February 11 to February 22, 2017—Heading north on Baja peninsula
What a difference a few thousand feet can make. For the last two weeks we enjoyed reliable weather in Los Barriles—highs in the high 70s, lows in the high 50s. The wind varied in intensity but the weather was always in the high end of the pleasant scale. We drove inland about 80 miles, climbing 1,600 feet to Rancho Verde campground near a national Bio-reserve. The temperature in the daylight was hot enough but went down to 38 at night. The area was forested and full of bird life, much more so than the coastal areas.
Water hookup and hot showers, $8US/night. There was no electricity but we have learned to conserve our resources for more extended stays off-grid.
A local man offered to sell us something called “marihuana;” jerked his thumb over his shoulder and said there was a field of it back in the forest. And it was a forested area, with real trees, the first we’d seen in six or seven weeks. The national park contains the last or largest stand of pine oaks in Baja or the world, I’m not sure which because the national parks do not come with a lot of information. In fact you would never really suspect you were in one—there is no signage, no trailheads, no rangers, and there are private ranches here and there within the park. On the map is a green area indicating the park boundaries and its name and that is about all you get. Mark and Val and we spent a day in the park, about a half hour from our campground, walking the arroyos, taking lunch under a giant banyan or ficus tree of some sort.
Seeing a bobcat was the height of that trip. Mark and I explored several miles of trails around the camp, avoiding the ganja fields.
We stayed two nights in the mountains then descended back to the Gulf and the capital city La Paz. We returned to Campestre Maranatha on the outskirts of the city. It is not a particularly desirable spot but the better of two RV camp choices. We needed a number of supplies from the US-style mega-marts found in La Paz–cat litter, cat food, odds and ends.
An exceedingly rare midwinter rainstorm was forecast during our stay in La Paz; no rain is expected in Baja Sur until the fall. At one point they were calling for 3 inches of rain and 50 mph winds. By the day of the arrival of the storm the forecast was reduced to a half inch of rain and 30mph winds. After some discussion and research we all decided to ride the storm out at a hotel and booked rooms at the Hyatt overlooking the city. Quite a treat, the first hotel stay of our nine month trip, and a good call—it drizzled or rained all day and the winds were as predicted. The cats rode out the storm in the Scamp which was tucked away in a protected corner of the hotel grounds.
The road north from La Paz turns inland into the mountains and then back to the Gulf. We drove several hours to hotel that some sources had described as very accommodating to campers like us, and others described as being a dump with no facilities. (Mark had turned me on to a site called Overlander that logs first-person reports about off-road and obscure camping opportunities around the world. The conflicting reports about the hotel were both at the Overlander site and posted within a few weeks of each other. ) The Hotel Tripui, below Juncalito on the coast, was a very nice spot for us. A gentleman came out and showed us the various sites we could use, offered to run his own extension cords and hoses, told us to use the beautiful pool, wifi in the restaurant. $12US/night.
We stayed two nights, taking a day trip to a vast beautiful deserted beach, Punta Arenas, beachcombing.
We bypassed the city of Loreto and made for a dry-camping (i.e. no facilities) beach on Bahia de Concepcion. This meant climbing back into the mountains to probably 2,500 feet and down again to the coast. Following Mark, high in the mountains, I began to wonder about the strange shadow I was seeing under his right rear tire. I got closer and realized it was dangerously, almost completely, flat. I flashed my lights as he realized at the same moment that his steering was getting awfully squishy on some of those tight mountain curves. It could have a tragedy had it blown suddenly. He made it to the bottom of a hill, still high in the mountains. There was a serious gash in the tread of the tire. These are heavy duty tires he has, 34 inches high and 14 inches wide, costing $450 Canadian apiece. He used one of those tire repair kits with the needle and the sticky strip of rubber and, miraculously, it stopped the leak. Unfortunately between the two of us he couldn’t get more than 40 pounds of pressure in the tire before his cheesy bike pump started revolting. But the tire held the twenty miles it took us to get to Santispac beach.
Santispac is the most desirable of the string of beaches along Concepcion Bay. The mountains behind shade some of the other beaches hours before they cast shadows on Santispac. We had stayed at Coyote Beach, a few miles down the Bay, on our way down and loved it but Santispac is everyone’s first choice—a beautiful cove, two restaurants, water that is shallow for a good ways out and warms during the day. We took Mark’s boat out several times, fishing or cruising. I climbed the mountain behind the beach. Tough climbing these hills; you really can’t use your hands because every plant that you might want to grab is bound to be full of thorns or spikes or needles, and the handholds between rocks might contain black widow spiders. It is slow, strenuous going; worth the effort for me.
Took Mark’s tire to the llanteria a few miles down the road. (Baja roads are lined with discarded tires and small tire repair places.) These guys removed the tire, patched it from inside, had it ready in an hour, charged 400 pesos ($20), while Mark and I went into Mulege for supplies (read beer.)
Stayed four nights in Santispac. Brenda developed a relationship with a chihauhua named Lucy
and befriended a 5 year old French Canadian girl named Flora. I tried to wash my hair in the bay using biodegradable soap that Mark had. I thought it was trick soap because it wouldn’t lather and it coated my hair with some wax-like substance. I looked like Albert Einstein on a bad hair day. I learned later that ordinary soap is animal-derived and based on sodium chloride which undergoes changes in the presence of salt water none of which enhance the properties expected of soap. What you need in saltwater is “sailors’ soap” which is plant-derived and based on potassium chloride.
Mark and Val had some Ontario neighbors that were supposed to have met them in Mexico weeks ago but were delayed by the harsh winter in the north and some other issues. They finally arrived in Santispac, nice couple named Jeff and Wilma. The Ontarians plan on taking the ferry from Santa Rosalia to mainland Mexico, which shaves about 600 miles off their trip east and spares them the bad roads we know are ahead. We all hung out for a couple of days then it was time for Brenda and I to go off on our own. Between Alan and Betsi and Mark and Valerie we have been traveling with partners for almost our entire stay. Being on our own suddenly makes me feel a little vulnerable, but we are old Mexico hands now and, and for a the next week or so, traveling ground we have already been over.
