by Bryan Jáuregui | Culture, Food
by Todos Santos Eco Adventures
Todos Santos has a well-deserved reputation as a food lover’s paradise, with our many fabulous restaurants, cafés and wine bars. But what you may not know is that Todos Santos also has some pretty darn good taco stands. In fact, our official, self-appointed, Mexico City taco snob has reviewed the taco scene in Todos Santos and has pronounced our town’s taquerias to be right up there with the big-city greats. We interviewed 4 taco stands in town to find out about the people behind the tacos and to answer that burning question: what makes a great taco, a great taco?
El Pastorcito
- Best for: tacos al pastor and carne asada
- Hours: 7:00 AM to 1:00 AM daily. Except maybe some days in summer.
The 2 Lucias who run El Pastorcito have been offered significant sums of money to reveal the secrets of their tacos al pastor, but they’re not selling or telling. “We get the pork in from Cabo San Lucas then do all the preparation here. It’s a secret recipe of the owner. But we do use the traditional pineapple on the top and bottom of the meat, or sometimes an onion on the bottom. That’s all we can tell you!” When asked what makes a great taco a great taco, they said it’s all in the preparation of the meat and the salsas. “Salsas must be prepared fresh everyday with fresh ingredients. We buy all local Todos Santos produce for the salsas and it makes a nice difference.” For vegetarians El Pastorcito also serves papas rellenos and quesadillas. Beer, soft drinks and water for sale. El Pastorcito was started 3 years ago by Alejandro Fuerte, a 20-year resident of Todos Santos who moved here from Michoacan.
Taco George’s
- Best for: fish tacos
- Hours: 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM every day but Thursday
Taco George’s
This taco cart on the side of the road is a celebration of Baja California Sur’s great contribution to Mexican cuisine – the fish taco! Started 10 years ago by the original “George” Jorge Ramirez Rodriguez of La Paz, it is now run by George Jr. who moved to Todos Santos 2 years ago to take over management of the stand from his father. He’s done pretty well by the old man – in high season he moves 300 to 400 tacos a day from his cart. George buys his fish from the local fishermen at Punta Lobos and is proud to be serving a Todos Santos-sourced meal. When asked what makes a great taco a great taco he plays his cards close to the chest. ‘Oh, nothing special. That I can tell you about.” Soft drinks available for sale.
Barajas Tacos
- Best for: carnitas con cuero and chicharron
- Hours: 8:00 AM to Midnight, every day but Tuesday
Ruben at Barajas Tacos
Started by La Paz resident Jorge Barajas in 1995, Barajas is a long-time favorite with residents and visitors alike. When asked what makes a great taco, Esmeralda and Ruben – both of whom have worked at Barajas for 11 years – said it all comes down to the people who prepare the pork for the carnitas. As it happened, the new carnita supplier for Barajas was there during our meal (the old supplier went on vacation and never came back) and he explained “It’s all about the correct combination of time and heat, and knowing how to get this right takes years of practice. We cook the meat with onion, garlic and orange – and maybe a few other things too.” Vegetarians in the crowd? Barajas also serves papas rellenos (stuffed potatoes) an assortment of quesadillas, and fish/shrimp tacos. Only soft drinks and water available for drinks, but you can bring your own beer or wine.
El Tacos y Mariscos Sinaloense
- Best for: smoked marlin and shrimp tacos
- Hours: 7:00 AM to 2:00 AM every day except Monday. Tacos during the day and mariscos (seafood) at night.
Jose Luis at El Sinaloense
Looking for a more peaceful environment, Jose Luis Ibarra Grimaldi, his wife Maria and their children moved to Todos Santos from Mazatlan four years ago. But they retain their Sinaloa ties and buy their shrimp and smoked marlin from there (Jose Luis reminds us it’s all the Sea of Cortez!). When asked what makes a great taco a great taco, Jose Luis doesn’t hesitate. “There are really 3 main factors: 1. The product – what you put into it. We only buy the best. 2. Spices and salsas. We take great pride in our salsa bar. 3. Service.” El Sinaloense also serves a variety of meat tacos, papas rellenos and quesadillas. Soft drinks, orchata and water available.
