Convoy to Cabo

Two vehicles--my truck and trailer, and friends in their VW Westfalia camper van--set out for Baja 3 weeks ago.  It was a true adventure.

We crossed the border at Tecate on Tuesday morning.  I'll just say it, Tecate is not a good presentation of the United States, or even of California, but that's where we crossed.  Tecate, Baja California, is nicer (and certainly larger), but unfortunately the Tecate Brewery has been closed to tours due to the 'rona so we continued on highway Mex 3 south.

We spent our first night in El Valle RV Park in El Valle de Guadalupe, the "Napa Valley" of Mexico.  Lots of vineyards, and the charcuterie and wine samples we had nearby were nice after the morning's exertions.

From there we went to Ensenada--ever been on a 3-day or 4-day cruise to Mexico out of Southern California?  If so, you went to Ensendada!  The highlight there was, of course, the natural blowhole at La Bufadora.  I hadn't been there since taking my son in about 2004.

It was in Ensenada that we started south on Mex 1, the Transpeninsular.  On the way to our next stop, beach camping near San Quintin, we stopped in Camalu, where a former student had poured concrete in a park as part of a church project several years ago.  I took pics and video and sent them to him on Instagram.  The place we stayed in San Quintin came highly recommended in the Baja Bible, the Traveler's Guide to Camping Mexico's Baja.  Sure, it was beach camping, which was kind of nice, but the bathrooms and showers (neither of which worked) were well over a quarter mile walk away.  When we didn't use the bathroom in my trailer we used nearby porta-potties, but we had to squeeze through barbed wire to get to them.

 

Woke up there to a flat tire on the trailer.  We plugged the hole and, to be safe, rotated the spare into its place.  We'll hear about that tire again later in the story!

Rather than risk the totality of the 195-mile "gas gap", we took a spur off Mex 1 to Bahia de Los Angeles, our first stop on the Sea of Cortez.  The sight of the bay after crossing the mountains was more beautiful than any picture we took.  Camped on the beach in a small hotel/campground--took the maiden voyage in my inflatable kayak there, too!

Back on Mex 1, the next day we crossed the state line from Baja California to Baja California Sur, as well as a time zone, and made it to Guerrero Negro.  Guerrero Negro might be the happening place in the winter, when the gray whales come to the lagoon to calve, but in the summer it's not so much.  We stayed in a so-called RV park behind a hotel and, if nothing else, enjoyed flush toilets and hot water showers, extravagances we hadn't experienced since Ensenada.

We passed through Santa Rosalia without stopping, missing the church designed and built by Gustav Eiffel, but at least we saw it on the way home.  Our next stop was Mulege (moo-lay-hay), an oasis on the Sea of Cortez coast.  I'd heard nothing but good things about Mulege, but I didn't see them.  One of my traveling companions coined the phrase, "Never stay in Mulege".  She softened her stance on the way back when we stopped at the Mulege Brewery on the edge of town, but...  Our campground was across the river and was just a dirt field with electric/water hookups.  The owners' house was on the side of a hill overlooking the "park", and they had a nice pool--which guests were free to use.  And we did.  Liberally.  It was warm, it was surrounded by greenery, and it was better than anything we would do had we driven the mile or so into town.

We drove less than 2 hours the next day, to Loreto, a much nicer town.  Our "campground" consisted of between 6 and 10 RV hookup spots in what had been an open area in a small gated community.  We liked Loreto much more, and made significant use of the community's swimming pool.  Again, flush toilets and hot showers with water pressure.  And laundry!  We were able to do laundry!

I had to pick up a friend in La Paz, a 5-hour drive and the capital of BCS, the next day, so I left about 2 hours earlier than the others and made it to La Paz in plenty of time.  I reconned a nice campground near the airport, less than 15 minutes from downtown and the waterfront, and still picked up my friend at the airport on time.  I got a text from the others; they wanted to consider a beach 45 km on the other side of town, out in the middle of nowhere.  Ugh!  So we drove from the airport to Playa El Tecolote--out in the middle of nowhere!--and waited for the others.

I cursed them as we got farther and farther from La Paz (I like cities), but at least Tecolote was beautiful and we decided to stay there for a couple nights.  This was our first true beach camping--no campground, no hookups, just us parked on the sand with the waves lapping nearby.  Completely legal in Mexico!  The beach was full during the day, but at night there were only a few vehicles to punctuate the darkness.  I used my generator at times to keep the trailer at a tolerable temperature inside.  The wind picked up at night, but the temperature didn't drop too much!

