Sunday, 3/22 continued
After the internet café, I continued south in the deepening dusk. I decided to make an exception about driving at night, because I had a four lane highway with reflectors at the sides of the lanes. On top of that, it was completely straight and flat.
After about an hour, I came to Constitucion, the first city I have seen. It had a four lane boulevard running south, palm trees in the divider, and all the amenities of any city, such as big supermarkets. There were many traffic lights, the first I’ve seen in 700 miles. But when I came to the main intersection, it was blocked by some kind of emergency, with several ambulances, and police directing traffic to detour.
I continued south out of town, and wondered if I should stop at a Motel I passed, which advertised for RVs. You can always pull in for the night for about $8. I waffled, and thought it might be noisy, so I continued, growing more tired. About 45 min. later, I found a side road, and quickly found a place to camp from that. I can still hear the highway, but there’s only been a single pickup on the side road. Then I cooked myself a nice stir fry, with lots of vegetables. I’ve finally hit on the secret for good food in the trailer.
After passing those beautiful bays today, Conception and Loreto, the highway went inland and crossed the divide. The road was very sinuous—certain people I know might have been a bit nervous. Eventually we got up on a level plateau with cactus, which gradually decreased in altitude to the west until we were on a perfectly flat plain. Then intensive agriculture began, and also the population and infrastructure increased as well. The soil is very fine—almost like dust.
This is called the Magdalena Desert, and gets very little rain—everything is irrigated, often by the big circular sprayers like they have in Wisconsin. But where they get the water, I have no idea. Sugar cane is one of the crops. The road has been going absolutely straight for hours to the SE.
This is called the Magdalena Desert, and gets very little rain—everything is irrigated, often by the big circular sprayers like they have in Wisconsin. But where they get the water, I have no idea. Sugar cane is one of the crops. The road has been going absolutely straight for hours to the SE.
Mexico has been putting a lot of effort into improving this highway. It was perhaps worst in the high desert region a third of the way down, around Catavina. One thing I notice in Baja are the dry washes. There are a huge number. They must get torrential rains on rare occasions--the water comes flooding down these dry washes, which are very wide and multi-channeled. A lot of money is going into building bridges—concrete ramps supported by concrete pylons--across these washes. But many other things down here are crumbling—you especially see large numbers of half-built buildings by the highway.
This Magdalena Desert is the pits. Let me describe my campsite. It’s been grazed, so it’s a bit dusty and disturbed, and there are auto tracks here and there, perhaps to get to the cattle. Some garbage strewn about, such as beverage containers. The soil is fine dust, with a kind of limestone crust here and there. But there is a sparse golden grass about a foot long that gives the ground a golden haze here and there.
There are short trees, medium-sized cactus, and thorny shrubs. There are some of the deadly cholla cactus here, though they are smaller. The real nasty things here are the sand burrs, about the size of a grape. There’s a bunch of them right where I step down from the trailer, but they are all over. Like the larger cholla arms, these are waiting to attach to your shoes. Before I knew it, I had tracked about five into the trailer, where they attached to the rug. I discovered them when I took off my shoes, and…. You get the picture.
On top of that, I was close enough to the coast to get no-see-ums inside the trailer. I woke up in the middle of the night with that creepy-crawly, itchy feeling. Though they are a bit annoying, you can ignore no-see-ums, and they do no real harm. So here it’s basically dusty and brown. Sounds pretty bad, I’m sure… but trailer camping is pretty comfortable on the whole.
There are short trees, medium-sized cactus, and thorny shrubs. There are some of the deadly cholla cactus here, though they are smaller. The real nasty things here are the sand burrs, about the size of a grape. There’s a bunch of them right where I step down from the trailer, but they are all over. Like the larger cholla arms, these are waiting to attach to your shoes. Before I knew it, I had tracked about five into the trailer, where they attached to the rug. I discovered them when I took off my shoes, and…. You get the picture.
On top of that, I was close enough to the coast to get no-see-ums inside the trailer. I woke up in the middle of the night with that creepy-crawly, itchy feeling. Though they are a bit annoying, you can ignore no-see-ums, and they do no real harm. So here it’s basically dusty and brown. Sounds pretty bad, I’m sure… but trailer camping is pretty comfortable on the whole.
Monday, 3/22
This was a better day. I drove another hour our so straight SE through the Magdalena Desert, then eventually up onto some low mesas, then finally got higher and went over a low divide to the Pacific side, where I could see La Paz and the bay before it, off in the distance.
Pumping gas in La Paz.
The waterfront promenade at La Paz
Lots of waterfront art at La Paz.
In some parts, La Paz had a few older buildings, but it didn’t have much of a colonial feel. Again, I might compare it to Madison, since Madison has the lakes, and La Paz has the Sea of Cortez. It was pretty laid back, with some very nice restaurants, with beautiful décor inside, but I didn’t stop there. I’m waiting for Cabo San Lucas to splurge.
La Paz is a funky place, about half the size of Madison, with all the services.
