Out of Guerro Negro

Thursday, November 10

Out of Guerro Negro about 9:30 am.  Another beautiful day.  We stayed at Malarrimo last night.  They are supposed to have internet but it wasn’t working – again.  We usually stay here and it seems to me it has never worked properly.  Well, there was electricity and the showers were clean and warm.  Life is good

I can’t believe it – we just passed cyclists, two adults and two children – one child between 6 - 8 years old riding his own bike, both adults loaded down with camping gear and the younger child – a toddler on the front of a recumbent!  The father was riding in the middle of the lane next to the young rider.  I guess this way is safer, everyone has to go out into the oncoming lane to pass them.  Heaven help them though when they meet an 18 wheeler and another comes up behind them at the same time.

The area around Guerro Negro is usually particularly desolate, very little vegetation, and most of it very low growing and dead looking.  This year the wind was blowing sand across the highway - reminiscent of blizzards in Alberta.  Definitely desert territory! 

At km 73 it was great to see San Ignacio, a picturesque oasis in the desert.  Although, it also looks dryer this year.  Time for gas, a nap for Lorne, lunch, and to see what treats there are in the store.  This town grows date palms and there are always dates for sale.  We have bought the dates before but have found them to be quite gritty.  So now we pass on the dates.  The grocery store attached to the Pemex almost always has some date bakery items that are usually quite good and I can’t resist buying something that I haven’t had before.  This day I was looking for a date taste treat to buy and found a package of large Florentine looking things… I don’t know if I should really go on with this story…. 

Now this store has definitely improved its appearance since we started coming down the Baja.  It always has had meat hanging in it, usually near the front door.  Strips of fresh meat hanging on a clothes rack like thing, usually dripping blood on the floor – old blood, new blood.  Then there is the chest deep freezer that is usually fairly full of chicken pieces.  Not wrapped in anything, just tossed in the freezer, cold but not frozen.   It usually has quite a few vegetables that are not too bad.  This year it has had a face lift and every thing looks fresh and clean (except for that hanging meat – although there were fresh looking newpapers underneath the meat to soak up the blood, and the rack was further into the store and not the first thing you see when you step in).  

Now, back to the Florentines… well… there were four of them in a package wrapped in plastic and placed inside a glass display case near the front door – upon close examination it looked like a leg of an insect was sticking out between the Florentines.  Upon closer inspection I am sure it was a cucaracha.  At any rate the cucaracha was quite dead and it looked like it was coated with the candied sugar too…..  I bought an avocado and left.  I know, Florentines are one of Lorne’s favourite but I made a decision not to buy them for him this time, I'm sure there was flour in them.  

We stopped in at San Lucas Cove to give John and Beatrice a hug and carried on all the way to Loreto.  They both look well and happy.  Married life seems to suit them.  We pulled in at Yolanda’s RV park around 6ish again.  She no longer has her excellent restaurant open.  Yolanda and her mother said the restaurant was primarily open to serve the locals, the customers at the RV park were not where most of her business had come from.  Since the local economy is bad and tourism is down there was just not enough business this year to make it worth their while.  Too bad. Great food.

9:30 am departure from Posada Don Diego

November 9, 2011

It is incredibly dry this year.  There are quite a few large puddles of water so it must have rained in the past few days, but not much has greened up yet.  All the dessert cactus have a dusty grey green cast to them, some look totally dead.  It does look quite desolate in spots.  However, it is beautifully warm this morning and I hear the weather is getting ugly back home so…. we will tough it out.

Gas price at El Rosario 90 cents a litre for premium.

South of El Rosario I saw a field of bright pink in the desert – there was a sand road going into the area.  I have no idea what it was and there was just a brief glimpse of it from the highway. 

Once again we are reaching our destination (Guerro Negro) past nightfall.  The highway south of Santa Innis was not good, much has been resurfaced since last year but there is still lots to do.  By the time we were about 30 km north of Guerro Negro they detoured us off the highway and onto a path cut through the desert that stretched for kms!  It was so incredibly dusty, like fine talcum powder; and while the track had been somewhat packed down there were a lot more loose patches than either of us were comfortable with.  We have been stuck in the sand in a pickup before – not fun – and the image of getting stuck in the sand in the dark with this heavy motor home taking up the lane …. Well, we don’t want to go there!  At long last it ended and we made our way back onto the narrow highway. 

There were quite a few cows spotted lurking by the side of the road.  It’s strange but cows’ eyes either don’t reflect headlights as other animals do, or they simply don’t ever look at the headlights.  They are but large dark hulks waiting to be smacked by moving vehicles.  And they frequently are.  Particularly when they lay down on the highway which they are wont to do. 

By the way, in case I haven’t been clear, the real danger about driving at night in Baja is the cow factor, not the bandito factor.  

Heading into Baja 2011

Day one:  Tuesday, November 8, 2011:

We crossed the border at 10:30 am.  The border guards gave us a green light but the military stopped us for an inspection.  For the first time my guitar case was opened - he must have heard how fabulous my new Pii is.  He tapped on all the walls and ceiling and needed instruction to open the fridge, the door to the bathroom and the drawers.  Then he complemented us on our pretty motor home and left.  No problem. 

