(355 km/208 miles)
Today will be a longer driving day as we are now headed inland thru the farming belt of Baja that includes Ciudad Insurgentes and Constitucion on our way Campestre Maranatha located in El Centanario. On arrival you will be able to check your Wi-Fi, perhaps go for a dip in the pool or have a coffee and sticky bun at the Café Equisito located in the RV Park. We have an excursion into La Paz where you can visit the wonderful Malecon, check out the Mercado or head out and swim with Whale Sharks! We also have an excursion planned to Todos Santos located on the Pacific Ocean where we cross the Tropic of Cancer.
La Paz (pronounced “the peace” in English) is the capital and largest city of the Mexican state of Baja California Sur, with a 2024 census population of 295,169 inhabitants, making it the most populous city in the state.
The first European known to have landed in Baja California was Fortún Ximénez. In 1533, shortly after the conquest of Tenochtitlan, Hernán Cortés sent two ships, Concepción, under the command of captain and commander of the expedition, Diego de Becerra, and San Lázaro under Capt. Hernando de Grijalva, to explore the South Seas of the Pacific Ocean. The ships set out 30 November 1533, to travel north along the coast of New Spain from present-day Manzanillo, Colima, in search of two ships that had been lost without a trace on a similar voyage the previous year. By 20 December the ships had separated; San Lázaro, which had gone ahead, waited three days for Concepción and after no sighting of its companion vessel, Capt. Grijalva dedicated himself to exploring the region and discovered the Revillagigedo Islands. On board the Concepción, Ximénez, the navigator and second in command, led a revolt in which Capt. Becerra was killed in his sleep by Ximénez. Also the crewmen loyal to the murdered captain were attacked and later rebel sailors abandoned both the wounded navigators and the Franciscan friars accompanying the expedition on the coast of present-day Michoacán.
El Centenario is a small seaside town located in La Paz Municipality approximately 15 km west of La Paz, the capital city of Baja California Sur. El Centenario had a 2010 census population of 4,696 persons. On our first visit to Baja in 1985 we stayed at an RV Park on the beach as you enter the town which is now closed.
El Centenario was founded in the 1960s as an agrarian/fishing Ejido by approximately 25 founding families. Each of the original families was delegated land to use for farming and on which to build a dwelling, while the land remained under the ownership of the communal Ejido. During the 1990s, due to reforms associated with the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexican Ejidos were granted rights to deliver legal ownership of Ejido land to the members, thus changing from communal ownership to private ownership.
