Favorite Baja Hotels: Guerrero Negro’s Malarrimo’s

This blog grew longer than I had planned.  I thought I would touch on Malarrimo’s (one of my favorite hotels in Baja) and that would be it, but I realized once I got into it that there’s a lot more to the story and Guerrero Negro.


If you’re headed into Baja, especially if you’re headed there to see the whales, you’d be hardpressed to find a better hotel than Malarrimo’s in Guerrero Negro.  Guerrero Negro is at the halfway point when headed down the Baja peninsula (it’s about 450 miles south of the border).  It’s located along the 28th Parallel,  the dividing line between Baja and Baja Sur (Baja’s two Mexican states).

Although some might be inclined to dismiss Guerrero Negro because as little more than a gritty industrial town, it’s actually a pretty cool place to visit and a good base for further explorations.  There’s whale watching, the ecological preserve, salt mining, the nearby cave paintings, the food, and more.

Ah, the food.  As Gresh so aptly put it, no one loses weight on a Baja ride with me.  I’ll get to that in a minute.

Don Enrique Achoy founded Malarimmo’s about a half century ago, and it has remained a family business.  He was ahead of his time, offering eco tours to see the whales, the ecological preserve surrounding Scammon’s Lagoon, and more.   There are other hotels in Guerrero Negro, but I always check Malarimmo’s first.  It’s not fancy and at around $65 per night it’s a tiny bit expensive for Baja, but it is inviting. it’s clean, and I just feel good there.  The restaurant is arguably the best in town, and I love the bar (more on both in just a bit).

Getting There

Malarrimo’s is easy to find.  Just head south on the Transpeninsular Highway from the border for 450 miles.  You’ll see a huge metal eagle at Parallelo 28 and a Mexican military base.  Shortly after that, you’ll see a sign pointing to the right and Guerrero Negro.

Take that right, and Malarimmo’s will be on your right as you enter town.  You can’t miss it.  Incidentally, the lagoon you see in the satellite photo above is Scammon’s Lagoon.  It’s where the whales will be, which takes me to our next topic.

Whale Watching

Whale watching tours are available from January through March when the California gray whales are in town, and it is a life changing experience. Those are strong words and you might be tempted to dismiss them as hyperbole.  Take one of Malarrimo’s 4-hour, $50 whale watching tours out on Scammon’s Lagoon and then you tell me.  I’ll bet you come away feeling the same way.

We have a lot more on whale watching on our Baja page, so I won’t spend too much time here on it.  Trust me on this, though:  It is like nothing you have ever done.

The Ecological Preserve

When you get a whale tour at Malarimmo’s, it will take about a half hour in a Malarimmo van to get to the where the pangas (the small boats that take you out to see the whales) are docked, and on that ride, you pass through an ecological preserve that is home to more than 150 wildlife species.  You’ll see many nesting ospreys (a bird of prey), and if you’re lucky (like we have been) you’ll get to see an osprey enjoying a bit of sushi.  It’s a fun thing to encounter.

Salt Mining

Guerrero Negro is a company town, and the company is Mitsubishi, which owns (along with the Mexican government) the salt processing operation.  It’s one of the largest salt producing regions in the world.  They use an interesting approach: Flooding the coastal plains near the town with seawater, allowing the water to evaporate, and then using earth moving equipment to scrape up the salt that remains behind.

Guerrero Negro Cuisine

No discussion of Guerrero Negro would be complete without a discussion of the cuisine down there.  In a word, it’s wonderful.  My favorite meal?  Fish tacos, served right off the truck (caught fresh daily) by my good buddy Tony.  No one I’ve ever taken there has had anything but high praise for these incredible treats.

Another place I like is San Remedios, a restaurant a block or two north of the man drag through Guerrero Negro.  Just head west a few blocks from Malarrimo’s, turn right, and you’ll find it.  The food is awesome and the young ladies who serve it are stunning.

I’ve already mentioned the restaurant and bar at Malarimmo’s.  You can’t have a bad meal at the Malarrimo’s restaurant, and the bar…wow, it’s interesting.  The Guerrero Negro area forms a big hook out in the Pacific Ocean with the hook’s U facing north (you can see that in the satellite photo above).  As a result, a lot of interesting stuff washes up on shore in that area, and Malarrimo’s has a collection of it hanging from the roof in their bar.  It’s pretty cool.