Just over the hill, a short drive from Tecolote, was Balandra Beach.  Balandra is considered the most beautiful beach in Mexico, and rightly so.  It's also a National Heritage Site.  I don't recall that there was a fee to get in, but partly because of the 'rona, access was severely limited to only 400 visitors at a time.  One group would be allowed access between 7am and 1pm, the beach would be cleared at 1, and a second group would be allowed between 2 and 7 pm.  Pictures capture only the smallest shred of the majesty.

We took a day trip in to La Paz.  In Mexico, seaside towns and cities have a Malecon, or waterfront walkway, and La Paz' is over 2 miles long.  These malecons often have sculptures as well as colorful signs with the city's or town's name, all the better for tourists.  I enjoyed La Paz, it was a nice city.

 

At this point, it was time for our 2-vehicle convoy to split up.  My other friends had a nice place to stay in a shipping container building in Cabo, and I didn't.  There's no camping in Cabo--all the old campgrounds have been bought up for seaside resorts--so my friend and I headed to Los Barriles to set up camp.

I've heard a lot of bad things about Mex 1, but the only criticism I have of it is how narrow it is.  For most of its length it's the tiniest of 2-lane roads.  I also found it to be very well maintained, not full of potholes like I'd read so many places.  (In fact, after crossing back into California, it didn't take me long to realize that I was driving on roads not maintained as well as Mex 1 is.)  Part of the problem with Mex 1, though, is that it winds and twists through the mountains that form Baja's spine, and when we got stuck behind a Coke truck on those twistie-turnies, we were doomed to 25 mph for about 45 minutes.  No, there's no requirement to pull over and let people pass, and mostly there wasn't a place to pull over anyway!  It was a grueling drive to Los Barriles.

We finally got there and set up in a nice beachside campground, and then headed to Cabo.  My friend who flew in had never been to Baja before so we had to take a ride in a transparent boat out to see The Arch, but only after we stopped off at the orphanage (watch Blue Miracle on Netflix and make a donation if you can) to drop off the donations I'd brought.  We enjoyed the touristy part of Cabo, then drove back to Los Barriles.

He had to catch a plane home on Saturday, and I didn't want to risk getting stuck behind another Coke truck on the way to La Paz, so we went back to La Paz on Friday afternoon and stayed at that (very nice) RV park near the airport.  That allowed us to go enjoy the city Friday night and relax Saturday morning before he had to catch his flight.

After taking him to the airport, I had lots of time to myself, which I occupied by visiting more places in La Paz as well as making good use of the RV park's swimming pool.  My friends arrived from Cabo a day or so later, stayed one night in the RV park, and then we headed north.

It was a long day of driving, but we camped on the beach at Playa El Requeson, partway between Loreto and Mulege.  Right on the beach, but a "caretaker" there charged us 200 pesos ($10 US) per vehicle.  This beach was stunning.  At low tide there was a small sand causeway out to an island; you could walk it at high tide, but you'd be waist-deep and the current was fairly strong!  Very picturesque.

The next morning we left and this time we stopped in Santa Rosalia to see Eiffel's church.  It was a nice church but would not be a place to stop and see had anyone but Eiffel built it.  Then we continued on to Guerrero Negro and stayed at the same place we'd stayed on our way south.

We left Guerrero Negro in the morning and drove a few hours until we met with Mex 5, which joined Mex 1 only within the last few years.  Our goal was to get to the hot springs on the beach at Puertecitos.  But first, we had to stop at Coco's Corner.

Coco is a Baja institution.  Before Mex 5 connected to Mex 1 with asphalt, Coco lived just off the dirt road.  Apparently his place was a nice stopover on some of the long Baja desert races.  After Mex 5 was completed, Coco's Corner was too far off the highway--so, and I don't know how, it was moved.  Coco is an old man in a wheelchair, who's lost his legs to diabetes and lives alone out in the desert.  Travelers stop in and Coco offers them a beer--and he solicits bras and panties from the women, the ceiling and walls of his ramshackle hut are covered with them.  We signed his book, just names and "where you are born, not where you live".  His broken English and our broken Spanish allowed us to stay and talk over half an hour.  I don't know how he lives alone out there, an hour from the nearest town of any size, but somehow he gets enough groceries and beer to live on.  He'll let you pitch camp on his land if you ask nicely and ask early enough.  He's been out there in the desert since 1987, living alone, inviting random visitors into his plywood house.  Was there even a front door?

