Favorite Baja hotels – The ExhaustNotes Blog

Located 297 miles south of the US border, Cataviña makes for a good spot to stop after your first day’s push into Baja. You might also try to make it all the way to Guerrero Negro, but that’s another 140 miles. When traveling in Baja through the mountains and all the small towns from Ensenada to El Rosario, you can’t grind out big miles like you can on a US freeway. And, trust me on this, you don’t want to travel at night in Baja. A 300-mile day in Baja when you’re starting at the US border is a good day, and that puts you smack dab in Cataviña.

Cataviña’s location on the Baja peninsula.

It’s a full day’s drive from TJ to Cataviña.

What’s cool about Cataviña is that it is in one of Baja’s boulder fields, as depicted in the big picture at the top of this blog. Those are just flat wild…the stark landscape, the giant boulders, the Cardon and Cirio cacti…it’s all impressive. The boulders were formed by wind erosion, which is kind of amazing. I didn’t believe that at first, but I checked with one of my Cal Poly colleagues in the Geology Department (I’m a retired university professor) and he confirmed it for me. Wow.

That’s a Cirio plant in front (the long thin one), and a giant Cardon cactus behind it, all in the boulder fields of Cataviña.

There’s only one decent hotel in Cataviña and it’s the Hotel Mision Cataviña. It’s gone through a number of name changes in the 30+ years I’ve been traveling in Baja (the La Pinta, the Desert Inn, and maybe one or two others), but the hotel has stayed the same and that’s a good thing. The Hotel Mision Cataviña has a good restaurant and bar. It also has a nice swimming pool, and that pool has been just what the doctor ordered for me and my friends on more than a few occasions riding Mexico Highway 1 through Baja.

Parked in front of the Hotel Mision Cataviña. I’ve toured Baja on all kinds of bikes. The blue Triumph Tiger was my ride on this trip.

My friends and I once rode all the way to Cabo and back on 150cc CSC Motorcycles Mustang replicas. You can read about that adventure here. We spent the night in Cataviña.

At around $80 a night it’s a bit pricier than most other Baja hotels, but it’s still inexpensive by US standards. There’s really nothing else in the Cataviña area for either hotels or restaurants other than a concrete-floored hotel on the other side of the highway. We had to stay in that other hotel once when the Hotel Mision Cataviña was full. That was more than 20 years ago and my wife still mentions it when she gets mad at me. Take my advice on this: The Hotel Mision Cataviña is where you want to stay.

One the Hotel Mision Cataviña’s coutyards. It’s a classy place.

I enjoy eating in the Hotel Mision Cataviña’s restaurant even if I’m just passing through. If you let the staff know you’re in a hurry, they’ll get you in and out. If you don’t, things kind of run on a Cataviña pace. That’s cool if you’re staying for the night; it’s not if you’re trying to make Guerrero Negro. I’ve done that, but it is a very long day. The restaurant and bar have kind of an arched brick roof in the dining room. It’s fun. As you might imagine, they are well stocked with Tequila and Tecate.

Joe Gresh enjoying chicken tacos during a brief stop at the Hotel Mision Cataviña restaurant.

If you’re traveling with a bunch of guys and you don’t mind sleeping 8 or 9 to a room, the Hotel Mision Cataviña built a separate just to the north of the main hotel and it has a dormitory style room. I don’t know what it costs, but it’s got to be (on a per head basis) cheaper than one of the double rooms. The rooms are nice. The place is clean, it’s air conditioned, and its comfortable. The only issue with the new building is that the hotel runs a diesel generator all night, and if you stay in the new building, it might keep you up.

Fuel is less of a concern today than it used to be. We used to buy bottled gasoline from enterprising guys by the side of the road, but there’s a convenience store just across Highway 1 from the hotel now with gas pumps, so I think getting gasolina today is less of an issue.

If you would like to know more about the Hotel Mision Cataviña, you can do so here.

Headed into Baja? Make sure you insure with the best, and that’s BajaBound!

Check out our reviews of other Baja hotels and restaurants, destinations, and more on our Baja page!

Never miss an ExNotes blog! Sign up here for free!

Want to know more about some of our moto trips in Baja? Pick up your own copy of Moto Baja!

Ah, the Negro Modelo flows freely at the Old Mill Hotel. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ll start by simply saying if I’m going to spend the night in Bahia San Quintin, it’s a sure thing it will be at the Old Mill Hotel, another one of my all-time favorite Baja hotels. In fact, as I write this, I’m thinking it’s worth a Baja ride just to stay at the Old Mill in Bahia San Quintin. I usually take a full day to get down there, even though the map says you can do it in a little over four hours. I’ve done that, but then the question is: Why? I think it’s best to take things at a more relaxed pace and enjoy the ride south as you enter through either Tiajuana or Tecate (Tecate is a much nicer town and the ride to Ensenada from there is a much nicer ride).

