Bahia de Los Angeles

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This really is a beautiful spot, some say the most beautiful of the whole of Baja, others say in the world. It has an outstanding approach to it. The bay just unfolds before you as you come over the desert and then you drive down into this ever expanding vista of turquoise blue water with numerous islands of various hues, heights and shapes. It does fairly take your breath away. Once down into the bay you are literally surrounded by mountains (well high hills) many of the islands are also very high. As the light changes constantly, so do the colors on the hills. It truly is amazing.

This is Lorne's favourite spot on the Baja. Today, shortly after a group of seals announced their presence we watched a very large pod of dolphins come into the bay, very close to shore. Apparently juvenile whale sharks arrive here in November and people come from all over the world to swim with them. Whale sharks are the second biggest animal on earth. This makes them very big indeed, some as long as 60 feet the biggest seen by the people we were talking to was only 30 feet. There is all manner of sea life here.

Once again we spend some time looking at places for sale. We found a few to look at that are beach front on leased land, which makes the price more affordable for us although fairly speculative. There is one that I like, quite small but I think has a lot of potential (work). Plus it comes with two boats, two kayaks, and a fairly new quad. For another 20 thou we cqn have the custom built rail that Zips over these desert roads at 60 mph. Now, if only we could figure out a way to fly in here easily so family and friends can visit..... nothing short of chartering a plane, which is entirely possible. There are a number of gringos here who are pilots and there is a runway nearby.

This is a fairly remote area as far as remote areas go in Baja, that we would consider living in. It is about a 10 hour drive south of the Mexican border (depending on who's driving, wouldn't be us in the motor home). It is a fair sized Mexican town with several small grocery stores, an internet and movie rental store, three mechanics, two Pemex stations, a hotel and two small but nice looking motels. There are several restaurants and rv parks on the water in town that have gone belly up. Maybe they open in the summer or maybe no one is staying there at the moment. There is lots of mining history here but no active mining now.

This has long been a major sports fishing destination for fishing fiends, particularly in the summer. There is plenty of bass, barracuda, triggerfish, yellowtail, sierra, grouper, ladyfish, cabrilla, and rooster fish. The temperatures in the summer can get up to 120 degrees, with the water at a cool 90 degrees. There is just no getting cool.

The fruit and vegetables look pretty sad in the stores, although if you know when the delivery date is for the stores you can get some better choices I understand. We see no gardens, water is a problem, although there is a spring where the water comes from, and it is delivered to everyone for a price; or you can fill up your water barrels yourself for a much cheaper price. The town got electricity just last year but there are lots of generators and solar panels around, particularly on the gringos homes which are outside the village where electricity has yet to come.

January 23, 2009
After 6 days of kayaking, cycling and meeting people we are on our way to San Lucas Cove if we make it that far. The road has some excellent spots and some not so good (terrible) spots. A quick stop there and then on to Conception Bay. We will try Playa Requison as we haven't been there before. Whenever we have driven by its been packed with people, this year there have been very few tourists all the way down so far, so perhaps there will be few at this beach as well. It may not be good for kayaking, in which case we will go a few km north to El Coyote again for about a week.

I will post pictures if we ever get any time with an internet connection that works......

Ahh Mexico at Last!! January 14, 2009

It was an uneventful crossing at Tecate, took us 10 minutes tops to walk across the border, get a stamp on our visa and walk back across. We parked at the little market/shoe store on the right hand side just before the border. No charge if we were under half an hour. We found some Ovaltine in the store for Paul and Renata, our friends we are house sitting for in Los Barriles..

We crossed right over without being stopped by the border guards who were armed to the teeth with shiny chrome plated M16s. No worries. It was a spectacular day, perfect temperature and very few people on the highway. There was very little sign in this area of the fires that happened last year. We did pass a group of black jumpsuited police with motor cycles, which they leaped on and tore off in the opposite direction as we drove by.

We stopped in Ensenada to go to the fish market. Picked up a couple of kiilos of medio camarones. Yum. We decided to stay at Esterro Beach resort, just south of Ensenada for the night. Its a beautiful resort with an rv park, we were only able to get wi fi in their office so we caught up a little bit and didn't leave till around 11:30. We planned on just driving to El Pabillon, not a long drive, about 3 hours for us.

We spent a peaceful night on the beach at El Pabellon. There were only two other campers there, such a shame, it is a lovely place and the lady who runs it is so very nice and does a wonderful Job maintaining the place. In the morning we waited for hours for the fishermen to come in with some crab and fish (pesca) for us but unfortunately had to leave before they returned. it was such a peaceful calm day on the water I guess they were staying out longer. We could see them with binoculars and kept thinking they were coming in so hung around till finally it was 11:00 and we wanted to get going.

