Day trip to La Ventana and Los Barriles

We left off the last chapter as we were visiting La Paz, Baja Mexico.  

It has been over a week since I wrote that chapter and you may be wondering why it has taken so long to publish this chapter.

I have to tell you that it is because we have been very busy.  The blog takes quite a bit of time to prepare and we spend every opportunity to be out exploring and I keep waiting for a rainy day to type on the blog.

We haven't had any rainy days lately so I haven't been very good about typing this next chapter.  

In fact, we have been so busy that we have finished our visit to Mexico and we are back in the United States as I type this chapter but don't worry, I intend to bring you up to date in the next few chapters so you don't miss any of the amazing things that are out there.

We have several friends who visit Los Barriles which is a town located south of La Paz.  We took a day trip to visit the town.

Along the way, we visited the town of La Ventana.  We have a friend, Joe Cheek, from Red Bluff who owns an airplane that we worked on while we owned the maintenance shop at the Red Bluff Airport.  He would tell us stories about a business he owns in La Ventana so we decided to drop in and say hi.

The business is Baja Joe's, and we figured it would be a small beach and bar area in a sleepy coastal village.  

Boy . . . . were we wrong.

Baja Joe's turned out to be a thriving wind surfing and kite boarding Mecca that was jammed with people there to enjoy the strong and consistent winds that flow down from the north all year long.

None of the pictures we took were able to show how much activity was occurring out on the water so we are including this internet photo to give you some idea of just how busy this place was.




Without a drone, you just can't zoom out far enough to take in the huge volume of kite boarders that were out on the water.



There was lots of interesting art work all around the property, and everything was clean and cheerfully painted.



After we finally found a place to park (the place was packed), we walked up to the front door.  It was the entrance to a nice bar/restaurant/store as well as the hotel lobby and was packed with people eating lunch and shopping.




The bar area was very nicely done and was filled with Gringos.




















The dining room was small and also packed and was right next to a well stocked store.  

At least half of the people looked like they had just come in from the water, and everyone was happy and very friendly.  

We had more opportunities to practice our English.




We spoke to a clerk in the store and explained that we were trying to find Joe.  He was very reluctant to give us any information about Joe until we explained our history with Joe in Red Bluff.  He finally opened up and said that Joe was back in Red Bluff at the moment so we did not get a chance to visit with him.

Under the bar was a large storeroom that was used for drying out the kites and sails and storing everyone's equipment.



They even had a Limo.



The sculptures and artwork were fun.



There was a very interesting and eerie sign at the entrance.




The eerie part of the sign is that the picture looks just like Joe!



After touring Baja Joe's, we cruised the small town of La Ventana and then continued on to Los Barriles.

You could never let down your guard because you never knew what you would find along the road.



When we would hear our friends describe their visits to Los Barriles, we imagined they were talking about a small, sleepy, dirt road fishing village out in the middle of nowhere.

Well, it is out in the middle of nowhere but it is not sleepy, at least during Snowbird season.  

There were Americans and Canadians everywhere.  The traffic was intense.



There were cars and 4 wheelers everywhere, all in a hurry.





There were interesting shops but we had a tough time finding a place to park because of all of the people and cars.


There were reminders that we were still in Baja.


These cattle were just wandering around and the tourists just wandered around them.




We don't want you to get the wrong impression.  It was a very nice town in a beautiful setting but it was just busy on the main streets.

We did get off the main streets and onto some side streets that went to the beach and found palatial looking homes that must be owned by foreigners including Americans.  They were gigantic and surrounded by walls that prevented nice pictures.



We didn't get to go to the beach because there was no where to park.

Don't worry though, we finally did find a place to park so we wouldn't miss our lunch.

We ended up at a nice little outdoor restaurant where we had a great lunch.



We just couldn't get enough of the fajitas and salsa.



After a nice driving day, we headed back to our H Blue hotel for another pleasant evening and another wonderful meal.

The next day we headed out on our last leg of the southbound trip to Cabo San Lucas.

We hope to get that chapter out soon.

We hope you can start planning on getting out there and we will keep you posted on our travels,

Tom & Suzie