Autobus
02 June 2011 | San Diego
Steve cold
The reason this pic is so blurry is that one of the many things I have on my shopping list while in San Diego, is to buy a new camera. Normally I wouldn´t use this pic on this very high class blog....but since I had just spent 15 hours coming up Baja on a bus from Santa Rosalia, and was feeling a little blurry myself, I felt the pic was appropriate. Baja California has always had the reputation of being a VERY desolate place and it is in some places. People are often warned when thinking about driving down Baja....not to do it. It has a history of washed out, poorly maintained roads. It has a reputation of having few if any services for hundreds of miles. It also has a reputation...and history, of banditos who set up road blocks, often posing as police and robbing unsuspecting travelers. I read a warning that told people that if they break down, not to leave their car unattended, or it would be stripped within minutes....like in the middle of nowhere, some bad guys who want to strip you car won´t do it because some middle aged gringo and his wife are standing guard.
So now let me clear up some of these misconceptions. First of all the road, Mexico 1, although narrow and with many curves, is a very well maintained road. There were a couple of places that the road turned to dirt for a few hundred feet, but even these areas were keep up. As we learned while in Bahia Concepcion, Mexico 1 has A LOT of traffic, and especially truck traffic, on it. Meaning that if you did have a problem there would be someone along within minutes. I was VERY surprised to see so many towns and even small cities along the way, it seemed that there was some sort of civilization every 50 miles or so...and guess what, they all had services that you could buy gas, have a needed repair done or even.....buy a taco, WOW. Lastly, we didn´t run into any bandidos, we did go through half a dozen checkpoints where there were ligitiment Marina´s, heavy armed, who went through our bags at one, and came on the bus several times during the night to have a look see.
The bandidos are probably in a cantina somewhere, playing pool with the pirates I keep hearing about.