Welcome to Mostly Musing - My Travel Blog

This blog is about our travels to Baja California, Mexico in our Classic 1976 GMC Motorhome. We have traveled there since 2005. I hope any readers enjoy the blog and I appreciate any comments.

This years travels to Baja begin from our Victoria driveway the end of October 23rd, 2013.










Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Best Pedicure! Naty's in Los Barriles

Today, after the fish truck stopped at our gate and we selected fresh parrotfish for dinner..... I learned how to play hand and foot, had lunch with the girls and then quaded into town to Naty's for just the best pedicure yet!  Naty is a lovely Mexical lady that has her own shop, she is the only staff and many Mexican and Gringo men and boys drop in to get their hair cut there, including Lorne.  He says she cuts his hair the very best, way better than his guy in Canada.  I would agree.  She also provides the very best pedicure.  I usually bring my own polish as she doesn't have a big range of colors.  She worked on my feet for 2 hours.  I kid you not.  She made them soft as can be - without pain!  She is very precise.  I guess it helped that no one else entered her shop until just  after she painted my toes so she had no distractions.   I also got to practice my Spanish.  Great day.  All that for 340 pesos - about 30 Canadian dollars.

Yoga is tomorrow and then Music night at Roadrunner Cafe.  Painting is on Thursday, Mah Jong is usually on Friday except its Thursday this week so it conflicts with painting.  Then yoga again on Saturday, hand and foot Monday and Tuesday.    Busy, busy.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Concerned about Travel in Mexico?

Many people back home have expressed concern about our travel in Mexico.  We have come across some more realistic information about travel in Mexico that coincides with our experience and will perhaps help to allay your fears.  I have included a link to the publication that has done some more responsible jouralism for your reading pleasure.  http://www.bajainsider.com/baja-california-travel/mexico-travel-warning.htm A good summary of the article basically states:

"Tijuana is one of the more dangerous cities in Mexico – particularly if you are a cartel member. It had a murder rate of 7.2 per 100K, exactly the same as Philadelphia, which by chance has about the same population. This would only put TJ about 1/3 of the way up the list compared to most US cities. New Orleans being the hands down violence winner at 18.2 murders per 100K. Have you read any travel warnings to New Orleans recently in the US press?

If you deduct those deaths directly connected to the cartels TJ is just about as safe as San Diego across the border, one of the safest cities in the US.

I like to get about 100 miles south of any border to get into what I call ‘real Mexico’ anyway. (Although that line seems to keep pushing south.)"
 
We do not go to Tijuana, nor do we stop in Tecate which is the border town where we do cross.  We do not even think about crossing the border at CD Juarez.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Ciudad Constitucion (yes that is the correct spelling)

We had heard that we should drive very carefully right through Constitucion as the cops were on the look out to tap tourists, looking for any infraction to charge them with - and of course to collect their mordida (bribe).  We stopped at Misiones RV Park http://www.misionesrvpark.com/ for the night.  We have made friends with the owners, Jaime and Patty and their girls in previous years.  They are lovely people, very easy to befriend.  I think anyone who stays there would say the same. 

Lorne was looking to buy a special plug for the motor home (which we lost somewhere along the trip) so we could plug into their power so, just like any other RV park owner in Canada and the US; Patty drove him around to a number of potential stores - they were unsuccessful.  Upon return Patty told Lorne that she knew he wouldn't be able to find such a thing in town but she didn't want him to drive around the town on his own and in our car with Canadian plates because the police were on the prowl for tourists and he would certainly be stopped.  She also said that she had spoken to the mayor about the police behaviour before and that the police had stopped stalking tourists for awhile but they are at it again.  It is very bad for any business that relies on tourists and she said she has not had the numbers staying with them that she has in previous years.  She believes it is because of the reputation of the police and she is likley right.  Baja regulars have a number of news groups so word about anything and everything gets around very quickly. 

