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SANTA ROSALIA |
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SANTA ROSALÍA , the terminal for the ferry to Guaymas, is an odd
little town, wedged in the narrow valley of the Arroyo de Santa Rosalía
and built as a port to ship copper from the nearby French-run mines of
the El Boleo company. Nowadays, the mines are virtually played out and
the smelters stand idle, though much of the paraphernalia still lies
around town, including parts of a rusting narrow-gauge railway.
Currently there is a plan to employ modern techniques to extract the
last of the ore from the five million tonnes of tailings, which will
provide a much needed financial boost to a community that struggles by
on revenue from fishing and the plaster mines on the Isla de San Marcos
to the south.
The town itself feels like no other town in Baja. It has something of a
temporary look, many of its buildings strikingly un-Mexican in aspect,
but it does possess a certain charm that continually attracts tourists
to break their trip along the peninsula. The streets are narrow and
crowded, while the workers' houses in the valley resemble those in the
Caribbean, with low angled roofs over hibiscus-flanked porches, and
grander colonial residences for the managers rim the hill to the north.
Look out especially for the church on Obregón, a prefabricated iron
structure designed by Eiffel and exhibited in Paris before it was
shipped here.
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