With renewed excitement now we’re back in a van and our trust is growing in Stella and big blue we’re out early and easily over the border to Mexico (as we already have all the paperwork). We have a quick stop in Ensenada to stock up and have fish tacos (it’s famous for them) and they’re yum. We make an odd purchase of donkeys milk shower gel (yes really).
We drive past where we had “camper gate” and the failure of beluga and there’s a sense of progress now we’re past the place we made it to previously. We start to drive through increasingly drier landscape and in the middle of it find a lovely looking vineyard where we try a few different types including Chardonnay and Merlot rose, we buy some delicious rose (expensive as heavily taxed in Mexico) . The views here are beautiful looking out across the vineyard and a pocket of greenery in amongst very arid terrain. Oddly there are cactus farms dotted amongst the vines here.
We then head onto lanzano Cardenas passing many little ribbon pueblos and seeing the incredible poverty and seriously battered old cars. It’s a world away from the states within 50 miles of the border, and we start to understand why so many people try to migrate illegally to the USA.
We start to lose the light and It’s not a good idea to drive in Mexico for many reasons - mostly the hidden “topes” or massive concrete speed jumps, errant cows and massive suspension shattering potholes. There’s only 1 proper (ish) road down the baja peninsula which is the longest peninsula in the world. We get to our campground on the beach at el pabellon near st Quintin (Thankyou ioverlander or we’d never find places like this). It’s a lovely rustic place with an old whale skeleton and we setup our chairs on the dunes and watch last of the light fade looking out to see and watch the pelicans fishing.
We make a beach fire and have a quick simple dinner and relax listening to the waves.
We awake for brekkie by the sea and have some beach time with Alex bodyboarding the waves. There are a couple of other families about but otherwise we have the beach to ourselves but it’s a bit foggy. We grab a shower (hot which is a surprise but a bit briny) and head to Guerrero Negro which is famous for 2 things - whales and salt - it's not whale season as they're all up north (where we saw them around Vancouver island on their way north). As we get going the first couple of hours are easy driving but we’re soon climbing the arid mountains and getting stuck behind lorries. Guy has written a blog dedicated to the vagaries of Mexican driving so look out for that one!
The landscape evolves slowly as we move south into a desert with plains, huge cactus that are taller than mature trees.
We pass places selling fuel from Jerry cans and are thankful we always fill up when getting near half a tank (big blue is a gas guzzler). We pass many washouts where during rains the water would come straight across the road. We go round some truly epic potholes and get caught out with one we’re convinced would’ve ripped a wheel off Wendy so we’re grateful for the truck with huge all terrain tyres and lift. Weirdly at the top of the mountain pass its 92 degrees Fahrenheit and when we’re lower down it’s in the 80s. We pass through a military checkpoint (we had prepared by splitting and hiding money and ensuring phones etc safely tucked away, but the national guard show no interest in us and wave us through.
We soon start to see very posh shiny off-road trucks full of lights, roll bars and large Americans with “exo expeditions” stickers. Apparently it’s a thing for Americans to bring their very expensive pimped off road trucks and take them on the dust roads here and destroy them (broken and spares we’ve also seen go past). We arrive in Guerrero negro and camp round the back of a little hotel and grab some tacos from a local stand full of people - yummy!
We have a noisy night due to road noise and speakers playing music (seem to be everywhere in Mexico) so after a chilled start we drive to the salt factory which supplies 50% of the worlds salt to try and have a look. They won’t let us in without a guide so we find one at hotel terrasol and pass a very informative couple of hours exploring the factory from where the salt water is evaporated to how the salt is collected cleaned graded and shipped. We love seeing the enormous machines scraping out the salt with tyres bigger than guy. Fortunately there’s a bilingual guest on the tour who translates for us.
After a quick sarnie break in Stella it’s on to San ignacio.
On route we pass a huge turkey vulture munching on road kill as well as a cow blown up like a balloon and definitely ready to explode. Alex wants to poke it…
We arrive to san ignacio and stop at el padrinon campsite in a shady spot as it’s 94 degrees. We walk to the old town to see the beautiful 1786 church in the last of the sun. Funnily we have 2 street dogs that came to say hi at the campsite and follow us into town like our own private escort and even sit at our feet whilst we have a beer. I want to adopt them. We have a beer in the lovely town square at one place then our first Mexican margarita and dinner at a more reasonably priced locals bar. The margaritas are yum and taste right for Mexico - the combination of saltiness and lime is just lush. San ignacio is a funny little oasis with palms and a river in a very dry area and it has a sense of life a calm all of its own, we like it a lot. We watch locals in battered trucks driving round the town square in circles and figure this must be the local version of “promenading” but with more rust. We potter back to the campsites
(with our street dog friends) and have a peaceful nights rest.
Were awoken to the sound of church bells and head off to Santa rosalia a rough and ready little place where we have some amazing tacos looking out to sea and then continue to Mulege. It’s a pretty little town with colourful sellers in the backstreets selling bright hats and embroidered clothing. I try to buy a bright frock but they are not big boob friendly so I give up.
Emma
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