This is all most unfortunate for Jaime and Patty as they are such nice people and I hope that their business picks up again.  It is election year so campaigning is going on all over.  Perhaps a new mayor will have influence over the police in this city.  We have always found the people in this city to be very helpful and friendly so it would be nice to feel relaxed there again.

Indeed, as we were leaving town in the morning, the police were cruising along with us.  They finally stopped Lorne.  While I was circling back in the car to demand his release, they told him there was a problem and clearly thought they got him for no seatbelt.  When he showed the police his lap belt they still thought he needed the shoulder belt (which would  be great if we could have one installed but it can't be done).  When Lorne explained it was a 1976 vehicle they seemed to understand that vehicles that old don't have shoulder belts and they let him drive on!!  So, we were lucky that time, whew!!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Playa El Coyote

Ahhh, at last, the breeze is light, the sun is warm, the beach is soft white sand, the water is tranquil and turquoise, and we have our own brand new palapa. As our neighbour says; the only thing that would make it a better day might be free beer… We have had some glorious paddles, wish we had brought our little camera, definitely don’t want to go out on the water with the Olympus.


This is a great beach, its got just enough people that everyone gets together every day for 4:30 happy hour, once weekly movie night, and if there is a game on, well, someone has satellite TV and there is hooting and hollering and pizza till all hours. There are two rigs with internet that will let others use daily from 8:30 – 9 am.




Our neighbour on our right is Raven Gary – he is somewhat of a naturalist and spends his days pursuing his interest in documenting the wild life he sees, including snorkelling and counting the numbers and types of fish he sees. His palapa is filled with interesting information about the region that he has been gathering for about 15 years.






This is our front yard - how cool is that!!  Well, some people were swimming, it was still too cool for me.









There are great hikes in this area; including one to see the petroglyphs. That was very interesting, especially interesting trying to determine whether the rocks fell from above before being etched or after.



Lorne studying the petroglyph rocks


These petroglyph rocks are scattered all about on huge rocks that appear to have tumbled from the cliffs some hundreds of years ago.



This was a figure we found repeated on many of the rocks



We have seen some interesting birds here; particularly the blue footed booby! It displays a wonderfully enthusiastic dive into the water for fish – of course the opportunists lurk – the pelicans, the gulls and the amazing frigate birds. When the booby makes his catch all join in the celebration…. The booby prevails and managed to keep every fish. (By the way, I was having a shower - in the palapa wearing my bikini - when Raven Gary ran over to tell me there was a booby out there.....kind of took me by surprise, I thought I was being discrete)


Dave and Lynn

Dave and Lynn Wheatley arrived at El Coyote so we had a very enjoyable evening – they are Lisa’s parents (Mark’s wife). Mark and his parents have been friends of our family since our kids were all about 3 years old. Lisa’s mom plays guitar and mandolin and is learning a new instrument that is something like a ukulele – can’t remember the name of it. We had a great time playing and singing while the guys made dinner.


This is Dave and Lynn's site at El Coyote


It was definitely difficult leaving this beach. I think this area is pretty perfect for us – very sheltered water for paddling and lots of area to hike in. Other than cycling from one end of the beach to the other, not much opportunity for cycling.  It was also difficult to leave because there is a steep incline up to the highway - with not much visibility.  Dave ran out and stopped traffic while Lorne took a mad run at it.  After 3 tries he was up and away!!

We are now at Ciudad Constitution at our friends Jaime and Patty's Misiones  RV Park. They are still trying to figure out a way to send their daughter Aime to the College of the Pacific in Victoria.  It will be very expensive for a poor Mexican family unless she can get a scholarship.  Aime has her quincianos birthday in October which is a tradicional huge celebration - and will cost a few dollars as well.





