La Paz Recap & the CONANP Island Permit Adventure

 3-14-13 – Bahia San Gabriel, Isla Espiritu Santo, Baja California Sur, Mexico

From the obnoxiously long location above, you can tell we’ve moved on from the Marina Palmira in La Paz.  Less than 14 miles from a city of ¼ million we are anchored in a bay with crystal clear turquoise water, 30 foot visibility and the perfect crescent shaped white sand beach.  This place is fairly incredible and I can’t wait to see the rest of the islands.

E on the beach at Bahia San Gabriel

Back to La Paz.  La Paz was a good stop.  Pretty low key but fun and productive.  You can read the previous post to learn about The Shack and their great burgers.  We also made a stop by Harker’s Board Shop; a paddleboard rental shop that also serves killer burgers (do you see a trend here) and has Baja Brewing’s beer on tap.  

Harker Boards / Restaurant & Bar on the malecon

We walked the beautiful malecon into town couple of times.  We found the “cow” store, as recommended by more than one person, for all of our provisioning needs.  Took a nice hike up to the hill that overlooks the marina, went to a little pizza party for dock 3 people who were departing and generally met a lot of good people.  Oh yeah, like the good law abiding square people we are, we also procured out CONANP Island Nature Permits.  Just in case you were wondering, the Sea of Cortez is “the second most diverse marine body in the world” per the Nature Conservancy.  I suppose that qualifies it as a place worthy of requiring a permit to visit.

La Paz Malecon

Looking west from the breakwater at the marina

Back to the desert

View from the top of the hill of La Paz, the marina and the channel

This adventure was to be a quick one, we thought.  The guide to the Sea of Cortez we have been using by Shawn and Heather, which is all you need to say for everyone to know which guide you are talking about and seems to have become most cruisers bible to Mexican Cruising, informs you of the need for a permit to visit the islands.  While you could pay by the day if they come to check you, which is highly unlikely in itself, it only seems right to donate a little cash to the Mexican government in support of keeping their spectacular natural places natural.  So we know we need a permit and the guide tells you exactly where to go to get the permit, only about a mile walk from the marina.  Just to double check we Googled the CONANP offices and confirmed what the guide said as to location.  After a nice morning run on the malecon we grabbed our morning coffee and caught the 9:30A shuttle into town thinking we could knock this task out quickly and grab some chiliquiles, one of the better breakfast items in Mexico, for breakfast on the walk back.  We were on the second round of the shuttle so we had some time to talk with Mariam, a lady we had met earlier on our trip North from Banderas Bay in the anchorage at Ipala on s/v Solarwind.  Her husband had just procured their permits a few weeks ago and it sounded like it was a little more of a process than we had originally given it credit for.  In all honestly we should have seen that coming as we were dealing with a Mexican governmental agency.  No worries, we could figure it out before breakfast it wasn’t that far away.  The shuttle arrives and the ever nice Christian, the driver who gets to cart all these Gringos and Canadians into town every day, politely tells us that CONANP has moved.  Waaaaayy out by Wal-Mart; yes even in Mexico there are Wal-Marts everywhere, and just like the States they strategically place them at  the outskirts of large towns.  Precisely far enough away that the free shuttle doesn’t go there, it’s really too far to reasonably walk and you then need to figure out the local bus system or take a cab.  At this time we decide that we should probably go get a shower after our run, eat some breakfast and pack some provisions for this adventure.  Out of the shuttle we go to regroup.  We stopped by the marina office where they graciously called CONANP and confirmed the location which she was then unable to precisely relay to us.  But we did have a map with a circle around about three blocks and knew that it was about 5 blocks past the VW dealer.

After a shower and some breakfast I ventured over to s/v Solarwind to get the real story about these permits.  Mariam’s husband Lanam proceeds to go into a lengthy story that you couldn’t make up and which we soon thereafter experienced.  Note to all of our cruising friends, Shawn and Heather’s guide is in fact wrong about the CONANP office location, as was the internet, so obviously there are only a select few of us who know where this place actually is and in order to spare you this “adventure” read on for the details. 

Notice the symbol, your only indication this is the CONANP office

We decided to grab a cab and after haggling with him, as his price was for some reason 50% higher than the last guy we talked to, headed toward this circle on the map. A thing that made the cab driver a little uneasy to start with.  He was much more used to going to specific locations, not ideas of locations.  From Marina Palmira you follow the malecon into town on Paseo Alvaro Obregon and then continue past Marina de La Paz on the same road that is now called Abasolo, go figure.  Carry on for a little while and when you see the VW dealer and the Mega, keep going about 5 blocks or so.  Here is the key: the road, which is now a 4 lane with a planter median, (some would call it a boulevard) has been going fairly straight for a while and will make a slight left turn.  That’s where it is on your left.  I would say that it is across from the Modelorama on the right, just after this slight left turn, but that’s like saying to someone in the states, it’s just across the street from Starbucks.  The building is a low laying building that could have been an old Motel 6 or something of that nature.  It has an eight foot tall rust red stucco wall along the main road.  Look for the CONANP symbol because it is really the only thing to distinguish this place.  There was no road name or address to speak of in sight.  Now you have found the building.  That’s a good start.  We bypassed some of the next disaster as we ran into some friends at this exact point who guided us thru the mess. 

View of the CONANP office as you approach on Abasolo

B sneaking around the second corner

The CONANP permit office

Once you enter the overly aggressive security lady may or may not ask for your name and first born.  Apparently, she will then lead you around the corner into an empty courtyard with no one in sight, and then around another corner, this one you need to turn sideways to fit between the building and the wall.  There you will find another dirt courtyard and a little outbuilding that houses the permit people.  Don’t worry what could go wrong with this,  you’re in an old motel 6 converted into a government building, being lead into the farthest back room by a security guard on a dirt street with no name and no one around?  Not to worry the lady behind the desk, Mirtha Susana, at the permit place is super friendly and speaks great English.  In about three minutes she will have you on your way….to the bank to pay for your permit before returning to her to get your permit before getting a cab back to the marina.  Yes, sometimes you just have to laugh.  Apparently, they do not have any 2013 year passes, which are like credit cards you put in your wallet.  So in order to have something to show the park ranger once out at the island you will need to keep your receipt, but since this is Mexico and governmental agencies have a tendency to “lose” money, they make you pay at a bank and then bring the receipt back to the office to receive your permit.  

The walk back to Mega and the Banamex

Once again we lucked out and had some friends with a car to drive us to the bank, wait for us and then drive us back to the CONANP office.  If you don’t have any friends, you will need to walk or take a cab about 1 mile back to the Mega and on the other side of the street is a Banamex.  Then walk about a mile back to the CONANP office to get your permit.  Then get home somehow.  When we arrive back at the office she had our stuff ready to go, was incredibly nice and very apologetic about the lack of 2013 park passes.  In order to make the best use of our cab ride home we walked to Mega, loaded up on groceries and caught a cab from there back.  Once again having to haggle with the cabbie who wanted to charge us even more than the first guy and we were closer!  All this to pay a little less than $50 USD for two, year long passes to the Sea of Cortez islands.

So if I was you this is what I’d do:  Get a cab to the CONANP office, should be about 80 pesos.  Walk thru the lobby like you know where you are going, head left into the courtyard and left again around the building.  Say hi to Mirtha Susana, walk to the Banamex, pay and walk back.  Say hi to Mirtha Susana again and then walk to Mega.  Have a piece of pizza for lunch, buy some groceries, and get a cab home from there.   So now we have a receipt for the permit we tried to get, which is just as good as the real thing I guess.  Mirtha wrote a note on the receipt to give to the park rangers so that should cover us!