February 14, 2024
El Sargento, BCS, Mexico

After Playa la Fortuna, my path became generally north.  With no specific agenda, I decided to spend a night or two at the highly-recommended Rancho Dionisio, near Santiago.

The road from Santiago is all dirt and about 12 miles long.  The first half is mild washboard, then it starts to climb a valley into the moutains and gets a bit rough.  Nothing challenging, just annoying.  The prize at the end is well worth it.

Rancho Dionisio is, without doubt, the nicest place I visited in Baja.  Owned by American Clarence and his Mexican wife Isabel, they have created a gorgeous place to visit.  After traveling for eight years, they settled here and have been working for four years to restore an abandoned ranch.

There is room for probably at least a dozen rigs, though never more than seven while I was there.  No hookups, but filtered water is available from the nearby river.  There is a nicely equiped common kitchen under a huge palapa with open seating.  Clarence will start a fire in the BBQ on request.  A cold pool is available.  Showers were dang hot with reasonable water pressure.  Electricity for their buldings is all solar.

There are chickens on the property and cattle outside the fence.  They have a huge organic garden to which you are welcome to help yourself.  They have a grove of papaya, some banana, and 3-4 acres of avocados.  A large grass areas supports tent campers, and there are swings for children.  

Clarence and Isabel have carved out a beautiful ranch for themselves, if not exactly luxurious.  He gets up every morning and makes coffee and fresh cookies for the guests.  I came for maybe 1-2 nights and ended staying for four.  I would have probably stayed a week had I not been running low on food.

After Rancho Dionisio, I stayed one night in the cool old mining town of El Triunfo.  It has two quite nice museum, one on the town’s mining history and one on Baja Vaqueros.  Apparently at one time a booming mining town of over 4,000, it had immigrants from all over working there, as evidence by the Panteón Chino.  The town itself is cute, if quite small.  A fun stop.

After El Triunfo I spent a pleasant and warm, if unexciting, week in El Sargento, SE of La Paz.  It’s a wind sports mecca.  After this, I will head north again.