Baja Bachelors

Sending a buddy off right, old-Mexico-style, with a yellow-tail trip to Loreto

- Sam Lungren

It was 6 a.m. on day five of a rambling bachelor party that had already taken us from San Diego to the southeast California desert, and we stumbled apprehensively across the border into Tijuana. After sorting through the frightening and complicating discovery at the final checkpoint that fishing reels are not allowed as carry-ons with Mexican airlines, Paul, Nate, Jared and I boarded the flight without a minute to spare. An hour in the air, the fog began to clear as the Volaris jet arced over the serrated Sierra de la Giganta, banking back across the massive Islas de Carmen and Coronado.

MEXICO AS IT WAS

Founded as a Jesuit mission in 1697, Loreto was the first colonial settlement on the Baja Peninsula. Far removed from the nightclubs and towering hotels of Cabo San Lucas, it strikes an agreeable balance between genuine Mexican community and traveler hospitality. More northerly than Cabo, Loreto also provides a diverse fishery with resident and migratory populations of popular sport fish, from structure-hugging cabrilla (leopard grouper) and pargo colorado (reminiscent of mangrove snapper) to pelagic California yellowtail, dorado (mahi), roosterfish and marlin.

The taxi dropped us at Hotel la Mision de Loreto. Built on the waterfront in the 1960s and renovated in 2008, the stately old building surrounds a palm-fringed pool and boasts high-ceilinged rooms of a class we were not used to, but at a decent price. After dropping our bags, we located the buffet and the bar. It was Paul's bachelor party, after all.