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SAN IGNACIO |
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Leaving Guerrero Negro, the highway heads inland again for the
hottest, driest stage of the journey, across the Desierto Vizcaíno. In
the midst of this landscape, SAN IGNACIO comes as an extraordinary
relief. At the very centre of the peninsula, this is an oasis in every
sense of the word; not only green and shaded but, with some of the few
colonial buildings in Baja, a genuinely attractive little town that just
may entice you to stay longer than a night's stopover.
The settlement was founded by the Jesuits (and named after their founder)
in 1728, but the area had long been populated by the indigenous Guaicura
, attracted by the tiny stream, the only fresh water for hundreds of
miles. Underneath the surfaced road between the highway and town is the
small dam that the settlers built to form the lagoon that still sustains
the towns' agricultural economy, mostly based on fruits such as dates,
grapes, figs, grapes and oranges. San Ignacio's church , built by the
first arrivals and probably the best example of colonial architecture in
the whole of Baja California, dominates the attractive, shaded plaza.
Early missionaries were responsible, too, for the palms that give the
town its character, and as well as dates the town produces limes, grapes
and olives.
In the bleak sierras to the north and south are any number of caves ,
many of them decorated with ancient paintings . Not much is known about
the provenance of these amazing designs, beyond the fact that they were
painted at different periods and bear little resemblance to any other
known art in this part of the world. A recent anthropological survey
dates them as several thousand years old, though opinions still vary
considerably - native legend, as related to the earliest colonists, has
it that they are the product of a race of giants from the north.
Certainly many of the human figures - most paintings depict hunters and
their prey - are well over 2m tall. They are, however, extremely hard to
visit, reached only by tracks or mule paths and almost impossible to
find without a guide (which is also a legal requirement for visits). If
you're determined, join one of the tours arranged from the hotels in
town, or through any of the operators we've listed, though all can be
pricey.
At the beginning of the year, the same places also organize whale-watching
trips to the nearby Laguna San Ignacio, rated by some as a better
location than Guerrero Negro. The waters of the town's own lagoon
attract hundreds of species of birds to San Ignacio, who nest in its
environs; in fact, if you stay overnight, you can't help but notice that
the birds and frogs between them produce a rainforest-like soundtrack, a
rather disorienting feeling in the middle of a desert. For a nominal fee,
informal bird-watching tours can be arranged at Rice & Beans .
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