Todos Santos

Happening upon a cluster of palm trees in the middle of the Mexican desert is something of a novelty. After driving many miles across the barren, dusty terrain of Baja California Sur, void of any signs of people or plant life (there are animals — cows and goats — that take their time crossing the road), Highway 19 suddenly rambles its way across the Tropic of Cancer and into a small town, where there are people and a few desert-dwelling plants. And, refreshingly, there are palm trees. A whole grove of them, in fact. Sprouting near them, as if they were dependent on one another, there is culture. And it’s thriving.
Todos Santos is home to dozens of galleries, restaurants and little shops, seemingly displaced in the middle of the desert. There is music and night life. There are fliers tacked on stucco walls advertising a film festival taking place over the weekend, and tattered posters remain from an art festival a few weeks back. There are locals and tourists mixing and mingling at a lazy, relaxed pace, pausing to make pleasantries with each other and admire the historic streets and sites around them.
All this lies about an hour’s drive northwest of Cabo San Lucas, Baja Sur’s premier party town, where a Hard Rock Cafe anchors a neon landscape lined with chain resorts, overpriced restaurants catering to cruise ships and American amenities transplanted for comfort. Needless to say, in this skinny sliver of Mexico, Todos Santos is an unexpected oasis of culture. Kind of like a palm tree in the middle of the desert.
Like many Mexican villages during the mid-18th century, Todos Santos was established by Jesuits spreading Christianity to the natives. It was a farming community that raised a lot of cane — sugar cane — and for decades the sugar industry thrived. The aquifers eventually dried up, and the industry died, leaving a legacy of poverty. But when the aquifers were revitalized three decades later, so was Todos Santos, and it began attracting artists. Studios, galleries and collectives were established. Commerce and tourism followed, almost in tandem. An artists’ colony was born.
Today, there are more than two dozen galleries in this town of 4,500, a significant number of whom are expatriates who came here to visit and never left. There are painting and drawing studios; there are craftsmen and women specializing in ceramics and tile. There are gallery walks, open houses and a huge eponymous arts festival that has taken place here every February for the past 11 years.
Todos Santos’ population surges during its Festival del Arte, and the little inns here get their fill. They run the gamut from historic and traditional to modern and stylish. Jenny Armit, a Londoner who settled in Todos Santos several years ago, runs The Hotelito on an unmarked dirt road in the hills behind town — the same road that leads to Playa La Cachora and Los Ballenas (the whales).
It’s easy to lose track of time there: The center and related museo are grouped in a former elementary school whose concrete-floored classrooms are littered with random artifacts and documents. Unidentified paintings hang crookedly next to unmarked, tattered black-and-white photographs above antique contraptions strewn on dusty bookshelves. Skulls and teeth of anonymous humans are haphazardly encased in ancient glass museum boxes void of any indication as to where they came from or why they were brought here. A few items are labeled; most are not.
In the courtyard, re-creations of historic dwellings. Some of this town’s history is more recent. Hotel California sits on Benito Juarez around the corner from the mission, and a pan flute rendition of the Eagles’ hit song is piped through the gift shop all day, every day. It is one of the most popular attractions here.