We had an incredible vacation in La Paz, Mexico for Spring Break 2022. Tanner was 10 and Dallin was 8 at the time of this trip.
We learned about this place because I was craving a chance to be at a beach with calm, turquoise waters. Since we couldn't afford the time or length of a flight to the Caribbean, I started googling places in Baja California that might have beautiful water. I used google satellite images and beach review images to scour the shorelines, and found that La Paz had what we were looking for. We had never heard of this place before, and it did not disappoint!
Our flight there was easy peasey because we flew out of Tijuana. This meant it was a domestic Mexican flight, about $120 per person, and about a 2 hour flight which was the most I could do at the time with my back. We found out there is actually no direct flight to La Paz from the US, so this was a special treat for us to be able to go through Tijuana. And it meant that this location is not highly commercialized the way other destinations in Mexico are. Most tourists drive up from Cabo San Lucas for a day trip here, so there were no big resorts or overpriced activities.
We did some shopping right away at a local food market. Can you tell that I'm standing next to a cow's head? The boys were very grossed out.
The weather was in the 80's the whole time. Perfect for ice cream treats!
Our airbnb was a cute condo in town with everything we needed. We cooked a few meals for breakfast and dinner here and were very comfortable!
We enjoyed walking the Malecon several different times. Lots of fun sculptures, beaches, and playgrounds to explore here, and hardly no big crowds of tourists.
This statue is a whale shark, which we got to see in real life later in our trip.
Our big excursion of the trip was to swim with whale sharks! We got suited up, rode a tour boat out to where they feed, and saw a lot of them. They hover at the surface of the water to feed on plankton (or crill?). They are very gentle, big creatures.
We got to hop in the water and swim alongside them. They were so big and actually moved through the water a lot faster than it looked from inside the boat. Dallin had trouble with his mask and still was not good at snorkeling yet, so he didn't get to see the whale sharks that well and opted to get back in the boat pretty quickly. The rest of us were able to see under water and had a really neat experience trying to swim alongside them and let it soak in how incredibly big they are (20-26 feet long). We were all pretty bummed for Dallin and told him that we would try to come again when he is older. As I'm typing this now, we are planning to go in Feb, which will be 3 years after this trip, so we are excited to do this again soon!
All the restaurants we ate at were wonderful. Our family loves pina coladas, so most meals we got one for all of us to share.
More time on the Malecon!!
This rooftop restaurant was really fun. There were not that many tourists when we were there, which was so nice. We have some funny videos of the boys lip syncing to the music that was being played here.
We did a lot of walking through the old city district, which is where we were staying and where all the yummy restaraunts and the malecon are. It was fun to see the markets, the schools, homes, etc. Jeremy and Tanner found a fun bakery that they went to almost every morning. I think in this picture they are playing with a ball they found.
We beach hopped all over the place. This one took a bit of a drive, but it had a great atmosphere and beautiful water and views. The boys play catch in the shallow waters with Jeremy for at least an hour. I build a cool sand turtle with Tanner, and we had a yummy lunch under one of the hut restaurants. It reminded me a lot of the Carribean, but so nice that we were in the same time zone and only took a 2 hour flight to get here.
We found a neat Whale Museum in the neighborhood with all kinds of bones from different marine life. We learned a lot!
We found another beach with amazing water!! Jeremy found a little cave space to give him shade. Then we ventured out into the huge field of knee deep turquoise water. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen before, and was so fun for the boys to play in. When we got to the where the water tapered into the ocean, Jeremy and I explore some of the coral and found dozens and dozens of sea cucumbers! And a few unique crabs and starfish and lots of tropical fish swimming around us. The boys weren't interested in our discoveries, they were tired from the long walk out to the sea, so they just rested on a sand dune for a bit, then got more energy to run around with Jeremy and play football on the water field. In the shallow waters we also found chocolate oysters, crabs and funny poop deposits in the sand. It was such a neat adventure for our family.
The next day, we got kayaks and rowed to a secluded beach that we spotted on google maps. Turns out it was private property, some sort of abandoned home, but they had a security gaurd. He didn't tell us to leave, so we stayed for a couple hours on this beach to play and explore. Dallin was in heaven with all the sea shells. Tanner had fun kayaking around with Jeremy. There was a nice shade structure on the beach for us, and we had the whole place to ourselves!
After kayaking, we played on this beach for a while before heading home.
It is about a 30-45 min drive from the town to the beaches, because again there are not big resorts here on the beach. The drive was annoying, but we appreciated that the beaches were our in the nature and not crowded high rises. We took a pit stop on one of our drives to play on this playground.
We explore the town's central square and had a fun time taking creative pictures around a fun light installation. There were locals and some tourists out, too with food trucks and churros. It was a really laid back vibe.
On our last day, we returned to the market and did one more walk on the Malecon. It was hard to leave this quaint, relaxed and artistic town of La Paz. It's no wonder it's name means Peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment