Tales of Old Mexico: Loreto Takes Root in Land of Queen Calafia's Baja California Bob Schulman - HuffPost Travel
go to original May 24, 2013

"Know, that on the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California...and it is peopled by black women, without any man among them, for they live in the manner of Amazons."

So wrote Spanish author Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo of a fictional paradise governed by a black super-woman he called Queen Calafia in his 1510 novel, Adventures of Esplandian. Among the book's fans was the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes, who after invading the Mexican mainland in the 1520s sailed west to what he'd heard was an island loaded with gold.

Like Christopher Columbus, Cortes thought the lands of the "New World" were part of the eastern side of the Indies, and that the island could have been de Montalvo's California.

Cortes landed in what was to become the Spanish region of Las Californias in 1535, but after striking out in his search for gold soon went back to the mainland.

Another expedition in 1539 found the "island" was actually an 800-mile-long peninsula (today's Baja California) edging the Pacific on one side and what Cortes named the Sea of Cortes on the side facing the mainland.

After many failed attempts to colonize Las Californias - the natives were disinclined to share their turf with the bearded invaders - a veteran Jesuit missionary was able to talk the local folks into letting him set up a mission there in 1697. Built on a spot the Jesuits named Loreto (after Our Lady of Loreto, the patron saint of the founding Jesuit priest), the mission turned out to be the Spaniards' first permanent colony on the peninsula.

Fast-forward to today, and Loreto is one of Mexico's 65 or so pueblos magicos (magic cities), so-designated in recognition of their heritage, culture and colonial ambiance. What's more, the city edges the spectacular Loreto Bay National Marine Park, which runs along 50 miles of shoreline and juts out 25 miles into the Sea of Cortes, all told covering some 800 square miles.

Read the rest at HuffPost Travel

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