The road past el Pabillon is very narrow – there is a white line though that lets you know that beyond the white line lies a steep bank that would result in a tip or a roll(s) if one was to cross it. Where there is no white line the steep bank has taken over.... half way to El Rosario and there is a wonderful stretch of a few miles with wide shoulders and shoulders for the shoulders! Heaven. Past the checkpoint and we are back into this extremely narrow stuff with white lines with bites of it all the way down the steep hill into El Rosario. I think it took us less than an hour to get to El Rosario from El Pabillon, good time.

Its a very hot day today. With this weather we really don't need to go any further south.

Unfortunately I couldn't get my camera working in time when we came upon a truck trailer laying on its side taking up the entire oncoming lane! The truck was getting hooked up to a real truck - tow truck, the first of these we have seen on the Baja. It was a very twisty part of the road. They had carefully marked the accident with a single small triangle on the edge of the road for the oncoming cars – well, better than the traditional pile of stones.

They have been dong some work, on this road and there are parts that are really quite nice,

We stopped for the night and a walk at Santa Ines by 3:00. In the morning Lorne found a nail in one of the rear tires so off we went back to Catavina in search of a llantera. This is a very small pueblo – 100 people, the usual gong show happened, we didn't see a llantera sign so stopped to ask at the store – he pointed back down the road and said the man selling gasoline could fix it. We drove back to him and he said no, he had to sell gasoline (plastic gallons of it off his cart – there was certainly no line up) and pointed back down the way we came saying there was a mechanic there who could fix it. Back we went and found his shop, however, no such luck, he was in Ensenada till the afternoon so Lorne changed the tire in his lot, His 12 year old son came to chat with us and to offer his advice so we brushed up on some Spanish.

Our goal today is Bahia de Los Angeles, about 170 km, a 3 hour drive, maybe. We plan on staying a few days, doing some kayaking and will look at a few casas on the beach for sale. This is Lorne's favourite spot and is rapidly becoming mine.

Its been awhile since we have had a connection.......

January 9, 2009

Miguel found a few things to do on the motor home, apparently our new rebuilt motor was not all it was supposed to be…. So, the person in Ontario who rebuilt it is sending a remanufactured distributor and a remanufactured carburetor to Miguel while we are in Mexico, and we will get them installed upon our return. (we sent him the old ones) Miguel has fixed us up in the meantime so that we are safe to go to Mexico.

Speaking of Mexico, we have decided to go to the Fountain of Youth, hot springs at the base of the Chocolate Mountains at the Salton Sea. According to friends Debi and Ian; if you have your birthday there you actually turn a year younger instead of older. Sounds good to me. We will only be there for the night and then we will carry on to Quartzsite where there are two GMC motor home rallies, one this weekend and one next. We will stay there for this weekend and then head on to Tecate and into Baja.

We left Miguels and went to Temecula to stay at the nice Pechanga Casino RV Park and then on across some very high, windy, and windy two lane State roads 79 to 391 and then down very steep switchbacks on 74 in the darkness and into Palm Dessert and Indio. The series of switchbacks on 74 were reminiscent of lookout tower roads, only with many people driving swiftly up and down. Of course there was no one in front of us (except when we found a spot to pull over to let vehicles by) and we weren’t driving swiftly …. I don’t think the coach would have made it up those switchbacks they were so steep. Note to self: do NOT take that road west under any circumstances, east was bad enough!

We are at -276 below sea level at the Salton Sea according to the altimeter on our streets and maps program. The Fountain of Youth was ok, the park has room for about 1000 rigs and there is a huge Canadian snowbird contingent there. Many people have permanent places and have built on to their units to make some very large homes. There is a woman there who just celebrated her 101st birthday and she is still quite active, so there must be some truth to the healing powers of the mineral springs. There were so may organized and unorganized activities for the retired set that one would not be bored for awhile. The pools and the water however was nothing like what we experienced at Thermopolis which was so abundant it just flowed through massive pools and off to the river with a complete water exchange every 24 hours. The pools at the FOY were hot tubs similar to what you would find at a hotel pool, of which there were several, and there was only one that had the pure mineral water (plus some chlorine). Your other option was to fill up one of two bathtubs with pure fresh mineral water for your own public bath. There were also 2 very nice steam rooms and excellent showers.

January 10
We are now driving across the high desert to Quartzsite. Don’t know what it is about us, we have another 50 miles to go and it is almost dark. Sure is a lot of country with nobody in it. However, there are lots of people driving through it. This desert doesn’t have much going for it except for the beauty of the mountains in the distance. The vegetation is very scrubby and unattractive.

It was a spectacular sunset on the Chocolate Mountains and as the sunset faded and the mountains turned from pink back to chocolate, the full moon rose up and over the mountains, balancing on a peak for moments before lifting into the sky. It was truly spectacular. How I wish I had a really good camera to have captured those moments better. I did get some nice panoramas; we shall see how they turn out.

