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.