This list is just representative of some of the taco joys you can find in our pueblo magico. Got your own favorite taco joint in Todos Santos? Tell us all about it!
© Copyright Sergio and Bryan Jauregui, Casa Payaso S de RL de CV, 2011
by Bryan Jáuregui | Adventure, Culture
by Todos Santos Eco Adventures
This article on Hollywood horse champion Kaia Thomson is the third in our series, The Saints of Todos Santos, which profiles some of the people who help put that spark of magic into our pueblo magico.
Queens may come and go, but queen-makers are a special force to be reckoned with, and Kaia Thomson has made 14 queens…so far. In 2005 Kaia was running a 55-acre ranch with 60 horses where she had trained 12 Gymkhana champions and 14 rodeo queens, including Brandy De Jongh, Miss Rodeo America 2000. She was at the top of her game in the horse world with students, horses in training and competing. Then she decided to move to Todos Santos. “It was my 50th birthday and I decided that I just had to move to Mexico with my horses. All my friends thought I was crazy, but I wanted to do something radical. I just had to do it.” So she did. She finished out the year on her ranch and arrived in Todos Santos in December 2005 with 3 horses and the remains of her worldly possessions. It’s now hard to imagine what the town would be like without Kaia and her incredible skills as a teacher, rider, trainer, naturalist and photographer.
Kaia Demonstrating Her Skill at a Reined Cow Horse Competition
Kaia is one of the most down-to-earth people you’re likely to meet in this life. A characteristic that is not explained by the fact that Kaia is a true Hollywood gal who grew up under the Hollywood sign, spent a lot of time on Hollywood Boulevard and had her first horseback riding lesson at the age of 4 at Sunset Ranch Hollywood Stables. She went to Hollywood High School with many (now famous) stars and worked at a tack shop where she regularly rubbed shoulders with the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Sam Shephard, Richard Farnsworth, and Juice Newton. She worked for Glen Randall who trained Roy Rogers’ horse Trigger (“he said Trigger was the smartest horse he ever met – he could recognize over 100 words and cues”) as well as with Glen’s protégés Rex Peterson and Bobby Lovegren who trained horses for movies such as Black Beauty, Hidalgo, Zorro, and The Horse Whisperer. She ponied horses for Laz Barrera, renowned trainer of Affirmed (the last horse to win the Triple Crown) and worked alongside many champions on race days at Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Del Mar racetracks. She rode a horse named Madrid, a grandson of Bold Ruler – Secretariat’s sire – and trained, competed and won in dressage, jumping and showmanship. She traded a saddle for a mule in the Sierra Nevada’s and competed on mules for over 16 years. She saw a Reined Cowhorse Show in Las Vegas in 1989, and soon became a regular on the National Reined Cow Horse Association circuit. She trained with Teddy Robinson, the world’s greatest Reined Cow Horse champion, and acquired the exceptional horse skills required to rein, cut and work cattle in competition. Kaia thrived on the perfect complement of sportsmanship, connection and discipline that horse competition in all its variety demanded. Then she fell in love.
Silver Drift, a dorsal-striped dun charmer affectionately known as Fourteen, was Kaia’s equine soul mate, the greatest horse she ever owned. She got him in 1996, and loved to gather cattle and team rope with him. “Roping on 14 was like riding on mashed potatoes with extra butter…everyone wanted me to head for them!” They had a great partnership and he helped her train some of those rodeo queens on her ranch. “Then on a Friday the 13th in 1999, he was just playing in his paddock and broke his leg. We had to put him down. I was devastated. It almost made me quit horses altogether. To distract me, some friends took me to Catalina Island to go scuba diving, and I was completely hooked. I went all the way through instructor and about 20 specialty courses, mainly because I loved being able to engage in one of my great passions – photography – under water. This is what led me to Baja because in 2000 I came to La Paz for my birthday to go scuba diving in the Sea of Cortez – which I even did once in my birthday suit! I absolutely loved it and started coming back 2 to 3 times every year to dive. On one of these trips it was too windy to dive so a friend suggested that we check out this little town called Todos Santos. When I got here I realized that I’d seen all this lush greenness in the desert several times from the air. I loved it.”
