Blog Update: Driving the Baja

We had talked to a couple of people who had driven the Baja and were told that the roads were “not bad” and that there were plenty of gas stations, other then that, nothing special. We were surprised to find the road leaving Ensenada was pretty good. Further down the road we found that at times the road turned into brand new four lane and at other times old single lane full of chuckholes. At one point we were driving on a rough dirt road as we were detoured around construction work. All in all the road was “not terrible”. We were also surprised to see vineyard after vineyard as we drove up into mountains. Who knew Mexico had so many vineyards, it looked like Napa Valley. We drove for an hour or two before starting to see cactus. It was fascinating to watch as different species of cactus began to appear the further south we drove. At one point the cactus, or whatever it was, looked just like the “trees” out of Dr. Sueuss’s “Lorax”, weird. At another juncture there were so many cactus of all variety ranging anywhere for a few feet to 20 foot tall, that it looked like a forest. After 6 hours we began seeing huge boulders, the further we drove the bigger they got. Some the size of volkswagons. Then we began to see piles of boulders, like a mountain of volkswagon size stones. We had arrived at Catavina and the famous bolder fields of Catavina. Here we found were many early indigenous rock paintings thousands of years old. The little “town” of Catavina is made up of a no longer functioning gas station (luckily we packed extra fuel), a couple derelict “motels”, a little store and our four star Mission Hotel. We thought it funny no one had mentioned the bolder fields as they were unlike anything we had ever seen or the amazing cactus forests. We had an amazing Filet Mignion (an unexpected treat) for our “New Years Eve celebration”. After a great night sleep we headed south the next day. It was cold as heck as we walked out the front door, it was forty degrees outside. I didn’t realize we had gained a bunch of elevation and were at 2,000 ft. That equals a ten degree drop in temp (for every 2,000 feet). As we continued south we were amazed by the towering mountain peaks and huge flat plateaus with big dried up lakes. It was apparent that these big lakes would again fill when the next big storm comes in. We took lots of pictures of these towering mountains as we were very surprised to see them. But some times we say a picture just can’t show the what we are seeing, some times you just have to be there. I had always thought of the Baja as being flat with nothing but dry dessert. We ended our second day arriving in the sea shore town of Santa Rosalia. It sits on the Sea of Cortez side of the Baja, approximately 300 miles north of La Paz. We had not been able to book a room here so we thought we would try at a hotel we had stayed at when we came down in 2015. Luckily we were able to get a room, such as it was. It was quite a step down from the previous night. Our backs hurt the next day due to the bed. We tried to find some coffee but no Starbucks around, so we settled for some crappy brewed stuff which is better then the instant that most Mexican restaurants serve. We drove for two hours and stopped at Loreto to fill up. While getting gas I asked the guy behind me if he knew of any good coffee in this town. We were blown away when he said that the hotel down on the beach served Starbucks! We could not believe our luck and promptly headed for the hotel. We had a lot of road a head of us still and headed toward the town of Guererro Negro, which interestingly is back over on the pacific side The road has to go back over across the peninsula to avoid the high mountains heading south. The Baja is anything but flat. We had a nice “traditional” lunch in this very poor little town. While there we were able to provide a meal for a street dog and an old man in the park, always puts a smile on our faces, we are so fortunate to live the life we do. As we got closer to La Paz the flatter the land got. Now this is what I pictured the Baja to be, flat and dry. As we rolled into town in darkness. We luckily had our handi new GPS phone that guided us right to our hostel. We had also stayed here back in 2015. It is a small but clean little place. Individual rooms with a central kitchen, we stayed here three weeks last time but this time we are staying only three days. It even came with a cat. As we travel we often seem to find cats to feed, as we both love cats, they are like little aliens. So tomorrow we check out and into our “new home”. Leiann had already booked this new place and it will be the first place that she can call her own for a whole month since we got back from Europe. We have a friend (Kris) coming to hang with us for a week or so. She had come to visit us in Rome also. We like to leave an open invitation for friends and family to come stay with us in exotic locations as we travel. We have had some great times doing this. After Kris leaves hopefully the boat will be ready and I will fly up to start the trip down with the boat. We expected it to be a little warmer down here, as it was in the sixties yesterday, dropping down in the fifties at night. Today it got up to mid 70’s so more to our liking. It might be another few weeks before we start getting those 80 degree days we love. Even weirder a new hurricane forming a thousand miles south of us. The hurricane season normally ends at the beginning of November, global warming! We look forward to spending a few months here in La Paz and be able to do some sailing in the Sea of Cortez. Stay tuned for more adventures.