The geology of the peninsula is similarly unique. Nowhere else can you find a 10,000-foot peak with such sheer walls. That they practically come down on top of the beach makes them all the more spectacular. But Baja's allure transcends its physical fixtures. Baja stands as the last home of the exotic frontier the Spaniards stumbled into in the 1500s.
Humans have yet to overrun it.
This place is detached from mainland U.S. and Mexico not only by distance, but by spirit. Many parts of it, even its human cultures, have stayed old, while the rest of our continent gets newer and cheaper. The coastlines accessible by paved road or airplane have begun to succumb, but a few miles down a dirt road or into the interior takes you back in time. It's toward one of these dirt roads that we aim now. Mexico Highway 5 heads south toward San Felipe on the eastern side of Baja.