January 21, 2015 - El Pabellon Beach to Ejido San de las Palomas turnoff - Catavina Boulder Field

The day started off cloudy and cool, with a strong wind off the Pacific. We followed the coast for a short distance before HWY1 curved inland and we said goodbye to our views of the Pacific. Near KM43, the highway started to wind its way uphill to a plateau before it descended rapidly into the little town of El Rosario.


We stopped at Mama Espinosa’s Restaurant for lunch and shared the lobster burritos, chips and soft drinks. It actually comes with 3 burritos and we split the plate! Cost including tip was $320 pesos ($13.50 USD). They were pretty tasty. We ate here 10 years ago and this was better than we remembered!

At KM65, just south of El Rosario, there is a fairly new .5 mile bridge that crosses the Rio del Rosario. While the river is currently dry, during the rainy season in late fall, the river apparently becomes a roaring torrent. We were thankful for the bridge!
After crossing the bridge, the highway passes though the mountains and plateaus of the westerly slopes of the Peninsular Range Mountains. The vegetation also changes to the Sonoran Desert vegetation. There were century plants, and many types of cactus including prickly pear, galloping cactus, candelabra, giant cardon, and the cirio cactus. We made a couple stops near KM85 to get some pictures.

The cirio cactus below is tapered to the top, resembling a candle. Along the trunk are numerous branches, smaller than the diameter of a pencil and totally out of proportion to the plant as a whole. They have tiny leaves which are green, especially following rain. They can group up to 60 feet high!


Near KM163, we entered into the Catavina Boulder Field. It is probably the most scenic and interesting part of the Transpeninsular Highway. So here comes your geology lesson for the day. The thousands of rounded boulders are composed of granite rock. A mass of molten material was cooled slowly beneath the earth’s surface. Masses of granite rock tend to fracture vertically at the surface. The fractures are weathered by water and freezing temperatures (yes, it freezes here in the winter), and the rock mass breaks up into blocks. With further weathering, the blocks are rounded into the boulders. Pretty impressive.
Near KM165, we turned off the road onto a dirt road at the Ejido San Jose de las Palomas where we found a spot to boondock camp for the night. It isn’t far off the highway, but hardly anyone drives at night, so it should be pretty quiet.

We took a walk further down the dirt road – about a half mile and looked at the beautiful scenery.
There were some pretty fierce looking cactus along the way! I wouldn’t want to meet this fellow close up in any circumstance!

This is us tucked in among the boulders and cactus.

We were treated to a fabulous sunset over the desert. We only traveled 97 miles today, but it seems like it took forever! Most of the time we were only able to drive about 35mph!
Tobey still isn’t feeling very good, but he did grill steaks for dinner tonight – yummy! We will snuggle in and keep warm and try to get lots of rest and hopefully feel better tomorrow.

GPS: 29.80539N, 114.80034W