May unload its catch of fresh fish -- whole or with the heads, viscera, or fins removed (46USC55114)

Once upon a time, Baja California was home to a piece of Hollywood in Mexico. Baja Studios, a 46-acre production facility, was built to film the movie Titanic. Scenes from Tomorrow Never Dies, Master and Commander, and Pearl Harbor followed, some of them in the world's largest water-filming tank, which provides a "420-foot long seamless (infinite) horizon with the Pacific Ocean." When tourists were still coming to the peninsula, the studio opened its doors for visits. Now, the closest you can get is Popotla, a former fishing village reached through a crumbling arch and via a rutted road abutting the studios.

The now ramshackle set of stilted seafood restaurants seems to have inherited the studios' movie magic. Look toward the south, and you see a serene stretch of ocean (left), but turn your head back to the north, and you see sand riddled with beach-buried SUVs and poop-pocked boats (right).

They might not be a sight for sore eyes, but the boats are a boon for the taste buds. The crafts plow right through the seagulls, pelicans, and seaweed to bring the latest catch to be sold on the beach (left). Some vendors don't even bother taking their haul out of the boats, selling fish and other seafood right from the sterns of their vessels (right).

Although many of the customers are restaurants or other people with commercial interests, the general public is welcome to pick out scaly specimens. The vendors' helpers, many of whom appear to be the children of the fishermen, will expertly clean the fish in a flash. Then you can take your filets or lobster to one of the many on-sand kitchens (as seen on No Reservations), where they will cook up your "catch" in whatever style you choose (left). If you prefer a more traditional and structured experience, you can order the same seafood from a restaurant patio overlooking the area tide pools (right).

We didn't buy anything from the fisherman directly, because we were able to find all that we hungered for on the whiteboard menus of the tarp-covered dining rooms. We started with drinks: beers and a cocktail bursting with jumbo shrimp (top left). We were tempted by the pata de mula clams, but in the end, we opted for a single gigantic oyster (top right) and a dozen regular ones. The half-dozen hot sauces and the lime wedges for each shooter were a nice touch (bottom).

 

If you want a more scenic (and less smelly) outlook on the ocean, you can head to Primo Tapia, just a bit farther south on the coast. We took a stroll through the ejido's weekend market (left); most booths were closing up, but we managed to snag a couple of raspados and spirit them away to the adjacent shady park, where we also watched an impromptu skateboarding demonstration (right).

A couple blocks' walk leads you to the pueblo's cliffs. If you feel like scrambling down the the scree- and dust-covered paths, you can reach a near-empty beach, delightfully devoid of four-wheeled vehicles and web-footed creatures -- and therefore exhaust and feces fumes. Not bold enough to brave the climb, we enjoyed the peacefulness from our rocky perch instead.