BAJA Southbound Road Trip MAY 2014

BAJA SOUTHBOUND

A Surprising Terrain - MAY2014



Before arriving in Baja I had recently read an account of an eco, enviro, adventure travel writer who traveled the Mexican coast with the incredible goal to learn (from scratch) and master the art of surfing. Amazingly in his mid forties he did indeed surf a sizeable beastly wave in Puerto Escondido. Anyhow, my point is prior to reading this humourous tale I had never really heard of Baja or any of the environmental and surf treats that it harboured so as I cruised along I kept mentally spinning back to this book and all the amazing places he saw and how passionate he was. The migratory whales, the wetlands, the endless number of remote surf breaks and campgrounds. I wish I could see so many cool places! I wish I could be so enthusiastic! I wish I could be as determined and improve my surfing so much! I never considered the possibility of someone mastering surfing within a year... so surely I can catch up to this guy . What have I been doing all these years to still be flailing? There's hope for me yet! And this is where he made it happen.

We set off from La Fonda pretty late in the day after checking the surf, fluffing about packing, and sending off some interesting young uni students who appeared to have had the "wildest" weekend of their life. A group of cute young Californian students had arrived six in a taxi (for fear of separating) and continued to remark excitedly and repeatedly at their being in Mexico! "Mum would kill me if she knew!" Bright eyed and excited at eating tacos, shopping in the markets, at the sheer rebelliousness of being south of the border. I couldnt help but smile and agree, their enthusiasm was infectious.

Our first port of call was Ensanada, an American tourist and cruise ship destination designed for people to hoard crappy souvenirs, stock up on cheap pharmaceutical products and party all night. We had no interest in this town besides the alluring promise of a functioning immigration department that may be able to belatedly grant us tourist permits (visas) that we had all failed to find when crossing the border at Tijuana. We had the best intentions to wake up early, obtain said visas, and be on the road to knock off a 12hr drive... But alas. We slept in. We spent too long at Starbucks drinking coffee. We lingered packing our bags (why did we even unpack!?). We didn't get rolling until after midday. We did get our tourist permits so that was a real stroke of luck at least!

I volunteered my services as driver for what turned out to be almost the entire stretch of the Mex 1. Lucky I love driving! Years of trawling up and down the West Australian coast doing thousands and thousands of kilometres somewhat prepared me for the journey. The only minor differences I noticed was that I had to sit on the wrong side of the car and drive on the wrong of the road while being guided by signage in the wrong language. No worries mate. I soon learned CURVA PELIGROSA (dangerous curve), ALTO (stop) and juggled the rest with my phrasebook in one hand and steering wheel in the other. We cruised through a few military check points unscathed, smiling like idiots and repeating "Si, Skippy". It would seem Aussies have it easy when dealing with authority in Mexico. Thanks again Skip.

The joy of road tripping with young guys are awesome things like roadside games... "let's throw rocks", for example. Uhhh yeah sure haha. Boys will be boys. Actually it turns out I loved this roadside passtime much more than the usual leg stretch lap of the car. For miles it felt like we saw nothing much of interest and with so few cars on the road to play the usual number plate games we were limited to DJ'ing and reading the romance sections of our phrasebooks. Tienes ojos preciosos (you have beautiful eyes) among other less romantic phrases of course.

The hours dragged on until I was no longer aware of my surroundings, just staring in to the distance and watching road markers fly by when suddenly I noticed something pretty bloody amazing... CACTUSES! EVERYWHERE! You little ripper, everyone wake up! We've got a serious cactus situation on our hands!!!

Everyone out. It's family photo time! Snap. Snap. Snap. Hey look at this one!? Sanp. Phwarr look at THAT one! Snap. This is madness. It's just like a cartoon.

Wow. It's a cactus.

I picked one for you.

 Oh stop it you naughty cactus!

Well it was almost too much excitement for the Adelaide boys, I don't blame them, I mean that was a pretty exciting treat to find that cactus after all. The first of a million. All tuckered out and fast asleep for another few restless hours crammed in the car.

After an eternity of straight road I had a surprising never ending encounter with a mountainous, winding stretch of road! I hadn't done my research so was entirely gobsmacked by the landscape. It was beautiful. It was here in this winding region that I discovered something a little shocking. Mexican speed limits are outrageously high! I found myself leaning in to turns gripping the steering wheel two handed with all my might hoping not to be flung off the cliff sides. I started thinking how all the local guys had said they drive about 20 over the limit no problemas. Seriously!? I had been going a little quicker on the straights, even overtaking most other road users until I hit this crazy section.

