Some friends and I set off from the chaotic border town of Tijuana with a shiny new hire car and some mixed messages about the 780 miles of peninsula that snaked south. Although it is often described as a beautiful part of Mexico, we'd also heard about brutal drug cartels and gang violence, about spoilt Californian kids and their spring break excesses and about ritzy resorts with more media-hungry celebs than an Elton John charity gala – and were determined to avoid them all.
Coasting south on México 1, the transpeninsular highway, the real Baja California beckoned. Passing through several one-horse, two-taquería towns was a transition from US-friendly to Mexico proper. The paint began to peel and the roads crumble. Tumbleweed joined us in the fast lane as sandy roads snaked down to fishing villages and the Pacific. We saw guys hanging out roadside with white Stetsons squashed onto oil-black hair, and straight-backed men casually riding their horses into lopsided beer-shacks. Everywhere, colourful, wonky, hand-painted signs advertised tasty pismo clams, and carnitas – cartoons of laughing pigs in sunglasses and jaunty hats bathing in the lard that will fry them.
At San Quintin, 187 miles south of the border, we found a campsite hidden down a dusty track, beside the ocean. It was nearly empty, and its owner, Fidel, was downbeat: "You information people about my place," he said. "Look. You see how beautiful it is. But no one comes any more, the economy is so bad."
We pitched our tents and walked across the sand to the water. Weird black silhouettes drifted across the cloudless evening sky: pelicans, prehistoric-looking against the burning red backdrop, paused, then launched their bodies into the grey sea. On the shore, a group of young men unravelled a huge net and charged into the waves to dredge out twitching, glinting fish.
We woke to watch the sun rise over the dunes then, with sleep and cold clinging to us, we drove to Mama Espinosa's (bajaquest.com/espinosas), an hour down the road, in El Rosario. Steve McQueen was a regular at Mama E's, where he'd stop to fill up on coffee and lobster burritos during the Baja 1000, the wacky off-road thousand-mile-plus race, and every square inch of wall is covered with signed photos of four-wheel mayhem. Fired up by the stories and by huevos méxicanos (scrambled eggs with tomato, onion and green chilli for the red, white and green of the Mexican flag), we hit the road again.
From here, the México 1 cut away from the Pacific coast and into the Valle de los Cirios, carving up jagged hills and into the Desierto Central. Suddenly there were fewer cars, people, pigs wearing sunglasses; and more focus. The big skies, rocks and the winding, pot-holed road became the focus.
Searching for ancient Cochimí Indian cave paintings near the desert outpost of Cataviña, we parked up and walked between giant boulders, bulbous cardón cacti (the ones in all the cartoons) and straggles of cirios, their scrawny trunks reaching more than 10 metres in the air and a spurt of yellow blossom dangling forlornly at the top. We found the paintings, believed to be thousands of years old, on the ceiling in a cool little chamber, simple drawings of hunters and the sun, animals and shooting stars.
We sped south-east through unexpectedly green desertscapes; walls of cactus, cirio and elephant trees parted by the arrow-straight asphalt. As night approached, the plugs of volcanoes jutted into the purple-orange sky. The last 60 miles of our mammoth day's driving, winding down the Sierra de San Francisco from the desert plains to the coast, were a dreamlike blur of cliffs and men in cowboy hats.
Arriving at the beach near Mulegé, we pitched our tent and fell into the sea. Sparks of phosphorescence radiated from our arms and shooting stars crisscrossed the sky.
We spent a few days there, living like contented castaways. At our campsite we pitched tents under some threadbare thatched palapas with a tangle of mangrove behind us. There were a few American old-timers in RVs round the headland, and a couple of well-travelled yachts sheltering in the calm waters, but mostly it was just us, the fish and the pelicans. Provisions come from the beach cafe round the bay, or from our doorstep, where we dug up clams from the wet sands and cooked them on our bonfire, washed down with Tecate beer.
It was hard to leave, but soon we had another 80 miles under our wheels and arrived in Loreto. Founded in 1697 this was the original capital of the Californias (Baja and Alta); a thriving hub when LA and San Francisco were mere backwaters. The town's august history was still visible in its architecture: its promenade, church, town hall and well-manicured streets, and there was a fine mission museum too. But for us, the highlight was the food, in particular El Rey del Taco's fish and beef tacos, filled from great bowls of red chilli, fresh coriander, chopped tomato, shredded cabbage, lettuce, lime and salsa verde by Francisco, the cheery Taco King.