 

From there it was an hour to Puertocitos, where we encountered two problems.  First, we could not get to the hot springs.  I didn't understand why completely, but they were inaccessible.  And somewhere along Mex 5, the newest and smoothest freeway in all of Mexico, I'd lost a tire on the trailer.  That spare we put on in San Quintin?  Completely gone.  How long had I been driving on just that rim?  Good thing I have 2 axles and 4 tires on that trailer!  The tire that had gotten the flat so many days before was holding air, so we put it on and made our way to San Felipe.

I wanted to stay in a campground on the south side of San Felipe, nearer the town center and malecon, but my friends wanted to stay at a place on the north side and further from town--a place I'd stayed back in 2004 or so.  I thought it would be too small for my trailer, but I didn't want to spend hours comparing sites when we could spend that time on the beach, so I agreed and we just headed there.  I could barely fit my trailer in between the 2-story palapas, and my door wouldn't open all the way because of the room (think skinny! I would say to myself as I squeezed in), but we got there.  Then they wanted to go check out another place on the south side of town, but I was so frustrated after all the driving and the tire change that I didn't want to try to unsqueeze my trailer and go look elsewhere, so I implored them to just stay there one night and we could move the next day if they wanted to.  We ended up staying at Kiki's for two nights.

Yes, we went from Coco's to Kiki's in the same day :-)

Kiki's was ideal for my friends in their camper van.  I knew it would be, as it had been ideal for me and my camper van almost 20 years ago.  Right on the beach, too, which was nice.  The toilets and showers don't seem to have been improved in those almost-20 years, though.  Ugh.

There's something about San Felipe, I really like it as a town.  Less than 3 hours from the US border at Mexicali, it's easily accessible.  It's big enough to have everything you need, and small enough to be "cozy".  Population of about 20,000, tourism and fishing seem to be the major sources of income.  Well-maintained.

Got that rim fixed, and a relatively new tire, for $45 US.  It's now my spare, and is holding air.

I'd read about an ultralight pilot who lands on the beach and charges $50 US for a 20-30 minute ultralight flight over the town, beach, and water.  I knew my friends wanted to leave after our 2nd night in San Felipe, but I considered staying longer just so I could take an ultralight flight.  We were chilling on the beach on our full day there when I looked up.  It's a bird!  It's a plane!  It's an ultralight, and he's going to land on the beach!  I got his attention immediately, we chatted briefly, and I went to get $50.  I'd have recorded the whole flight, of course, but he warned me to ensure I didn't let go of my camera or it would "cause problems with the propeller" which was immediately behind me.  And there was nothing for me to hold onto, the only thing keeping me in place was a seatbelt.  I gripped that camera for dear life, not wanting to drop it or anything, so I took very little video and only one picture.  I was a little scared up there, too, again not being able to hold onto anything even if only for psychological effect.  I opted to just enjoy the flight as I could without recording the whole thing.  He was a great pilot!  When we landed on the beach and one of my friends paid for his flight, I told him he'd probably enjoy the flight more if he didn't have to worry about holding his camera.  He handed it to me and they took off.

 

Having accomplished what I really wanted to do in San Felipe, I had no urgent reason to stay longer, and my friends were anxious to get home.  We left the next morning, crossed the border, and got back to crappy roads.  The thermometer on my truck read 118 degrees north of Calexico. Ugh.  Somewhere off 210 we decided just to find a hotel for the night.  We found one but there was nowhere nearby to park my truck and trailer, so I found a hotel about 10 mi away where I could at least park on the street.  For the first time all trip they got up and ready earlier than I did and, since I didn't answer their text, they got underway, getting home that afternoon.  I slept in, and then took a nap/food break somewhere along I-5 that afternoon, and got home about 9pm Saturday.

Then the work began.  Unloading.  Laundry.  Cleaning.  Parking and unhooking.  And my water heater at home was giving me problems before we left, and still is.

Back to the real world.

Update, 8/31/22:  There is a post on Instagram that Coco has been found dead at his house.  I've not found any news reports online but I'll keep looking.  What I have found, though, is reports of his death going all the way back to 2003, so I'm cautiously hopeful.

Update #2, 9/1/22:  I have found an online story reporting Coco's death, but it seems to reference the same Facebook post that the Instagram post relied on.  I haven't found anything yet to counter it, so it seems that this time it might be real.