Loreto - San Francisco Javier

A detour from Loreto over 40km/25mi of mainly poor roads (cross-country vehicle necessary) leads to San Javier, where you can visit the well-preserved mission church, dedicated to San Francisco Javier and dating from the first half of the 18th century; it has a fine Baroque façade and guilded high altar.

26km/16mi south of Loreto, in magnificent natural surroundings, the new seaside resort of Puerto Escondido is developing.

Some 40km/25mi out of Loreto the road again turns inland, and after 80km/50mi reaches the town of Villa Insurgentes. From here, a turn- off leads to Puert A. López Mateos, situated on the long Bahia de Magdalena (Pacific coast). Like that of Sebastián Vizcaíno this bay is the place to watch the mating and breeding of the many gray whales, which winter here every year. An equally well situated place to watch the whales from a boat is the little harbor town of Puerto San Carlos to the south, best reached by going 55km/35mi in a westerly direction from Ciudad Constitución. The Isla de Santa Margarita in the bay is inhabited by numerous sea-lions.

If you turn back near Ciudad Constitución onto the Carretera Transpeninsular it is then about a further 210km/130mi to La Paz.