There are other restaurants in Guerrero Negro, too, and I try to make it a point to try a new one each time I am there.  Baja John and I enjoyed an amazing Chinese dinner in Guerrero Negro on one trip; try Lucky’s if you feel like something different.

The Cave Paintings

There are several cave paintings located throughout Baja.  This is real Indiana Jones stuff; the cave paintings are estimated to be about 10,000 years old and not much is known about the people who put them there.  They are all relatively remote, too, but one of the easier (I’m using that word in a comparative sense) ones to get to are the cave paintings in Baja’s Sierra San Francisco Mountains.

The cave paintings near Guerrero Negro are further south and east of the Transpeninsular Highway (Highway 1, the main and often only road running north and south in Baja).  You take Highway 1 south and then turn left after passing through the town of Vizcaino to head east and up into the Sierra Francisco mountains.  It’s a magnificent ride with an awesome climb into the mountains, then the road turns to dirt and then it becomes, for lack of a better word, gnarly.  You buy tickets and secure a guide in a small village, and then double back for maybe a mile to see the paintings.  If you have a 4WD car or a dual sport (or ADV) motorcycle, you can get there on your own; if you don’t, you can grab a tour that leaves from Malarimmo’s.  It will take most of a day to get out there, see the paintings, and get back to Guerrero Negro, but it’s well worth it.

There’s a lot more to Baja’s cave paintings, but it’s too much to include here.  Watch for a future blog on this topic.


So there you have it:  Guerrero Negro, Malarimmo’s, and a bunch of things you can do while in that area.  I love everything about Baja, and I especially love the Guerrero Negro area.  You will, too.


When you head into Mexico, make sure you insure with BajaBound.  They are the best, and they are the only insurance company we will ever use.

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More Baja, including a list of our other favorite Baja hotels and things to see and do, is here on the ExNotes Baja page.


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Good food, good meat, good God, let’s eat!

Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and I remember saying that prayer whenever it was my turn to say grace before a family dinner.  It was always good for a laugh.  Thinking about those big turkey dinners turned my thoughts to the best parts of any motorcycle adventure, and that’s the food.  I’ve enjoyed some fantastic meals on the road, and you know what?  People tell me the photos have been the best part of any writing I did along the way.  I like photos of scenery and people on our adventures, but readers consistently tell me the food photos are the most interesting.  Allow me to share with you some of my favorites.

Colombia

Wow, was Colombia ever an adventure.  Everything about that ride was absolutely world class, including the dining.  Take a look.

A simple Colombian breakfast…scrambled eggs, arepa, and those incredible Colombian cheeses!
A fish lunch along the Chicamocha River. Good Lord, it was fabulous!
Chicken and mushrooms. It was way more than I could eat.
Beef? Pork? Nope, neither. It was pig stomach lining. Very tasty, I’m told.
Carlos, yours truly, and Juan at dinner in Mompos. It’s the oldest town in Colombia, and to say it is off the beaten path would be an understatement.
We had dinner that night in Mompas in a restaurant run by an Austrian, where I had the best pizza I’ve ever had in my life. The beer helped, too!

China

What can I say?  The ride across China was amazing in every way, and the food was one of the best parts of it.

Sean took Gresh and me to a hole-in-the-wall place for lunch on the main drag just outside the entrance to Zongshen’s 100-acre manufacturing campus. It was one of those places I would have looked at and thought “who would ever eat here?” The food was amazing.
Fried lotus with pork in Shandong Province. I could do a book about eating my way through China.
A seafood selection, including a starfish, outside of Qingdao. I’d never heard of eating a starfish before the ride across China.
Donkey burgers in Hebei Province. Kong, one of the Chinese riders, told me there’s an old Chinese saying that goes something like “people in heaven eat dragon burgers, and people on earth eat donkey burgers.” Cue in the music from Indiana Jones.
I was leery of the super spicy stuff in China at first. Then I developed a taste for it. It was exquisite.
Except for the tourist hotels in the big cities, folks don’t drink coffee in China. Gresh had a Nescafe stash, which he graciously shared with me each morning.
The Canton Fair has a restaurant row that must have 100 restaurants.  This delicious beef dumpling soup was a whopping 25 RMB (that’s $3.96 in US dollars), and it was delicious.

