The village is all cleaned up and hoping for visitors to help the local businesses recover from the costs of rebuilding and repairing the damages from the hurricane. Fall is the best here in Asuncion…great fishing, great weather and the best Baja hospitality on the peninsula!
HURRICANE HILARY BLASTS BAHIA ASUNCION! declared a disaster zone! Aug.26th
I want to sincerely thank all of our friends and clients for sending prayers during the storm, chatting with me for much of it and offering support & help afterwards.
It’s been a week since we started preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Hilary here on the central Pacific coast in the Municipality of Mulege. It seems like it was just yesterday as this week has been a whirlwind of emotion and massive clean up and recovery from the worst hurricane ever to hit our area. I am still physically very sore & traumatized grappling with the enormous task of repairing all the damage. Little by little with lots of help we are picking up the mess….I found things that blew out of my garage 2 miles away! The ocean waves were huge & came all the way up to the main street!
Here at La Bufadora Inn, the hotel part which is newer is fine with hardly any damage except to my beautiful gardens. Thanks to my friends and great crew we are all cleaned up & open for business and sure hope people come our way!
My house is in rough shape with some roof that flew off so it flooded badly. The walls were covered with sand and seaweed from the huge swells that lashed the cliffside. Two garages blew down completely & some gates torn off. In the morning when I took a look at the devastation, I was sure I parked my truck in the garage but there it was out in the open! I didn’t realize the whole garage was down. Campo Sirena was damaged too but will be finished fixing up today! The Beach House was fine! Just a lot of debris.
I have been trying to coordinate help for my daughter who suffered terrible damage at our new Hacienda Baja Magic. She is just starting out with her new business and really needs our help. Here is what she wrote about the storm.
SIRENA BONDY’S ACCOUNT OF HURRICAINE HILLARY…3 DAYS AFTER.
Reading through all the posts, comments and scrolling through photos that our friends took up and down Baja, I feel a knot form in my throat and tears in my eyes. As I look around our home, that doubles as our business and a home away from home for Baja Travelers, I realize the magnitude of damage that we sustained here at our Hacienda Baja Magic in Guerrero Negro as well.
The night of Saturday, August 19th, and early morning of Sunday, August 20th, 2023, our beloved towns of the municipality of Mulege in Baja California Sur, were hit by the largest hurricane I have seen in my 33 years on this planet.
As usual, a couple of days before, we heard on social media and weather platforms that a storm was coming. We began with our usual preparations, taking down tents, boarding up windows, reinforcing fences, tying down roofs, purchasing essentials like gas, canned food, drinking water, etc. I don’t think anyone was prepared for the amount of destruction that Hilary would leave in her wake.
As we were getting ready to go to bed Saturday night, I truly believed that it was “just another rain storm” and due to the fact we, in central parts like Guerrero Negro, rarely get hit too hard, I was confident that I would wake up to very little damage…I was wrong.
At about midnight power began to flicker and we could hear the wind raging outside of our bedroom window. Doors were rattling and trees were heard straining against the relentless winds. As my youngest son climbed into bed with me from a mattress I had put beside us on the floor for him. My first pinch of fear was “what if the window bursts and he is up here with us?” which sent my mind in to overdrive in a domino effect of plans and concerns for us, as well as all of our loved ones up and down the peninsula.
Then came the thought of my Mom, hours away, facing this raging storm by herself. I mentally reviewed all of her security measures and the strategies we had always had in place when I was growing up in case of a storm…while I felt confident that she could handle pretty much anything I was still worried to the point of being sick to my stomach.
All the while the door rattling became louder and more prominent…until finally I heard something crack. My first instinct was to jump up and go check what it was, but my partner Charly of course being the voice of reason, held me back and said we were in the safest place in our home and we could check on everything in the morning because it was not worth getting hurt over…I am so glad he did.
After a sleepless night of hearing glass breaking, wood cracking, and many loud bangs over the span of a few hours, daylight came through the blinds, and even though the storm raged on, the wind was considerably less than it had been hours before.
Not being able to wait any longer I clutched a flashlight and crept out to our living room, where through glass doors I saw the utter destruction in our clubhouse. The roof above our small indoor pool was torn clean off and was folded backward, laying on top of our kitchen roof, large beams still suspended almost in mid-air and clashing up and down with the wind still. Our front and back doors were broken open by the force of the winds. The cement wall top part was torn off and embedded in the part of the roof that had been raised about 15 cm. As I looked outside, I saw that a whole portion of our wooden fence had been completely blown down and was laying in the middle of the road covered by a large puddle with mud and debris from other homes in the area. Our beautiful garden which we spent months tending to and bringing back to glory was flattened, our trees bare, and not even birds could be heard.
I don’t think it fully registered until a couple of hours later when we tried to patch up everything as best we could, all I was focused on was survival mode in case the winds picked up again, not rationally realizing the storm was over.
I am well aware there were people that lost so much more, sadly this Hurricane took at least 4 lives, and we are fortunate to be healthy and have our loved ones safe and sound. However, the daunting task of rebuilding both the Baja Magic Hacienda and my Mom’s Bufadora Inn will be costly and ongoing… but as with everything we do it will be done with love and care.
