Playa Balandra

Balandra lies about twenty kilometres north of La Paz, on the Sea of Cortez side of the Baja California peninsula. It is a set of connected shallow bays enclosed by low desert hills, with a mushroom-shaped rock standing in the water that has become the emblem of the region.

It is known as the finest bay on a coast that Jacques Cousteau called the aquarium of the world, and as one of the places where Mexico has actively restrained tourism. Access has been progressively limited: a cap on daily visitors, restricted hours, a shuttle in place of open parking, and periods of full closure to allow the mangrove and seagrass to recover. The measures are unpopular with some operators and have visibly worked.

The water is the feature. The bays are so shallow that a person can wade several hundred metres and cross between them, over a bottom of pale sand and seagrass. There is no swell at all, the temperature is warm most of the year, and the colour under the desert light is the reason the place is photographed. Mangrove at the inner edges holds juvenile fish and birds. Four separate bays connect at low water, and most visitors never leave the first. Walking north over the low headland reaches sand that is usually empty, and kayaks launched from the main beach can cross to the far side of the lagoon in twenty minutes.

Nothing is built. There are toilets, shade structures and a ranger presence, and that is the extent of it — no restaurant, no shop, no rental. Everything must be carried in, and everything must be carried out; the rules on this are enforced.

A capped number of visitors, a shuttle, and water so shallow you can walk two hundred metres out without wetting your shoulders. The rock that gave the bay its name broke in 2021 and was repaired, which tells you both how fragile it is and how much the place matters locally.