Kaia Jumping
While it seemed like a wild decision to walk away from the incredible life that she’d built in the horse world in the U.S., Mexico was a natural fit. “Mexico is founded on ranchero culture – horses, mules, burros – all used for transport and working the ranch. Mexicans are very proud of their horse heritage. The Criollos, the local horses, can all trace their lineage back to the horses that Hernán Cortés brought to Mexico over 500 years ago and turned loose before heading back to Spain. Mexico now even has its own official breed of horse, the Española, a cross between Andalusians and quarter horses. This mixture is meant to create the ultimate caballo de charro or rodeo horses, and they’ve been pretty successful with this.”
“The horse community here has been so welcoming to me. My horse buddies and I are always invited to ride in the cabalgatas (horse parades or trail rides) and these are an enormous amount of fun. These are often 2 days and 1 night, and will have over 200 riders on horses, burros and mules. There are around 30 cabalgatas a year in the little towns around southern Baja, and the one we participate in the most ends in an extravaganza at the stadium in Todos Santos where the Escaramuza ladies put on a great show. These are young women who ride in a drill team style formation at a full gallop to emulate the women of the revolution who would put on their colorful adelitas – pretty dresses with full flowing skirts – and head out on horseback to attract the men of the enemy. When the men got into firing range the escaramuzas would sling the hidden rifles off their shoulders and aid the rest of the army with the task at hand. Lots of the local cowboys also do horse dancing and trick riding. We also get invited to a lot of the horse races on straight tracks that are held in all the different towns. After the “fancy” horses run, sometimes my students will ride one of my horses in the races – we’ve actually won 6 out of 7!”
Heri and Javier at an Internado Competition
One of the reasons the local horse community is so fond of Kaia is because of her work with the Internado, the boarding house for ranch kids who come to Todos Santos to go to school. Each year the Internado has an Annual Open House to raise funds, and Kaia trains the Internado students for 2 months to prepare them for the competition that they put on as part of the fundraiser. Past events have included simulating ranch tasks like catching a chicken, roping a cow, and “killing” a bandito with a machete, all from the back of a galloping horse (chicken/cow/bandito dummies used), as well as barrel racing and cavalry-style carousels. Throughout the rest of the year Kaia sponsors the Internado kids to come to her place once a week to go riding and work the horses with her.
The Internado students are not the only ones who benefit from Kaia’s generosity with her talents. For each edition of the town’s local magazine, El Calendario, Kaia – a “self-appointed naturalist” – donates two pages of her amazing photographs which document the wild beauty of the flora and fauna of Baja. She also usually contributes an article or two on local businesses, people of note, or natural history. “I always completely embrace wherever I am. I’ve been fewer places than some people, but I know a great deal about many aspects of those few places and I love sharing that knowledge.”
Luckily for the people of Todos Santos, residents and visitors alike, Todos Santos is one of those few places where Kaia has chosen to shine her light and share her knowledge. She has a really fun place where you can train in dressage, jumping and gymkhana. Or you can just go on a Todos Santos Eco Adventures sunset ride with Kaia, and ask her about endemic bird species…or the life spans of local cactus… or Mexican charro rodeo regulations…or whale shark feeding habits in the Sea of Cortez….or the beauty secrets of rodeo queens…or what it really feels like to be an American cowgirl living in a magic Mexican village.