It gets chilly on the desert at night. After an 85 degree day we have now had to put on the heater.


Quartzsite
We rolled in well after dark and although we looked, we didn’t find any other GMCs so we found a piece of desert and settled in. The desert all around this area is BLM lands (Bureau of Land Management) so for a very nominal fee you can dry camp (boondock) for the whole season. In the morning we went into Quartzite to check out all the venders – wow – I have never seen so many rocks and beads. There were people from all over the world selling rocks from all over the world. They were cutting and polishing them and teaching you how to make jewellery. I want to learn how to do the wire work, however the teacher couldn’t fit me in before we left. We will have to come back in April – she recommends coming back for the whole month of January as it is very exciting then. Perhaps we will. It was very difficult to avoid becoming very inspired about making jewellery!

We found our GMC group (The 49ers) and joined up with them for dinner. They are all such nice people and it was very easy to join in the fun. Faye and Bert were the main organizers of this event, plus Faye was the cook extraordinaire! She made amazing breakfasts and dinners right out of her coach – with very minimal help. They both race Lotus’s and being too young to retire they rebuild the frame and suspension of racing Lotus’s. They also manufacture fibreglass components for GMCs. There were 5 GMCs: Faye and Burt, Doug and Irene, Jack and Mary, Betty and…. his name escapes me for now. Another couple towing their toy box behind their GMC carrying their two Harley’s, his brother and his wife came along in their SOB) some other brand). An older couple were there for one night in a huge SOB complete with slide outs, I think it was as big as our house! So it was a small group which made it very fun. We had a nice sing a long round the campfire the first night. With a few scout leaders in the group (and help from my Rise Up Singing book) we came up with lots of good old campfire songs. Everyone comes from quite different backgrounds and the commonality is the GMC so we all became instant friends. Cool.

January 13
We are on our way today to Potrero State Park and hopefully to get our visas stamped at Tecate. Over the border tomorrow and into Mexico at last.
After paying Costco and Vons a final visit for supplies at El Centro we were off for dinner and the final leg. There is a very steep climb coming out of El Centro with radiator water signs every 1000 feet and lots of telephones by the side of the road. It was a very good road though and since we were traveling after dark it was cool enough and we didn’t need any extra water for our radiator. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see this terrain, I think it was probably very pretty. Pulled into Potrero by 9 pm, glad to stop driving. Price has gone up since last year, now $24, no wi-fi, and only partial hookups. Their shower is rustic and freezing, so it will be a motor home shower.

"Don't Text While Driving - It's the Law"

This has to be my favourite road sign for the year.

January 3, 2009

We made a few necessary purchases at Woodburn mall …. I got some very cool Pearl Izumi bike clothes … and just a few other things. Lorne found some great deals on running shoes and t-shirts. We found open Wi-Fi outside the Super 8 Motel nearby, apparently they all provide this, wonderful!

We drove only as far as Seven Feathers Casino just north of Medford (about 4 hours). We wanted to go over the Siskiyou pass mid-day to avoid ice and snow as chance of ice and snow were predicted for late in the day.

We got an extra 10% off our fee at the Seven Feathers RV park if we registered with the Players Club at the casino. Of course we did that and then received $5 free if we put our Players Club card into a slot machine along with one dollar to activate it. Of course we did that too. We lost the first dollar as we didn’t know what we were doing. Asked for help 3 times, and still couldn’t figure it out so we finally had to have an attendant come directly to the machine to help us! We then sort of played the slot machine. Neither of us really have any idea how to play the slots – do you just push the button? That’s it? Any sort of strategy involved? I really don’t see the attraction, we couldn’t figure out if we were winning anything until we had lost all $5, of course that was really $7 as we had to put in 2 of our own…. Well, so much for slots. I much prefer Black Jack but didn’t play. We watched craps for awhile – still can’t figure out what’s going on either except for a lot of money flying around and everyone getting very excited.

January 4, 2009
It was incredibly cold with what they call frozen fog here when we left in the morning. It was a bit foggy and the trees were covered with frost, quite spectacular. Frozen fog – an interesting weather feature for this area. According to Google:

When the humidity approaches 100% and the temperature and conditions are just right, the sky begins to snow without the presence of clouds. Frozen fog doesn't really fall; it just appears and then gently settles on
things. You can literally watch it form before your eyes. Like magic, it
just comes out of nowhere. It has a very sticky nature, so it tends to stick
to everything it touches; trees, bushes, houses, hats, gloves...

I think frozen fog is what we called hoar frost on the prairies.

As we crossed the Siskiyous there was snow all around us. Mount Shasta was quite spectacular. The water in Lake Shasta was incredibly low, it looked very strange with very steep banks of red soil all around it and its many arms. The dam is not ready to release any melt from the winter snow.

