Tijuana - La Paz

After spending a few days in Tijuana for Dia de los Muertos, we’re moving on to the south of Baja California. After Vancouver, San Francisco and Tijuana, we have seen the big city life and are looking forward to a warm, cozy place somewhere by the sea where we can swim. No sooner said than done – our next destination is La Paz, the capital of southern Baja California. It’s still a city with over 200,000 inhabitants, but that makes it 10 times smaller than Tijuana (which, incidentally, is the second largest city in Mexico after Mexico City – thanks Google).

But how do you get from Tijuana to La Paz? Unfortunately, trains are not an option in Mexico, they are only available in a few specific areas and the Baja is not one of them. That leaves bus or plane as possible means of transportation (okay, there’s also the thumb, but we’ll leave that out for now with our huge amounts of luggage and the rather mediocre Mexican security situation, which we couldn’t really get a feel for after our three days in Tijuana). We want to avoid the plane if possible, especially as it is by far the least ecological way to travel (9 times worse than a bus, if you believe this article from OurWorldInData). So the bus it is. The only problem is that the Baja is 200 km longer than the distance from Ticino to the heel in the boot of Italy and Tijuana and La Paz are pretty much at opposite ends. That’s 1500 km (the road zigzags a bit) and 24 hours on the bus (in one and the same bus, without changing). Your butt hurts just thinking about it, ouch. Despite our conviction not to fly, we start to ponder. Do we really want to do this to ourselves? Or should we make an exception and sit on the plane for two hours? As is so often the case, there are far too many arguments in favor of the non-ecological option: it’s a quarter cheaper, more comfortable (because it’s faster) and safer (sometimes intercity buses are robbed). We are thinking about offsetting the CO2 emitted, that would be an option. But how can this be done reliably? After the South Pole scandal, we are not sure if there is such a thing as reliable CO2 compensation methods. And offsetting is worse than simply emitting less. Sure, you could have Climeworks in Iceland pump as much CO2 out of the atmosphere as a flight emits. But that costs 7 times more than the actual flight (CHF 850), which doesn’t exactly fit into our travel budget. We toss and turn and have a nice accommodation in La Paz near the sea snatched from under our noses. Well. In the end, we tell ourselves that we’re not too old for this and buy two bus tickets.

When we finally arrive in La Paz an hour late (i.e. 25 hours on the bus), we are relieved that both we and our luggage have made it to our destination safely.