San Lucas Cove

We arrived here – just south of Santa Rosalia - only to find that our friend John wasn’t there – at all!! His camper wasn’t even there anymore! Lorne wandered about looking to see if he had moved it to another spot and since he looked so puzzled a neighbour came to help. It turns out that John got married!! He married Beatrice, his paramour from the past few years. Now John has been a confirmed bachelor for some time. He repeatedly stated that after being married 4 times he wasn’t about to do that again and even though Beatrice wanted to get married it just wasn't going to happen. Well – he did and he looks pretty happy, as does Beatrice! We went to visit them – following their honeymoon in Yellowstone John has moved into her house in town and has been working on fixing it up. So, congratulations to John and Beatrice!

We got our laundry done here, as usual by the time we get here everything we own is dirty! So, now we smell lovely and the whites are truly whiter than white! We think that Mexico still has phosphates in their laundry soap so everything gets very clean! In addition, the soap has a very strong scent that has both Lorne and I sneezing. One night here at this fishing beach and we are off south to El Coyote.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Dagget's, Bahia de Los Angeles

New Years Day

We are in Bahia de Los Angeles at Daggets RV park New Years Day. It is windy but the sun is shining today so all is as it should be. This place has showers…. This is good. Warm running water, no matter how small the dribble is …. always good. We maybe have internet at our site in the mornings while the sun is shining on the host’s solar panels, this is also good. We have only the electricity that we generate with our own solar panels.

We made friends with our British neighbours John and Faye who have lived for a long time in White Rock (still have their family home there) and who now live in Sointula for the summer (an island off the coast of Northern Vancouver Island, near Alert Bay and Port McNeil). He worked at Triumph at UBC in Vancouver. Triumph is a nuclear research accelerator and John was a science technician so built parts and repaired it. It’s not clear that he is totally retired from this. He can likely fix anything.  We have an open invitation to their beautiful home on the beach on Sointula.

It is warm enough in the shelter of the motor home that I can play my banjo outside (it’s an outdoor activity, according to Lorne). Since I have been deprived of playing the banjo for some time now this is very good!

It is usually very windy here this time of year, although we have had some nice kayaking mornings in previous years.  Yesterday we used a spectacular wind-LESS day to drive around the bay in the 4x4 to see the small community of Gringo houses on that side.  In hindsite it would have been a great day - all day - to kayak!!  Who knew?  The wind can spring up very quickly here and we just expected it to start anytime....  Today it was a beautiful morning so up we got, unleashed the kayaks, were ready to hop in, and the wind sprang up.  Before our eyes the flat water turned to ever increasig whitecaps - so since we are very inexperienced kayakers yet experienced enough to know that it would be more like work than fun, we retired to our alternate activities.

The change in light makes a surreal picture


The change in light throughout the day on the mountains is amazing

 These look like cinder cones from the volcano long ago

The sun setting across the bay


The sun shining on the mountains across the bay


The different colors of the rock look like a painting to me

These cirio cactus (also called Boojum trees) grow as tall as 18 meters and as old as 360 years.   These have blooms at their top. 












We plan on staying here till Thursday the 6th before heading south to San Lucas Cove, then El Coyote for a few days, then on to Ligui for a day, then La Paz to stock up on good groceries (that means steak and excellent Mexican chicken) and arriving in Los Barriles by the 13th so we can still see the Kite boarding (and bikini) contest.

Water water not quite everywhere

Thursday December 30
We didn’t have to worry so much about water on the road south of Ensenada or at the Beach camp yet we were still very glad that we stopped at Estero Beach for the night. There was major construction on the road south of Ensenada – the trip to Colonet, about 180 km took us about 4 hours!! So much for the wheel alignment on the motor home that we got in Fremont, California!! There were some massive car eating and wheel wrenching pot holes. These were of course not marked. There was a flag man in one very difficult spot however, he was madly waving everyone on – even though there was only room for one vehicle to drive through.

We did manage to make it to Rancho Santa Ines at Catavina in time for a nice dinner. There was only a bus full of young kids, a couple on motorcycles and another motor home here for the night. It was very cold – there was frost on the car in the morning! This is the high desert and does get very cold at night in the winter.

