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EL ROSARIO AND CATAVINA |
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Some 60km beyond San Quintín, the highway passes through EL ROSARIO
, the original site of a Dominican mission. Founded in 1774, the mission
was forced by a shortage of water in 1802 to move 3km downstream to El
Rosario de Abajo , where you can see the ruins: nowadays, however, it's
little more than a BMX track for local kids, and definitely not worth
getting off the bus for. These days, El Rosario is just another staging
point, and modern El Rosario de Arriba consists of just a couple of
filling stations and a few restaurants and motels . El Rosario (tel
6/165-8850; US$15-25), as you come into town, is good value, if noisy,
with trucks roaring down the hill throughout the night, while the Motel
Sinai (tel 6/165-8818; US$10-15), at the town's southern edge, is
quieter and may work out cheaper. There's a rather rocky beach 12km
south at Punta Baja.
Beyond El Rosario, the road turns sharply inland, to run down the centre
of the peninsula for some 350km to Guerrero Negro. It's a bizarre
landscape of cactus - particularly yucca, cirios , unique to this area,
and cardones , which can grow over 15m tall - and rock, with plenty of
strange giant formations; much of it is protected within the Parque
Natural del Desierto Central de Baja California . In the heart of this
area is CATAVIÑA , comprising a dozen or so buildings strung along the
highway, complete with luxury hotel , La Pinta (tel 5/151-4604; more
than US$100), restaurants and trailer park. There's cheaper
accommodation at Rancho Santa Ines , a couple of kilometres south (no
phone; US$15-25), whose rooms double as dorms when necessary. You can
eat here, but the restaurant opposite La Pinta is cheaper. There is also
a nearly abandoned motel on the left as you enter from the north. If you
have to stop, and you need shoestring accommodations, this could be an
option, but seems as dependable as the wind. If you do stop, take time
to look at some of the giant boulders; not far off the highway at Km
171, just before Cataviña, is La Cueva Pintada , a tiny cave beneath a
huge rock decorated with ancient paintings - circles, dots, sunbursts
and stick figures. Incidentally, if you're driving through Cataviña,
fill your tank at the informal roadside fuel station here - the gas may
be pricey, but there's no other petrol station for quite some distance.
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