The southern half of the Baja peninsula is desert on both sides and sea on both sides, and the two seas behave nothing alike. The Pacific is cold, rough and full of whales; the Sea of Cortez is warm, clear and the richest body of water in the Americas — Cousteau's "aquarium of the world".
La Paz is the capital and the best base for that aquarium: whale sharks in the bay in winter, the sea lion colony at Los Islotes, and Espíritu Santo island offshore.
At the tip, Cabo San Lucas and San José del Cabo are the resort end — sportfishing, cruise ships and golf at the first, a quieter art-gallery old town at the second. Todos Santos on the Pacific side is the arty alternative.
The whale lagoons are the state's extraordinary thing. Grey whales swim down from the Arctic to calve at Guerrero Negro and San Ignacio between January and April, and the mothers bring their calves to the boats to be touched.
Loreto was the first Spanish settlement in the Californias, and Santa Rosalía is a French copper town with a prefabricated iron church attributed to Eiffel.