Baja

Hey, no discussion related to adventure riding and food would be complete without touching on Baja!

The best fish tacos on the planet are served up by good buddy Tony in Guerrero Negro, about halfway down the Baja peninsula. These are guys in one of the CSC groups I took down there a few years ago.
The man, the mystery, the legend:  Tony, fish taco chef extraordinaire!
Tony’s fish tacos, worth a ride south all by themselves.
Street tacos in Ensenada. It’s hard to go wrong with just about any kind of food in Baja.

The above is just a small sampling of delicacies I’ve enjoyed on the road.   You can find more by reading about our other rides, and you can get to those on our Epic Rides page.

That’s it for now.  For some reason, I’m hungry.  Later, my friends.


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Baja 2009: The KLR Khronicles Part V

Read Parts I, II, III, and IV of the 2009 KLR Baja foray here!


Our planned stop for the evening (and our turnaround point) was Guerrero Negro. It’s a town just south of the 28th Parallel, which forms the border between Baja California and Baja California Sur, the two states in Baja. It’s about halfway down the Baja peninsula.

Guerrero Negro is an interesting town. It’s named for the Black Warrior (Guerrero Negro in Spanish), a sailing ship that sank off the Baja coast a long time ago.  It’s one of the best spots to see the whales in Mexico (you can read about that here).  The whales hang out in Laguna de Ojo Liebre (the Eye of the Jackrabbit), also known as Scammon’s Lagoon.  I’ve been down there many times to see the whales, and it is one of life’s main events. That’s a strong statement, and if you’ve never seen the whales in Baja, you’ll think I’m exaggerating. If you’ve seen them, though, you’ll know I’m not. It’s a surreal and awe-inspiring experience. The whales are in town from January through March, so we wouldn’t be seeing them on this visit.

We usually stay at Malarrimo’s in Guerrero Negro. It’s a great hotel with a great restaurant. I had a cup of coffee that morning that was just perfect.

The little town of Guerrero Negro has another distinction: It’s one of the biggest salt producing regions in the world. The area has hundreds of square miles of shallow flats that the Mexicans flood with sea water. They let the water evaporate and then they bulldoze up the salt. Mitsubishi owns 49% of the production operation; the Mexican government owns the other 51%.

We stopped for fish tacos in Guerrero Negro’s Baja Mision restaurant. These were the only two dogs we saw on this trip that didn’t chase us.
Laura, our waitress in Guerrero Negro when we ate at the restaurant in the above photo.
John saw this Chinese restaurant in Guerrero Negro, which seems kind of funny. We had dinner there.
Chicken chow mein in Guerrero Negro. It was great.

I got up early the next morning and rode around for a bit, exploring Guerrero Negro.  With all of the luggage off the KLR, it felt much lighter and faster.  I grabbed a few shots around town. I rode through all of Guerrero Negro, including its residential areas. Another 8 or 10 dogs chased me, intending to do me serious harm. None succeeded. By this time itwas almost funny. See a dog, go like hell, hope for the best. It was grand sport.

This is a mural on Guerrero Negro’s supermarket wall.
This is one of the salt flats. When this area dries, the salt company will scrape up the salt, flood it again, and repeat the process.

As I mentioned above, Guerrero Negro was our turn-around point on this trip. Here’s a shot on the way home, in the desert headed north.

Those Cardon cactus are impressive.

We stopped again in El Rosario, this time for a lunch at Mama Espinoza’s. This is their take on fish tacos. They were excellent.

Fish tacos at Mama Espinoza’s. Life doesn’t get any better.
Maria, our waitress in Mama Espinoza’s. There are a lot of ladies named Maria in Mexico.

After Mama Espinoza’s, we topped off at the Pemex station in El Rosario and continued north.

On the Transpeninsular Highway, south of Ensenada. I had to stop and grab a shot of this cactus path.

We rolled into Ensenada well after dark and decided to call it a day. That night we stayed in the Best Western in Ensenada’s tourist district, and it was nothing like any US Best Western. It was a really nice place. We unpacked and parked the KLRs right next to the entrance, and a guy who worked at the hotel put a rope barricade around them. We didn’t know if it was to keep people from touching the bikes, or if it was to isolate them for another reason…John’s KLR’s fuel petcock had developed a drip, and because of that, the area soon reeked of gasoline.

To be continued…


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