Climate, landscape and gastronomy in one place
Mexicali is “the city that captured the sun.” There is no better phrase that describes the desert climate and the hot days that prevail in the capital of Baja California, north of Mexico. However, the border city is much more than hot land, it is a destination that is open to adventure tourism, cultural, gastronomic, rural, even enology, as it is part of the new wine route of the state, Puerta Norte, which crosses through Tecate and Valle de San Quintín.
The cultural and gastronomic offer is concentrated in the center of the city. Here you can find a mixture of Chinese food restaurants (recognized as the best in the country), food trucks and craft breweries, historic buildings such as: la Escuela Cuauhtémoc (The Cuauhtémoc School), today designated to be the Casa de la Cultura (House of Culture); el Instituto de Bellas Artes (Institute of Fine Arts), which was originally the Banco Agrícola Peninsular in 1927; the Centro Estatal de las Artes (State Center for the Arts) created to offer traveling exhibitions of painting and sculpture; and the Teatro del Estado (State Theater), which is part of the heritage of the Instituto de Cultura de Baja California (Baja California Institute of Culture).
What else can you find in Mexicali?
Art, science and technology are admired at the Museo Sol del Niño ( Sol del Niño Museum) and at the Parque Temático de Energías Alternas (Alternative Energies Themed Park), a unique educational and training center, one of its kind in Mexico, to learn everything related to solar energy.
To take a look at the surroundings of Mexicali is to encounter the Laguna Salada, a sandy depression to travel by mountain bike or off-road vehicles. That same road leads to the Cañon de Guadalupe ( Guadalupe Canyon) and its natural hot springs and cave paintings. The Hardy River, the only navigable river in the state of Baja California, offers cabins for stargazing and boat or kayak rides.
Mexicali also shines for its rural communities, such as the Cucapá settlement, who offer interpretative walks through its ceremonial center and purification rituals.
And if your traveler’s soul wants a dose of adrenaline, then there are parachute jumps and sandboarding in the Dunas de Cuervitos, the highest in Baja California.
