Mulege’s Las Casitas Hotel

CSC 150 Mustang replicas parked in front of Mulege’s Las Casitas Hotel. Yep, we rode down there on 150cc bikes!

I have several places I like to stay in Baja, and one of those is the Las Casitas Hotel in Mulege.    (Mulege is pronounced Mool-a-hay, with the accent on the “hay” syllable; it’s not mule-lidge as I sometimes hear gringos say.)  I could give you directions and an address for Las Casitas, but it’s really not necessary.  Mulege is a small town along Baja’s Transpeninsular Highway and the Las Casitas Hotel is easy to find.  Just take a left into town under the arch as you’re traveling south on the Transpeninsular (the main, and in many cases only, road through Baja), head into town, and sort of bear right when you come to a fork entering this interesting little village.

Looking into Mulege from Baja’s Transpeninsular Highway.

My good buddy Javier is the hotelier at Las Casitas.  He’s a guy about my age, we became friends as soon as we met, and he’s just a plain old good guy.  You know what I’m talking about.  Sometimes you meet somebody and you like them immediately, and for me, Javier is a guy like that.  That photo you see above with the Heroica Mulege arch?   It was erected to commemorate the actions of a small band of Bajaenos who held off a large group of invading seaborne soldiers.   I was telling that story at dinner in the Las Casitas one night and I couldn’t remember who the invaders were.  “It was you, the Americans,” Javier reminded me, and we all had a good laugh.

Las Casitas has a bar and a restaurant, and if you’re traveling with a group, Javier has no problem setting up a world class meal to keep the gang happy.   I’ve had seafood dinners, chile rellenos (my favorite Mexican dish), and more.   Javier does a great breakfast, too, and the coffee is superb.  The real treat, though, is the fresh-squeezed orange juice.  It’s worth riding the 700 miles south just that alone.

A dinner in the Las Casitas on one of the CSC Motorcycles rides.
Chile rellenos, as prepped by Javier and his crew. Wow, were they ever great!

Las Casitas has a tropical feel to it, and that’s not surprising as Mulege is damn near in the tropics (the Tropic of Cancer, the northern edge of what officially constitutes the tropics, is just a few miles further down the down from Mulege).  The hotel rooms are arranged in two rows with an enclosed courtyard, and Javier’s okay with parking the bikes in the courtyard at night just outside the courtroom.  It’s really not necessary as there’s little crime in Baja (and on more than one occasion, infused with sufficient amounts of 100% blue agave Tequila and the inevitable accompany bottles of Negra Modelo, I’ve left my motorcycle parked on the street with no problems).  But it’s a nice touch to be able to bring the bikes into the courtyard.

In the Las Casitas courtyard with the bikes. Javier is the second guy in from the left.

The little town of Mulege is an oasis along the Rio Mulege, and it’s one of Baja’s date-farming centers.  It would be a crime against nature to not stop at Mulege’s ancient mission, 1700s-era church still in daily use.

The Mulege Mission. It’s one of a small group of 300-year-old missions dotting the Baja peninsula.
Inside the Mulege Mission.  It’s still on active duty as a working church.
A statue in the Mulege Mission.
Looking out of the Mulege Mission.
Date groves along the Rio Mulege, as viewed from an observation platform at the Mulege Mission.

Writing this blog on this fine Friday morning, I am realizing I need to get my knees in the Baja breeze again.  Maybe that feeling will pass, and maybe it won’t.  We’ll see.


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