Kaia with Friends in Todos Santos
© Copyright Sergio and Bryan Jauregui, Casa Payaso S de RL de CV, 2011
by Bryan Jáuregui | Adventure, Culture, Travel Industry
by Todos Santos Eco Adventures
Entrepreneurial Surfer Mario Becerril is the focus of this second installment in our series The Saints of Todos Santos, a fun look at some of the Todos Santos residents who really put the magic into our Pueblo Magico.
Sometimes mother really does know best. Mario’s mother moved the family from Mexico City to La Paz when Mario was 12 years old, and she quickly prioritized her educational goals for Mario in their new ecotourism-centered home town on the ocean. “My mother insisted that I learn to speak English and that I learn how to swim.” Luckily for folks who come to Todos Santos for surf instruction, he learned to do both extremely well! Mario is now widely considered the best surf instructor in the area and has built up a successful surfing school that is unmatched in terms of equipment, instructor talent, student success and – let’s face it – sheer fun. But it took some hard work to get here.
Mario Surfing at Los Cerritos. Photo by Kaia Thomson
Mario went to a high school in La Paz that specializes in preparing kids for a career in Baja California Sur tourism. As part of their coursework students are required to participate in all the main tourist activities in the area, including sport fishing, kayaking, scuba diving, sailing and so forth. So at the age of 16 Mario came to Los Cerritos Beach in Todos Santos to learn how to surf, the same beach where he teaches his own surf students these days. “After I caught that first wave at Los Cerritos I was completely hooked. For the rest of high school and all of college I came to Todos Santos every single weekend I could to surf. The incredible joy of surfing, the magic of Todos Santos, all combined to make Todos Santos the only real place for me to live once I graduated from college.”
Once he completed his degree in foreign business at the University of BCS in La Paz, Mario headed straight to Los Cerritos and hasn’t looked back since. He started working as a surf instructor for a small surf business at the beach, and soon realized that he had a natural gift for transmitting knowledge. His goal became to make the sheer exuberance of surfing accessible to everyone, so over the next 3 years he developed Mario’s Infallible Surfing Technique (MIST), the teaching tool that he uses at Todos Santos Eco Adventures’ Baja Surf Camp for Women. He’s serious about this. “If you don’t get up on the board during your first surf lesson I’ll give you your money back. We have a 3-step technique for people who come to us with better balance and strength, and a 4-step technique for those who need a little more work in these areas. But they all get up – and have fun doing it.” Mario notes that Los Cerritos is a particularly perfect beach for learning how to surf. “It doesn’t really matter what the weather is like or how big the surf is. The Cerritos magic is that we can always find a safe area for beginners to learn. The smooth and sandy bottom is a big plus as well.” And unlike some well-known surf spots there is no pollution in the ocean at Todos Santos.
Imparting Mario’s Infallible Surfing Technique
To get the money he needed to build up his own surfing school Mario taught surfing 7 days a week at the beach and tended bar 6 nights a week in town. He even built his first 10 surf boards himself. Now, 12 years after moving to Todos Santos fulltime, Mario simply is surfing in Todos Santos. Even the big surf outfits out of Cabo and elsewhere on the Cape admit that Mario’s got the best equipment around, as well as the best-trained, most effective instructors. “We have such a great group of instructors. They are all Mexicans and they’re all from around this area. And of course they are all masters of the Infallible Technique!
Surfer Mario at Mario’s Bar
In addition to his surfing school Mario also runs Mario’s Bar at The Hotelito on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. His mother now lives in Todos Santos too!
© Copyright Sergio and Bryan Jauregui, Casa Payaso S de RL de CV, 2011
by Bryan Jáuregui | Culture, Food
by Todos Santos Eco Adventures
This piece on Chef Dany is the first in our series The Saints of Todos Santos, which focuses on those residents of Todos Santos (All Saints) who help give the town its most magical, mystical and memorable qualities – and whom you’d be most likely to meet on one of your adventures with us.
