A Year of Travel, Part 1: Los Barilles, Baja California Sud, Mexico
I turned forty in 2019, so I decided to celebrate the milestone with as much travel as I could manage, and instead of thinking of it as the year I turned forty I chose to think of it as the year of travel. I’m very lucky to have a lot of vacation time (union pride!) and also be able to save up and carry over time from prior years, so I had a fair bit of time to work with. Ultimately I settled on three trips: somewhere beachy with my bestie, Felicia, who was also turning forty, Paris and London by myself, and Taiwan with my husband.
The first trip, the beachy trip with Felicia, was the first trip. Though we knew we wanted to stay somewhere relaxing and quiet where we could lounge on the beach and read, we went back and forth on destinations for a while: Belize, Hawaii, and Mexico were all in the running, and after looking into flights and lodging we settled on Los Barilles, in Baja California Sur. Felicia had been to Baja many years before and really enjoyed it, but Cabo San Lucas was more of a party/tourist spot than we were wanting. After a lot of research we landed on Los Barilles, a small town 40 miles north of Cabo which made it easy to reach (there are direct flights from Seattle to Cabo and inexpensive shuttles to Los Barilles). It was everything we were looking for: laid back, a small town that wasn’t too touristy but still had enough choices for restaurants, and right on the beach. We found a great beachfront AirBNB that felt more like a hostel with lots of friendly neighbors, many of whom had stayed there before, and all of them were happy to share restaurant recommendations, snacks, and a beer or a glass of wine.
Los Barilles is a great town, there are two main streets so you can easily walk everywhere, lots of great restaurants (some of our favorites were La Terazza de Germán, Restaurant Triny’s, La Casita Restaurant & Sushi Bar, Tea of Cortez for amazing fresh fruit popsicles, Beans & Rice Tako Bar, and Cafe Maria), a lively market on Saturday (mostly arts and crafts, unfortunately, not nearly as much produce as I would have liked), a few small bodegas and a larger supermarket, wild cows that roam the beach, dogs EVERYWHERE, and our favorite spot in town, Caffe Encinalito, where we stopped every day for excellent coffee, smoothies, and the occasional bagel with avocado, and to play cards or pet the many dogs who came through, namely Saak and Molly who belonged to Gabi, who worked there and would stop to visit with us when it wasn’t too busy. Not to mention the beach: miles and miles of soft sand along the Sea of Cortez, so it’s great for swimming,
The town is known for sport fishing and wind sports, and nearly everybody rides around on ATVs instead of cars. There’s a huge expat community and a lot of snow birds who stay for months on end, so much so that most people’s reaction to our response of how long we were staying was “you’re only here for a week??”. And if you’re celebrating your fortieth birthday, traveling to a place with a lot of retirees is an easy way to feel young!