In the Sacramento area, the snow is gone and the sun is going down, up above are literally thousands of Canada geese – going home I guess. We could see flocks of them flying in formation all over the sky. Don’t they know its still pretty cold up Canada way??

Making our way to Rio Vista along State Highway 12 in the pitch dark, we passed through/by an Air Force base. The road was very narrow with many potholes and much uneven pavement, sorely in need of repair. There was also lots of traffic wanting to go much much faster than us. All around us and about 30 – 40 feet in the air, were red lights, all flashing in unison and we were driving towards even more of these lights. It was a very uncanny sensation driving along like that, not knowing what the heck these red lights were all about while having to focus on this terrible road. Suddenly, looming out of the dark, was a huge windmill, standing completely still, then another and another, as we moved by them I could see that each one had a red light blinking on the back of it. We were in the middle of a massive wind farm! We have driven by them on the freeway before but this was entirely different, we were right in the middle of them and so close beside us. If it was windy and the blades were whipping around it would be very noisy I think, but tonight it was absolutely still and eerie.

Vagabundos is located in Rio Vista and we needed to pick up our fishing licenses. Since our arrival was a Sunday; Kathy from Vagabundos had left our licenses for us at the bakery down the street. By the time we rolled in around 6 pm the bakery was closed for the day. We found a lovely little RV park on 2nd avenue right on the river just a few blocks from the office, complete with a tiny fishing pier.

January 5
On and on thru rather desolate country, up and over the grapevine, then a search for the Sizzlers identified on our mapping program only to find both closed. Apparently Sizzlers are going out of business around here. Too bad, as this is one of Lorne’s few places where he can eat a wide variety of foods.

There is an annoying and dangerous driving behaviour that seems to be quite popular when driving here: don’t let the motor home change lanes, even when there is plenty of room. Speed up and come shooting by, this scares the ….. out of the driver and passenger – great fun! Or, if the motor home is successful at changing lanes before you can accelerate to shoot by, then dart over to the other lane, speed up, cut the motor home off and slow done – this also scares them. This is even more effective when you can combine cutting them off with shooting off an exit immediately in front of the motor home at the very same time… quite aggressive. Every one is in quite a hurry here. City streets that look like Blanshard have a speed limit of 50 mph (80 km).

Unsuccessful at finding a Sizzler we picked up some groceries and whipped up a very late dinner in the motor home. We bedded down for the night at Camping World in Santa Clarita, a very rv friendly place. This allowed for a very early shopping experience.


January 6
Ahh at last, warm sun and blue skies, this is the California we have been looking for; unfortunately my arthritis in my hands is suddenly very bad this am. I gave myself a liberal coating of Therapain and an anti-inflammatory. Last year my arthritis was like this for a few months before we left and didn’t subside till we were in Baja. I’ve been lucky this year and been relatively pain-free till today. Here’s hoping it will pass with the warm weather.

Our destination today is Miguel’s, our friend and favourite GMC mechanic. He will give our motor home its annual pre-Baja check-up and fix the few things that need fixing. I will spend the time cleaning and tuning up the bikes after their mucky trip south.

MEXICO 2009

January 1, 2009
At last we’re on the road! With snow warnings for Friday we want to head south pronto! Our departure plans were delayed by 5 days due to snow. We were almost snowed in for Christmas but our neighbour Paul Chandler borrowed a blade cat from a friend of his and ploughed out the whole road on Christmas Eve; including all the way up to our place. Another 4 cm dropped that night but it was drivable on Christmas Day with steel chains on all four wheels of the jeep. We ferried everyone up and down and we had a great day! Miranda (from Salmon Arm) and Andrea (my friend Laura’s daughter) joined us this year. Jo and Brian spend the month in December so we missed them.

We were finally able to get the chains off and get the motor home packed up on New Years Eve. We spent a wonderful evening with good friends David and Elle and Elle’s sister Enya and brother in law Terry. We had great food and lots of laughs, a very nice way to bring in the New Year. We slept on the street in front of their house, visited the grandkids in the morning and my old friend Don and his wife Lorraine before catching the 1:00 ferry. Don gave us a very cool internet antenna so we should have more success picking up a connection while on some remote beach in Baja.

We had a 90 minute wait at the border to have them tell us that yes they wanted Agriculture to look inside the motor home. Following comprehensive questioning and finding no contraband fruit or vegetables they sent us on our way. We spent the night at Tulalip at the Casino, had a great meal, and went dancing to 80’s disco music – great fun – memories of dancing the night away at the after hours clubs when I was at university.

January 2, 2009
Cool, Vancouver Washington has open wi-fi!! We were in traffic long enough for me to download my mail but not Lorne’s or to send anything. Will have to remember that on our way north.

We stopped at Frys, a huge electronic supermarket, to pick up a few things and we will spend the night at Woodburn RV park.