two sections that had been washed away by storms or rockfalls were repaired with concrete slabs buttressed from below by rocks confirming Kira’s description: you could barely open the door on the mountain side and you didn’t want to open the door on the other side. I stopped at a wide spot to take pictures of the arroyo; several goats passed us on their way down the mountain. I wouldn’t drive this road at night.

Road to San Cosme

The coastal plain is narrow or non-existent in this area; the mesas and alluvial foothills reach down to the Sea of Cortés. The only flat area is at the mouth of the arroyo where it widens before emptying into the sea. A hand-painted sign at the entrance to Rancho San Cosme had the local interpretation of universal symbols for camping, food, fishing, kayaking and horseback riding. We parked in the camping area next to the beach. Within 15 minutes we met two gringos. Paul is tall and thin with short hair and a tan and is in his 50s. He was wearing flip-flops and a shorty wetsuit and carrying an aluminum speargun. He was going diving, but stopped to talk. He’s a chauffeur in San Diego and came down for a month. He’s been coming to Rancho San Cosme for 14 years, knows the family (Julio is the jefe, or boss) and is staying with them.

Welcome to Rancho San Cosme

A young man, one of Julio’s relatives, was pushing a wheelbarrow with Paul’s dive gear about a quarter mile down the beach. Paul suits up there and swims across the small bay to the rocky point to spearfish. He told me about a hot springs that’s submerged at high tide, but exposed at low tide when you can drive to it along the base of the multicolored cliff where he dives (link).

San Cosme looking south

San Cosme looking east (Isla Monserrat on the horizon)

While I was talking to Paul, Rande wandered off down the beach where she met Dennis, who was camped where we were parked. He was carrying a large, weathered scallop shell when they returned. Dennis is a heavy-equipment operator from Montana, but spends his winters in Baja. He’s in his late 50s with blond hair, blue eyes and a fair complexion. He had driven down from Montana two weeks before and was seriously sunburned. He had a pickup with a camper and towed a 4-wheel trailer carrying an inflatable boat, motor and some other gear. He had two kayaks on his camper for fishing and snorkeling. Two days earlier, he said he had taken Julio and his niece diving with the hookah/compressor rig he used to mine gold in rivers in the U.S. They got chocolate clams in the bay and rock scallops at the nearest islote. I asked him if he had trouble getting his rig down the last two miles of road – he laughed, “No hay problema” (no problem). 

Rande on the beach at San Cosme

When Dennis first came to the area 25 years ago, Julio’s family had one stone house. Now there are several houses for his extended family and, near the center of the rancho, there’s a small desalination plant and a school for the children. Dennis had camped at Agua Verde, about six miles past San Cosme, in previous years, but he got tired of the Mexicans begging for things they needed and he had. He said the families in Agua Verde were worse off than those in Rancho San Cosme.

San Cosme with the cobble bar and lagoon and Isla Santa Catalina (on the horizon)

Lagoon at San Cosme

Julio has 30-40 mules, which he uses to pack tourists into the Sierra de La Gigante. We passed mules grazing in the arroyo near the entrance to the rancho. He also has pigs and goats, which were wandering around the rancho and the road up the canyon. There’s a panga on a trailer, so someone goes fishing. Paul and Dennis go into Loreto about once a week to get supplies. It takes an hour to drive the 23 miles to the Transpeninsular Highway and another 45 minutes to get to Loreto, so “…a trip to town pretty much shoots the whole day."

House at the south end of San Cosme

House at the south end of San Cosme

South of the rancho, there’s a large lagoon behind a cobble bar that empties to the sea via a channel at the far end. Beyond the lagoon are two houses on a rock outcrop overlooking the Sea of Cortés. They’re owned by a family – Mexican husband and American wife. Dennis said the lower house had six bathrooms. From the pictures on Google Earth, I thought it was a motel or an upscale resort. They haul water by truck 2,000 gallons at a time from the “lake” at Ultima Agua.

Brown pelican

Reddish egret

We had lunch on the cobble bar between the lagoon and the sea. We saw great blue herons and reddish egrets in the lagoon and brown pelicans and small groups of eared grebes hunting in the sea. Brown boobies were diving for fish in shallow water using a technique that I hadn’t seen before. I usually see brown and blue-footed boobies diving vertical or nearly vertical from 10-20 feet above the water attacking schools of fish below the surface. The brown boobies here flew just above the water close to shore and dove at a shallow angle to catch fish near the surface. At first I thought they were bathing on the wing like frigatebirds, but I saw birds repeat this maneuver several times. 

Brown booby

Brown booby entering the water in a shallow dive

Brown booby exiting the water from a shallow dive

Set in the 1960s, Caleta Agua Armargosa (Cove of Bitter Water) is a small, fictional fishing village on the Sea of Cortés somewhere between Loreto and La Paz. I think the setting is based on Agua Verde, a small fishing village about six miles beyond San Cosme. With its natural harbor, Agua Verde is popular with boaters cruising the Sea of Cortés (link) and overland travelers exploring Baja's back roads of (link). Kira’s novel tells the story of the fishermen who used Caleta Agua Armargosa, 20 miles by sea from the nearest town, as an overnight stop in bad weather and a temporary fish camp. As catches decline elsewhere, the fishermen reopen the 18-mile road built years before, but left in disrepair, from the main highway to the village. Several dozen families move to Caleta Agua Armargosa and for a decade, they survive by exploiting the sea.

Looking south from the road to San Cosme toward Aqua Verde

Eventually, the fish get smaller and catches decline, and the families begin moving away. In a desperate attempt to preserve their way of life, the remaining families level a dirt airstrip and paint a sign on a hillside advertising sportfishing. Intrepid American fishermen begin arriving in small planes. Guided fishing saves the village economically, but the fishermen eventually lose their way of life. It’s an appealing story with strong characters, vivid descriptions of the landscape and fishing, and a keen-eyed examination of the cultural and personal transitions from traditional, subsistence fishing to a sportfishing service industry.

Gene Kira, a writer and publisher from San Diego, has fished the Sea of Cortés and visited the remote fish camps of Baja for three decades. He’s the co-author with Neil Kelly of The Baja Catch: A Fishing, Travel & Remote Camping Manual for Baja California, the classic guide that introduced Baja to a lot of travelers (link). I carry a copy in the truck.

Gene Kira. 1996. King of the Moon: A Novel of Baja California. Apples & Oranges Inc. 342 pp.

Neil Kelly and Gene Kira. 1997. The Baja Catch: A Fishing, Travel & Remote Camping Manual for Baja California. 3rd edition. Apples & Oranges Inc.  293 pp.