Anyway I was somewhere between sunset and midnight, mountains and flat plains when an interesting development slowly dawned on me... The marked speed limits were in kilometres per hour and I was doing miles per hour off my American speedo. Holy shit balls! Speedy Gonzales is gonna get everyone killed. I giggled to myself with my eyebrows raised high then eased off the pedal. I wondered if the lads had noticed anything untoward over the previous ten hours of curvas peligrosas and thanked my perpetual luck to have not been pulled over by the cops.

Some time after midnight we rolled on in to Guerrero Negro and stopped at the only 24hr hotel in sight. What a pink little treat it turned out to be in the light of day! We collapsed on shared beds and made more noises about an early start to make La Paz well before dark the next day. Never drive at night. We hadn't enjoyed sharing the narrow roads with haul trucks after dark and we all had advice ringing in our ears about bandits and road blocks that haunt the highways by night. The next day would be different. Early breakfast, early departure, early arrival.

You already know I'm about to say we didn't leave early. Infact I bumped around the room for while and made a weak attempt to suggest leaving then gave the lads an extra hour sleep in anyway - sleeping in the car the previous day must have really taken it's toll ;) Eventually I made the call, time to get this show on the road. It turns out we'd crossed a time zone the previous day while driving exactly straight down, go figure, so it was in fact an hour later. Crikey. Here we go again.

So here's some of the hot desert plains I was once dreaming of while hobbling over cold rocks and shivering in my damp wetsuit. Truely, I dreamed of this. Now ew. It's really really hot.

How about this for a storytale surprise... turns out oasis are real things. Beautiful things. Palm fringed bowls of sparkling hope nestled in the dryest of regions. Oh happy days! Imagine finding this after days under the belting sun on a dusty trail. Yes please!

It was so exciting to see the coast appear again! Not a little oasis, but a true blue, hazy horizon of water.

Another fun round of rock throwing target practice. Being a ridiculous girl I threw a rock with great force on the ground not far from where I stood (quicky checks to make sure nobody was watching... shit... was watching... I ummm... meant to do that?). I grazed the cactus target a few times threatening it but not causing any serious damage. Maybe I don't spend enough time throwing things anymore. Must throw more.

We struck the coast for real on the east coast and I squinted in to the gulf wondering if the mainland was anything at all like this. We drove with building enthusiasm towards the coast, anticipating the beach stop we all agreed we deserved.

We reached the coast at what appeared to be an industrial port where me and my mates, the seagulls, enjoyed some fish tacos. Well to be honest I enjoyed maybe the first one, then the second and third not so much after eating sneaky little chillies that were nestled inside. My mouth burned like a thousand suns and my eyes watered. This place sucks. I thought we could swim here. I hate tacos. Woh woh woh wait a minute I'm not serious. Just learning lessons. Check for chilies, taste test the salsa, then dig in with confidence.

We bought soothing icy poles then took our burning lips back on the Mex 1 to find the most beautiful beach! We stripped off and swam only briefly, acutely aware of the lowering sun and the miles between us and La Paz.

Just in case it wasn't unnerving enough to be driving in to yet another sunset to spend another night on the road, we were faced with another dilemma. An emptying fuel tank, and no more towns on the map. WHat is this!? The Nullabor bloody plain!? We're not idiots but... okay, idiots. We had no choice but to drive on and ask for fuel. Nope. No tengo. We choked and spluttered our way towards La Paz with the glow on the horizon for such a long, teasing time. Torn between the certainty that we would make it - we could SEE the city after all, and the dire fear that we might not. On the outskirts of town we rolled in to a fuel station where we eventually got served and thanked our lucky stars.

We cruised La Paz for what seemed like an eternity looking for an address that didn't exist before we gave in and dragged ourselves to a dingy 24hr hotel near the coast. I'm sure there was an audible sigh of relief as the three of us slumped in to bed that morning around 2am, thanking the universe for keeping us entertained with fields of cactus and alive through the dangerous nights.

I laid my head with fleeting thoughts of the surf to come. Southern Baja, the Cabos await.