Loreto and La Paz

On our recent trip to Mexico we spent the first day in Loreto and the last day in La Paz. We have been to Loreto several times, but I saw a few new things or things I didn't remember. It was a busy town that weekend.  A telenovela filming in the town square on Saturday and a half marathon on Sunday, so our hotel was overbooked and we ended up staying in a rather nice hotel closer to town.

I noticed this memorial as we walked through town.  The beginning of the El Camino Real.  

The beginning of the road also means that Loreto was the first mission on the road. 

I believe there have been several reconstructions over the years, but Our Lady of Loreto was established in 1697.

The interior was quite simple with an interesting ceiling.

At the end of our kayak trip we stayed an extra couple of days in La Paz. We stayed in a very nice little two room apartment a  few blocks from the main tourist drag.  It had a delightful shady courtyard with a very cold pool.

Close by was the La Paz cathedral. It is still in very active use, but we managed to sneak in for a quick look with a crowd from a tour bus.

It has also gone through a number of renovations over the years.  The bell towers are new additions that weren't added at the same time. It also had a fairly simple interior.

I liked the stain glass windows, but they looked fairly modern to me.  The stain glass was on split windows that could be opened to let a breeze in.  This time of year they were all open and had fans in the bottom half of the window.

Most of the attractions in La Paz are found on the Sea of Cortez, but since we had just spent a week on the Sea of Cortez we mostly just walked around town enjoying the food.

I noticed that unlike many tourist towns in Mexico that we have visited almost none of the servers spoke English.  We did a lot of pointing and pantomiming, but we were fed well.

In the evenings we would walk along the Malecon, which is a very nice walk way along the waterfront that was always thronged with tourists and locals.  I tried to take a picture of the super moon over La Paz, but as big as the moon was that night the street lights had more light.