The route south. The last 100 miles or so before reaching San Quintin is an agricultural region. The road becomes much more desolate a few miles south of San Quintin.

San Quintin is a good 200 miles south of the border, near the southern end of the agricultural fields that put much of our produce on the table. Susie and I once got got in a farm worker labor riot in San Quintin, but that was an isolated incident and all’s cool now.

Bahia San Quintin is the bay on the Pacific Ocean west of the Transpeninsular Highway (that’s Mexico Highway 1, which runs the length of the Baja peninsula). To get to the Old Mill Hotel, watch for the sign on Highway 1 (it’s the one you see in the big photo above), and turn west toward the Pacific.

Once you turn off the Transpeninsular Highway, it’s about a four-mile ride to get to the hotel, and it’s a much better ride than it used to be. I don’t mind telling you that I used to be completely intimidated by that road (it was a dirt road that was either powder-like soft sand or a mud bath, depending on the weather, and it was hell on a motorcycle), but the road is paved now and it’s a pleasant ride to the bay.

Good buddies Dave and Paul on a ride about 15 years ago, before the road to Bahia San Quintin was paved.

As you approach the end of the road, you’ll see another sign on your left for the Old Mill Hotel. Make a right turn, ride a hundred yards, and then a left will put you there. The hotel is sort of shaped like a U, with comfortable rooms on either side of a parking lot that is frequently filled with motorcycles. As you might guess, the Old Mill is located on the site of what used to be an old mill, and there’s still milling equipment left around the area. It’s a pretty interesting place.

The Old Mill Hotel parking lot is usually filled with motorcycles. I’ve always been able to get a room there, but it wouldn’t hurt to make reservations with the number at the bottom of this blog.

Sometimes you can park right in front of your room, although security has never been an issue for me at the Old Mill Hotel.

The office is on your left as soon as you enter the hotel area, and they are nice folks. They usually offer a complimentary beer when you check in (and if they forget to offer, just ask), which usually leads to quite a few more. It’s a great way to start your visit to a great place.

Lovely Lucy, who provided the beer, worked the hotel office, and served us dinner in the Eucalipto.

Senor Gresh demonstrating the correct method for initiating a visit to the Old Mill Hotel.

If you walk west just past the hotel parking lot, you’ll be standing on the edge of Bahia San Quintin. It’s a cool area.

At the edge of Bahia San Quintin. One night at the end of a great day, we heard something exhale loudly just off this dock a few feet into the Bay. It was dark; we couldn’t see it. “That is a whale,” good buddy Dave correctly determined. Bahia San Quintin is a fun place.

Motorcycle travel through Baja is not without its risks, the principal one being that you’ll weigh more when you get home than you did when you left. Nowhere is this more true than in Bahia San Quintin. When you stay at the Old Mill Hotel, there are three outstanding restaurants just a few feet from your door. The first is a relatively new one, the Eucalipto, headed by Javier, a world class chef from Mexico City. The Eucalipto is part of the Old Mill Hotel (it shares a wall with the hotel office). I’d say it’s one of best in Baja, and it’s open for dinner and for breakfast (handy when you are leaving the next morning).

A fine Eucalipto dinner. Chef Javier will not disappoint.

An amazing Eucalipto stuffed tomato salad.

Dinner in the Eucalipto. Or maybe it was breakfast. Both were excellent.

The Molino Viejo (the Old Mill) is a larger restaurant next to the Old Mill Hotel. It’s has a bar and live entertainment, and widescreen televisions for sports and other events. The food is outstanding. Just turn left on the boardwalk at the end of the hotel parking lot. I’ve had many a fine meal here.

Another awesome restaurant next door to the Old Mill Hotel.

Don Eddie’s is a third dining option. Turn to your right when you walk to the bay, and it’s right there. It’s not as hopping as the Eucalipto or the Molin0 Viejo, but the food is absolutely outstanding.

A seafood platter at Don Eddie’s. Like I said above, there’s a serious weight gain risk associated with riding Baja.

Once when I was leading one of the CSC Motorcycles tours and we stayed at the Old Mill, Don Eddie himself told me that if we wanted breakfast there, just let him know how many and he’d have a buffet set up for us the next morning. I think there were about 15 of us on that ride. I took the suggestion and it was beyond amazing, with a variety of Mexican breakfast delights and quantities that were astounding. When it came time to settle up, Don Eddie gave me a number that was embarassingly low. I doubled it, divided it by the number of guys in our group, and it was still cheap.

The last time I stayed at the Old Mill Hotel I recall it was about $40 for a room. You can see more at their website (HotelOldMill.com) and the email address is Oldmillbaja@gmail.com

They are reachable by phone at 01 (616) 165-6030, and they have a US number 185-5690-9272.

More Mexico? Hey, it’s right here!

Headed into Mexico? Make you insure with the best!