The road south from Tecate goes through wine country and the whole wine route was dry, the grapes looked more than somewhat parched, of course it is fall so maybe that’s how vines are supposed to look this time of year.  Its just that in previous years this whole area has been very green and lush when we have passed through it in December or January.  We had lunch at our usual spot, the gas station at Guadalupe.  We had a nice chat with the gas station attendant we met there last year.  He worked in the BC interior a few years back and his English is quite good.  He would like to come back to Canada to work but he does make good money at the Pemex and he has another job as well, he has a big family to support.  We rushed into Wal-Mart in Ensenada and then into Costco to get yet more “essentials.”  The motor home is really loaded this year….  We really need to cross the border earlier in the future to make it a more relaxing drive as we get toward nightfall.

It was a beautiful sunset, a big red fire ball dropping into the sea. We hoped the light would last till our arrival at Posada Don Diego in Colonia Vicente Guerrero (km 173 just before the gas plant).  However, it was a bit too far into darkness for my liking by the time we rolled in about 6:00.  While there are often big billboards advertising the RV parks, they are set off the road allowance and none of them have any night time illumination, so they are impossible to see once the sun sets.  We stayed at Don Diego’s in 2005, the first year we came down with Baja Adventures Caravan so we really only had a vague idea of its location.  I guess I should say Lorne had no idea and I was the one with the vague idea.  Its my job as navigator to have vague ideas….  You really have to know where you are going once darkness falls as the streets in these communities are buzzing with traffic this time of night; all going at great speed.  Many approaches off the highway are disastrous for our motor home, with abrupt jumps from the pavement to the sand.  And of course turning around in our motor home is not the easiest thing to do particularly given the unreliable approaches to the highway. 

We decided against staying at the fairly isolated beach at El Pabillon south of San Quintin as we haven’t seen a single camper or motor home since we arrived in Baja and we always like to camp with others.  There were no campers at Don Diegos either, however there is a restaurant open till 9 pm and then they have a night watchman so we felt comfortable. 

We had a nice chat with the proprietor, a young man with excellent English whose name escapes me.  He was born in San Diego, his mother is American and his father Mexican.  When an aunt purchased the property thirty some years ago, the family moved from the US to work at the RV park and restaurant.  As a child they had no television or movies so his US relatives sent lots of movies, all in English.  They always spoke English in the house and Spanish at school so he really does have excellent English.  They offer free internet, electricity, water and showers.  I do have a note I made in our guide book that the water is salty here, but we have full water tanks anyway from Potrero, where we camped in the US Monday night before crossing at Tecate. 

Driscols is an ever expanding operation here, employing many locals and supplying berries all over North America.  Prima tomatoes are also here big time.  Development is very apparent with lots of homes under construction and new small businesses; the market stands south of town are turning into little shops, and a Mexican Wal-mart is about to open.  They have a big, very beautiful, bridge crossing the big arroyo in town.  Annual wash outs led the locals to petition the governor for design improvements which led to this new bridge.  This one has to be the best we’ve seen in Baja yet.  It even has protected pedestrian walkways on each side as well as decorative sides.  There is an election next year and unfortunately this governor and president cannot be re-elected due to the limitation on terms being only 2, making a maximum of 6 years in office.

October 29, 2011 – Mexico Bound!

Getting ready to head south for 3 months has been challenging enough these past years, this year we are off for 6 months.  That takes just a bit more organizing…  Its a good thing my to do and to bring list gets more refined every year.  We are staying longer in Baja because we are planning on building a house.  I say planning  because that’s where we are still at.  Planning.  We have the architectural plans, the engineered drawings and next we have to decide on a builder.  

So to begin….

I took on a contract for the government in the late spring so have been madly getting the report done prior to departure; these things always take more time than anticipated.  I was pleased with the whole thing other than it was a huge file to review.  9 boxes of file….  Lots of reading.  However, it was a very interesting case and I enjoyed the writing. 

We zipped south this year, zipping for us anyway!  We packed up and managed to get to Mike and Kates Thursday October 29^th as planned, arriving about 11:00 pm as I anticipated.  (We live in Metchosin, they live in Gordon Head, about a 35 minute drive from us) I walked the kids to school in the morning and we caught the 10:00 am ferry.  On our way!!  We stopped in Sacramento for dinner with some new friends.  We’ve never stopped in Sacramento before and we found it to be quite a pretty city.  I stocked up on wine at one of their big wine stores, purchasing some remarkable Pinot’s.  Our son Mike will be glad to know that I also bought a nice bottle of single malt Scotch.  He sees Scotch as much more value for the dollar than wine compared to prices in Canada.  I will think of him while I sip it and share it. 

We camped at our mechanic Miguel’s shop in Uplands (LA).  He found a few things to do on the coach, he always does, fortunately we made it to his place with no breakdown.

We arrived at my God daughter Megan’s on Sunday and had a great visit with her, her husband Reginald and their sons Ethan (2 1/2 ) and Aedan (4 months).  We will miss having Christmas with them this year.  Aedan is the sweetest baby, I didn’t hear him cry at all although I understand he hates the carseat and cried all the way to dinner at Sizzlers and back.  We had to take two vehicles as there were four adults and two kids.  Ethan is still very musical, he now wants to play the drums.  He absolutely loved Garage Band on my iPad - he could play various kinds of drums with his fingers.  He remembered my banjo and wanted to play it a bit, however, the drums on the iPad were what enchanted him.  

It was sad to leave them after such a quick visit, these little ones grow and change so quickly, its fun to spend time with them.  Well, hopefully we can visit again on our way north in April.  

Monday morning we are off to Whole Foods in La Jolla and to Tecate to get our tourist visas so we can cross over easily on Tuesday morning.