We spent a couple of days kayaking in Loreto's 800 square-mile marine park, paddling three miles to the deserted Isla Danzante, to camp and drink homemade margaritas under dramatic cliffs, surrounded by aquamarine waters, our only company clouds of yellow butterflies. We snorkelled waters teeming with fish – at times shoals clattered to the surface from the deep, like rain showers in reverse. There were cherry red crabs, clown fish, flying fish, dolphins, sleeping sea lions, manta rays and puffer fish.
Our final stop was San Javier, where we'd heard there was a religious festival taking place – a fitting goal in our search for the "true" Baja. The Fiesta de San Javier was a riot of live music and dancing, bucking broncos and shooting alleys, stalls selling cowboy hats and lucha libre masks, tripe tacos and "beer-bloody-marys".
The finale was what we'd all remember: El Torro, the human firecracker, running through the whooping crowd, blazing fireworks tied to his back and a crazed look in his eye. A burning man wasn't entirely what we had expected from a religious festival in a 300-year-old mission. But then we had already learned that you can never guess what lies ahead in Baja California – the best policy is just to buckle up and enjoy the ride.
• Take a Greyhound bus (greyhound.com) from LA or San Diego to Tijuana airport via the Mesa de Otay border crossing; hire a car at the airport with Thrifty (thrifty.com) or Europcar (europcar.com) – a better option than hiring in the US. Camping sites with very basic facilities are often free; none of the sites visited on this trip cost more than US$5. Camping in the marine park is free but you need to register at the reserve office in Loreto; a wristband allowing you to kayak costs US$5 per day. The San Javier festival runs for three days, culminating on 3 December
Three more Latin American trips
Wolf-watching, Brazil
Santuário do Caraça, a former monastery in Brazil's Parque Natural do Caraça, about 310 miles north-west of Rio de Janeiro, in Minas Gerais state, is now a spectacular tourist destination. Popular with writers, pilgrims and city-weary citizens of Belo Horizonte (the state capital), it offers cheap and unusual accommodation and access to wilderness trails.
Its primary draw, however, is the chance to view the reclusive lobo guará (maned wolf). These creatures are the largest canines in South America, almost a metre tall, and a threatened species, yet they regularly visit the stone courtyard in the shadow of the monastery's chapel. For 20 years Brother Thomaz laid scraps of meat and bones in the grounds, gaining the trust of a family of five wolves.
I staked my place in the courtyard and I was immediately confronted by the animal, much bigger even than I'd expected. I stood motionless, the eerie silence adding to the atmosphere. There were only two other guests, both writers, both regular visitors and with whom I chatted and shared a bottle of wine. Our companions were the two wolves that intermittently appeared, always inducing a reverent hush.
• Shared rooms from R$70 (£25) per person, full board (+55 31 3837 2698, santuariodocaraca.com.br)
Andy Hewitt, English teacher and traveller
Desert train, Chile
For any flashpackers crossing Chile, there's a new way to experience the Atacama desert. The TransAcatama uses two refurbished vintage trains (the first-class carriages were built in Belgium in the 30s, the second-class carriages in Chile in the 60s) to whisk travellers 100km from Iquique to Pintados in the Pampa del Tamarugal every Saturday morning, passing ancient cemeteries and abandoned mining towns.
Pintados is renowned for its hundreds of geoglyphs – pre-Inca geo art carved into the hillsides. The journey ends with a visit to the Humberstone and Santa Laura salt basins, which were declared a Unesco world heritage site in 2005, before speeding you back to your hotel.
• A day trip on the TransAtacama costs from £156 including lunch and pick-up from your hotel (transatacama.com)
Jenny Wilkinson, of Cazenove+Loyd (020-7384 2332, cazloyd.com), which tailormakes trips to the region, including the TransAtacama train
Amazon hot spot, Suriname
Suriname, deep in the Amazon, is opening up to tourism. The city of Paramaribo will entertain you for a few days, then you can visit Amerindian and Maroon villages, and explore the rainforest that covers nearly 80% of the country. Discovering the rivers and dense forest is challenging but worth the effort, as there are few destinations in the world that offer such experience and adventure.
• Suriname Tourism Foundation (+597 424878, suriname-tourism.org). KLM flies to Paramaribo from London Heathrow via Schiphol from £912 return (0871 222 7474, klm.com)
Paul Bondsfield, of Round the World Experts (roundtheworldexperts.co.uk)