Loreto Feels Like the Ultimate Baja Getaway - Pt 4
By Tom Kagy | 23 Feb, 2025

The most memorable thing about Loreto are the primordial colors that dominate the scenery.

To my mind Loreto is as much a visual aesthetic and a state of mind as a place.   Its vistas continue to linger in my mind's eye long after each visit.

There is, first, the sapphire sea.  It's not just the preternaturally deep dark blue of the water on clear sunny days (which is probably 95% of all days).  It's the stillness, as though the sea isn't water but actually a giant sapphire.  The stillness makes the darkness of the blue sublime when contrasted with the red of the rocky islands and mountains that emerge from the sea.

One of the best places to enjoy this sublime vista is from the 7-mile-long hiking trail that rings Villa del Parmar.  Another is a vista point about halfway between Parmar and the town.  Yet another is from the mountains that rise to the west, accessible via the John Steinbeck trail.  The author of Grapes of Wrath had made Loreto a second home, as have several hundred American expats who currently live in Loreto full time or for several cold months of each year.

The American presence is felt in desultory conversations overheard in Loreto's plaza and cafes.  The heart of Americanness, aside from Parmar, are a couple of modern seaside developments, a marina and a trailer park along the stretch of coastline between Loreto Airport and Danzante Bay.  There North Americans (the preferred umbrella term among the many Canadians who live there) escape winters and enjoy a graciously leisurely lifestyle not possible in the normal congestion and traffic or the US or Canada.