We are so blessed to have friends and family that continue to support and help us, which truly does mean the world to us. We are overwhelmed by everyone’s response to this tragedy and appreciate the help you are all willing to give. So many of you have offered to bring construction materials down and while appreciated, we would really love to support our local businesses in buying materials for rebuilding, that way we can also help them get back on their feet. My Mom set up a link we can send you if you want to help with our recovery.
Everything raised here will go directly to the repairs needed so we can be up and running to receive guests as soon as possible. We will also be setting up a local drop spot here at the Hacienda for any clothes, blankets, materials people drop off when coming through which we in turn will deliver to other families in need locally.
We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for always stepping up and helping in our times of need, those who know us know we do not hesitate to do the same when our friends need us. If you care to help please go to my personal facebook page or to Baja Magicmx on Facebook to find the link to directly send donations to us.
https://donate.stripe.com/9AQ6oDdQM6Ow1YQaEE
SUMMER IS HERE! Come on over to the cool Pacific side of Central Baja to enjoy perfect outdoor activity weather with daytime temps between 75-85! You can fish from pangas, kayaks or shore fish, enjoy our beautiful running, walking & biking trails and fresh seafood in the restaurants, surf, sail or catch a baseball game at the stadium. Miles of empty beaches to explore and a super friendly, safe village which is like stepping back in time to old Baja!
If you are looking to escape the heat, I have a list of houses you can rent by the month starting at $350 a month that includes power, water and internet in most cases.
The local kids have been out preparing for the PacNorba Surf tournament that will be held on August 5. It’s free to enter and everyone is welcome! Here are some videos of the kids surfing this spring.
We are excited about a new project called PacNor Surf Alliance. The coastal villages of Bahia Tortugas, Bahia Asuncion, La Bocana & Pta.Abreojos are teaming up to represent our Zona Norte in the state surf competitions. Each village will hold tournaments and a point system for winners of their categories will determine who will represent our zone in bigger statewide surf competitions. The first PacNor tournament was on Nov. 20-21 in Bahia Tortugas and we helped fund raise to send some of our young surfers to compete.
We are so thankful to those who helped out with donations of gear and money to help the new club. We are setting up a new Surf Club here where kids can come and borrow wet suits, fins, leashes, & boards…a lending library…a Surfbrary! All the equipment donated by our friends & visitors will be catalogued and loaned out to the kids or visitors who want to surf too. This means many more kids here will have the chance to learn to surf or boogie board now that there is gear for them to use. So anyone who has any old wetsuits, surf & boogie boards, leashes, fins or wax please let me know and we can have someone pick up your donation!
It has been a pleasure to host Adventure Aaron Carlotta who is out to set a world record rowing around the world! He is an amazingly motivated man on a mission. Follow his epic journey on www.rowingmyboat.com
I had to see how “Smiles” rowed and all her high tech gear…what an amazing little vessel!
OCTOBER 2021 This is my favorite month as lots of activities turn on like lobster season….yummy! and sport fishing cranks up, surf and beach fun. And another local delicacy we enjoy are pithayas…great in Margaritas!
We have a new energetic Municipal President Edith Aguilar, who loves our village and with her support we hope to develop some beneficial programs of town cleanups & garbage collection, recycling, dog control and sports for youth projects.
We had a visit from a group of surfers from Bahia Tortugas who are launching a new alliance of surfers from our Pacifico Norte zone to bring together the villages that participate in this sport. They want to get a selection of surfers who win local tournaments to represent our area in bigger tournaments. They also hope to motivate young surfers to participate with programs to teach them water safety, swimming and surf lessons etc. to develop this sport in our villages on the central Pacific Coast. They invited us to visit Punta Abreojos with them to bring the towns together and we had a terrific time! We are IN and have some great ideas to get more kids involved!
SEPTEMBER 2021 We have yet to have any storm activity up here in Central Baja but have had wonderful weather with normal daytime temps in the low to mid 80’s. Fishing has been great with easy limits of yellow-tail!
But the big news is our beautiful waterfront promenade was finally officially inaugurated by the State Governor and Municipal President and Port officials. The new paved walkway is enjoyed by everyone as there is a kids park and lots of benches to sit on to enjoy the ocean view. The letters light up and change colours at night and the kids are loving skateboarding on the paved sidewalk!
AUGUST 2021 Summer is finally here in Asuncion as the ocean temps are warming up so we can spend more time in the water! On hot days, we cool off at the Blowhole in front of La Bufadora Inn. We have had a nice big swell from some storms passing offshore making it a fun day getting splashed by the waves!
It’s cooler out here at the point and nice for playing in the water!
JULY 2021 We celebrated Canada Day with friends at Gypsies to start the month off right! We had lots of guests this month so far…the state tourism department brought a film crew from Florida shooting a fishing video for their TV show.
Some very generous folks visited us and brought lots of surf stuff for prizes for our local surf clubs tournament..mil gracias for the donations!
The P-One kite board team from France visited us to film here for a video! Here are some highlights of their visit…proving that Asuncion is an awesome place to kite surf!!!
Los Choros was a spectacular beach to film 
the F-One team
Our guests are loving the tacos and fun ambiance at Chikirringis Tacos!
JUNE 2021 Spring is upon us and even though the ocean temperatures are still cold, our guests are enjoying surfing, kiteboarding, shore fishing, kayaking, fossil hunting, off roading and exploring all the pristine beaches in the area. Lots of cruising yachts are seeking refuge in our nice anchorage and we have been enjoying showing them around town and helping them provision!
