Five hiking trails in two rural communities south of La Paz will soon feature bilingual botanical signage with QR codes, the result of a university-led project that pairs scientific knowledge with local tradition. The trails, including one called Santuario de los Cactus, pass through desert landscapes rich in endemic plants that most visitors to Baja California Sur never see.
The Autonomous University of Baja California Sur (UABCS) held a participatory workshop in El Rosario and San Antonio, two small communities in the municipality of La Paz, to design and validate the trail signs. Four of the five marked routes are in San Antonio, a former silver-mining town roughly 45 minutes south of La Paz on Highway 1. The fifth trail is in El Rosario, a smaller settlement nearby.
San Antonio and El Rosario: Former Mining Towns With Desert Biodiversity
San Antonio sits at the foot of the Sierra de la Laguna, the mountain range that forms the ecological spine of southern Baja California Sur. Silver mining drove the town’s economy in the 18th and 19th centuries, but the mines closed long ago. Today fewer than 1,000 people live in the area. El Rosario, a neighboring community, is even smaller.
Both towns sit within the buffer zone of the Sierra de la Laguna Biosphere Reserve, which CONANP (Mexico’s national natural protected areas commission) has managed since 1994. The reserve covers more than 112,000 hectares and shelters species found nowhere else on Earth, including the Baja California rock lizard and several endemic cacti. The cardón cactus, the world’s largest, grows throughout these foothills and can reach heights of 18 meters.
The project, titled “Rutas del Saber” (Routes of Knowledge), received funding through the 2025 Programa de Apoyo a las Culturas Municipales y Comunitarias, a state cultural grant program backed by the Baja California Sur state government and the Instituto Sudcaliforniano de Cultura. Prof. Esli Mayer Félix, a researcher in UABCS’s Department of Animal Science and Habitat Conservation who manages the university’s plant herbarium, led the scientific side. Local ejidatarios (communal landholders), members of the group Realeños de San Antonio, and young people from both communities participated in species identification and sign design.
During the workshop, participants identified representative plant species along each trail and documented their traditional uses. The signs will display each plant’s common name, scientific name, and cultural significance in both Spanish and English. QR codes on each sign will link to digital platforms with expanded information about local flora.
Five BCS Ecotourism Trails Fill a Gap in Rural Tourism Infrastructure
The La Paz municipality has long promoted its beaches and whale shark tours, but the rural interior has lacked basic tourism infrastructure. San Antonio and El Rosario have no visitor centers, no printed trail maps, and limited cell service. The new signage project addresses that gap directly.
The Santuario de los Cactus, the most prominent of the four San Antonio trails, takes hikers through dense stands of cardón, pitahaya, and cholla cactus. The route has drawn occasional visitors for years, but without marked paths or interpretive material, most people drove past on their way to the better-known town of El Triunfo, seven kilometers to the south. El Triunfo’s restored mining-era buildings and artisan cafés already attract day-trippers from La Paz and Los Cabos.
San Antonio lacks El Triunfo’s commercial polish, but it offers something El Triunfo does not: direct trail access into relatively undisturbed desert. The UABCS project could channel some of El Triunfo’s visitor traffic northward.
UABCS Secretary General Dr. Manuel Coronado García, who represented rector Dante Salgado González at the workshop’s opening ceremony, said the university is committed to generating knowledge that contributes to sustainable development in rural communities. The project also falls under the state government’s “Échale Montón” strategy, a program run through the state DIF (family services agency) that aims to provide rural communities with tools for economic development.
To reach San Antonio from La Paz, drivers take Highway 1 south toward Los Cabos and turn off at the signed junction near kilometer 156. The road is paved the entire way. El Rosario is accessible via a short unpaved turnoff from the same highway. Both communities are within a 90-minute round trip from central La Paz, making them practical half-day excursions.
The UABCS team has not announced a date for the signs to be installed along the five trails, but the workshop produced finalized designs and species selections. The project timeline runs through the end of the 2025 cultural program funding cycle. Colectivo Pericu first reported the workshop and project details.