Chef Dany Lamote moved to Todos Santos from Canada, where he had been very much involved in the slow food movement, a practitioner of “think global, eat local”. When he was operating the Latin-fusion restaurant Mescalero in Calgary, this philosophy put such eclectic fare as elk burritos and salmon ceviche on the menu. Now that he is living between two oceans here in Todos Santos, Dany’s eat-local focus brings out fabulous seafood dishes, complemented by a wonderful variety of fruit. “Here in Todos Santos we have fresh, tree-ripened star fruit, tree-ripened mangos and lichees, and vine-ripened passion fruit. There simply is no equivalent in Canada. These fresh-off-the-plant fruits are great for making salsas for the fish, and of course we also use them to make drinks, margaritas and desserts.”
Chef Dany at Santo Vino
Dany moved to Todos Santos in 2002 as the Executive Chef of the Hotel California, a job which he still holds. He also has his own restaurant now – Santo Vino – which is dedicated to showcasing food and drink produced in Baja. “Baja’s wine country in Valle de Guadalupe is in full swing now, it is very dynamic. Most of the people making wine in Baja are very small producers, and we showcase a lot of these wines here at Santo Vino.” Having Dany pair Baja wines with his Baja dishes is one of the great joys of a meal at Santo Vino. Dany also features Baja-brewed beer!
In the cooking classes that he runs as part of Todos Santos Eco Adventures’ Cooking Adventures Week in Todos Santos, Dany focuses on sharing what he has learned through almost a decade of deep immersion in Mexican food culture. “When people come to my cooking class in Todos Santos I try to give them the opportunity to work with ingredients they’ve never used before – or maybe never even heard of before. I want them to leave with the satisfaction that they’ve gained a much deeper understanding of the culture than they ever could have gained from eating in restaurants only.”
Dany is a graduate of the CERIA Culinary Institute in Brussels, Belgium. He immigrated to Canada in 1979 where he eventually settled in Calgary. He was a partner in many successful restaurants and an inventive influence in the movement that put Calgary on the international culinary stage during the 1988 Winter Olympics. After moving to Todos Santos in 2002 Dany published the colorful The Hotel California Tequila Cookbook which reflects his love of discovering a beautiful new place to live.
© Copyright Sergio and Bryan Jauregui, Casa Payaso S de RL de CV, 2011
by Bryan Jáuregui | Culture
As most of you know, the name of our home town – Todos Santos – means “All Saints”. Most of you also know that Todos Santos has been designated as one of 36 Pueblo Magicos
, or Magic Villages in Mexico. So what is it that draws all these spiritual, mystical and magical designations to the place? Well of course there is the incredible juxtaposition of the desert and ocean, the inspiring rise of the Sierra de la Laguna Mountains, the lush fields of strawberries, chiles, palms and mango trees, that wondrous air quality of a true desert oasis. All of these make Todos Santos a truly amazing place.
But more than that it is most likely the people who are drawn to these elements that really give the town its most magical, ethereal qualities. In years past we had the builders and traders like Tobasco Wang who built the Hotel California, Antonio Cota who built the hacienda that became the Todos Santos Inn, Don Pepe Santana who owned a sugar mill and lived in the building that is now the Cafe Santa Fe, and Ramon Wong, who built two stores and a cantina in town and married the daughter of a revolutionary hero. All these people came to Todos Santos to pursue their dreams and revel in the natural beauty.
Today the Saints of Todos Santos are both descendents of the town’s early settlers, and those who’ve followed since the artist Charles Stewart moved to Todos Santos in the early 1980s. Todos Santos is now home to a vast array of talented Mexicans and expatriots who enrich the town with their skills as chefs, artists, farmers, fishermen, photographers, craftsmen, writers, poets, surfers, architects, naturalists, teachers, environmentalists, storekeepers, adventurers, massage therapists, spiritual leaders, yoga practitioners…and more! We’ll be creating profiles of some of these “saints” of Todos Santos – those who help give the town its most special qualities – and whom you’d be most likely to meet on one of your adventures with us. Stay tuned to meet the Saints of Todos Santos!