We stayed for 2 nights as we wanted to drive into El Marmol, an old abandoned onyx quarry. It was very interesting; there is the ruin of an abandoned school house built entirely of blocks of onyx. They also used onyx blocks for their well.  We saw no ruins of old houses, the people likely lived in small huts.

The school house is very small - the triangular pieces out the sides were built as supports I guess.  The opposite side of the building has fallen down.







There were huge blocks of beautiful onyx just laying all over the ground.  Yes thats a touque on my head and my winter jacket (without the fleece) it was very cold! 








There was also an old graveyard (apparently there are two but we only saw one). Most of the graves were piles of onyx, marked only with a wooden cross and nothing to say who they were. According to the rancher at Santa Ines the mine ran for around 100 years and the onyx was mined completely by hand. He also said a lot of people died from the hard work at the mine.


The 15 km drive into El Marmol was such a very rough road that it took us at more than an hour each way in my little 4x4.


We returned to the ranch for lunch then drove back up the highway to another arroyo that we had been wanting to hike in to. We found a well marked trail up a cliff to a cave that had paintings done by the local Indians many years ago.  It had a very small opening ..... yikes...

However, the paintings were very interesting.  What they mean is anyone's guess.  Maybe Lorne loves Catherine or Lorne was here....

So, that was our New Years Eve. Very cool.

Into Mexico Wednesday December 29, 2010

We like to walk across the border at Tecate and get our visas stamped, then we are able to just cross over the next day and keep on driving. Parking on the Tecate side of the border is very difficult, narrow streets riddled with potholes and cars parked everywhere. In previous years we have had to park many blocks away, walk back to the border, and felt a bit nervous about leaving our motor home. So, now we park on the American side in a parking lot right next to the border and walk over, get our visas stamped and walk back. This year we had as usual, a very friendly immigration officer on the Mexican side. Once stamped, we walked across the street and had to go through American customs. The two American female officers were very official and sternly insisted that we pass through separately. The interview went like this:

Officer: Where are you coming from?

Me: Just across the street….we…

Officer: Where are you going?

Me: Los Barriles….we…

Officer: Do you live there?

Me: No…. we are just going there for three months vacation

Officer: What are you bringing with you?

Me: Our motor home (now I’m really lost, why does she care?)

Officer: So what are you bringing with you?

Me: Just our personal things that we need…

Officer: What do you have on you right now?

Me: Nothing. Just my visa

She waved us through – I’m not sure who was more confused…. Lorne thinks it was me….

The next morning we cross into Tecate - I was in the lead and got the green light - which means drive on no questions asked.  Lorne got the green light but the female officer waved him over anyway.  She came in, looked around, wanted to see the registration papers and then sent him on.  I had to drive ahead and was wondering what had happened to him.  Thank goodness for our little walkie talkies.  "Whats happening Lorne, where are you?   Where are you Catherine?  I can't see you?  Don't worry I'm coming.  Catherine?  Where are you?  Catherine, can you hear me?  Don't worry, I'm coming - there you are Lorne, I see you, I'm right behind you.  Catherine where are you?  Lorne, I said, I'm right behind you...."  and so it goes. 

We made it to Ensenada today – We took the toll road 2d toward Tijuana (not to be confused with 2D which goes somewhere else entirely). We cut off well before TJ, hit the coast, and then went south on the toll road to Ensenada. The toll road was a very good road compared to Mexicali 3, the one we usually take! But - pouring rain so there was lots of water on the road. Driving the car was not at all scary, this road is just fine for me.

There continues to be major road construction on Mexicali 3 south of Tecate to Ensenada. This road passes through the Guadalupe Valley, a beautiful grape–growing region complete with vineyards. It is a tourist area for Baja that must be really suffering – this is the second year that the road has been basically out of commission. Well, when it is finished it promises to be a great route. We stopped at Estero Beach resort in Ensenada as we were concerned that the road to the beach we were planning on staying at is likely full of water by now, and we sure don’t want to get stuck.

I'm going to have to be very organized if I am going to be able to get anything on my blog since I'm driving the whole way too.