One thing that was a little different from home, was that every block had a little taco stand, usually on wheels. In the past, I’ve tended to look at these as mobile germ warfare units—evidence of a sort of lesser culture with primitive health standards. But then I saw these vendors in a new light. They were all very neat and clean and probably more hygienic than they used to be. You can really see them as evidence of high culture—an adaptation to the tropics and a lower material standard of living. If you work downtown, there’s always really good, really cheap food less than a block away. You don’t have to worry about bringing your own sandwiches, and keeping them cool in the warm climate. And, you can eat the food right out there on the street, because the climate is balmy all year round.
I had a little trouble finding my way out of town when I finished shopping about 3 pm, since the signs were a bit opaque. But soon I was on the highway, headed SE again, through the suburbs of housing developments. Pretty soon, we were climbing into the mountains. The afternoon drive was fun, for a change. The road was very twisty, and I went through a few interesting small towns. Since I left La Paz, the vegetation has changed distinctly. It is now what you call a tropical thorn scrub. There are small to medium-sized trees, some leafing out and quite green. Interspersed are cactus, including a smaller relative of the cordon. Then, true to the forest’s name, there are a lot of thorny shrubs, and they are very sharp! Some of the trees are flowering blue or even red, and one large tree has a bark almost as white as a birch.
Tropical thorn shrub vegetation south of La Paz.
As the sun set, I took a side road an headed for Cabo Pulmo, where there’s a national marine park and the only coral reef in the Sea of Cortez. I didn’t quite make it there, but for the night I’m camped on a public beach at La Ribera, with the sound of waves outside. Hardly any wind, for a welcome change, and the temperature at 8:30 pm is 71 F. Very nice.
Not counting the side trip to Cabo Pulmo, there’s only about 60 miles left to the tip of Baja.
Tuesday, 3/23
Every morning when I wake up, there’s a slight worry that I’ll be able to get safely out of whatever place I’m camping in. This morning, I had to worry I might get stuck in soft sand on the beach. But the sand was firm.
I continued on towards the Cabo Pulmo National Marine Park. I went about 10 miles on a poor paved road, then it ended and I was on a dirt road for about 6 miles. In a few places, the grade was so steep I nearly lost traction. Along the coast are a series of clusters of expensive second homes—and some have high fences with barbed wire on top. One even had a little private airstrip. This is the first area I’ve been in with serious-looking no trespassing signs. Could some of these places belong to drug lords?
By mid morning, I arrived at the little town of Cabo Pulmo—it’s off the grid. Cabo Pulmo has the only coral reef in the Sea of Cortez. So there are about 4 restaurants, and three dive shops, and a little grocery store, some houses to rent, and that’s about it. It’s very laid back. The ranger hasn’t been around to collect my fee, but they said I’d see him sooner or later.
The weather was very calm, with about a 5 kt. Wind, so I knew this was my chance. There were low swells on the Sea but almost no chop. I took my kayak off with help from people who offered. About noon, I got off to paddle down the coast. The water is very blue and clear, and the coast very barren, with low but sharp mountains a mile or so back. It was so hot I almost didn’t want to go, but once I got on the water, there was breeze, and it wasn’t so bad.
I paddled three miles south, past the point in the distance.
I paddled about three miles down the coast to a point, having to take a little detour around the breakers where they hit the reef. At the point, there were some big cliffs with weirdly eroded rocks, and eventually I saw several different rocks with a number of sea lions hauled out. A few barked at me loudly but otherwise they ignored me. There were a few cormorants, and a few pelicans, with vultures circling high in the cliffs. A few little sandpipers bobbed their behinds on the rocks. Each rock emerging from the sea had many Sally lightfoot crabs on the sides, eyeing me warily. On my way back, I saw terns diving into the surf, and catching small fish. One was frantically trying to swallow the fish before a frigate bird arrived, and he did manage to gulp it down, just before a very large frigate bird cruised in and gave him a buzz. (Frigate birds are pirates—they are highly maneuverable, trying the steal fish from other birds—even trying to force them to disgorge it.)
On my way back, I stopped at a little beach sheltered by the point—since I saw there were some people snorkeling there. It was still pretty hot, but I was able to find a bit of shade by a boulder.
Baja isn’t for the faint of heart. While I was there, I was watching about three families with children from about 8 to 15 who had come to the beach. They used to kayaks to bring in a lot of gear—coolers, cameras, towels, etc.—and then the rest of them hiked in about half a mile from the road. The kids were having a great time snorkeling around together, and then climbing barefoot up on some high rocks above the beach, all with very little supervision. Nobody was telling them to watch out or to stop doing what they were doing. But they seemed to be using their heads.
(Another example of how Baja attracts rugged people. I stopped to talk to an American couple in the parking lot before I went paddling. They were about my age, maybe older. They said they were camping nearby. When they saw my kayak, the casually remarked that they had kayaked nearly the entire Sea of Cortez side of Baja.)
This was quite a pretty and unusual beach. There were little patches of sandy beach between little rocky points. It was well-sheltered, with calm and very clear water. When I went in to snorkel, I found a little coral, and lots and lots of colorful fish. I wasn’t prepared for how cold the water was—not frigid, but yet it wasn’t really comfortable. So I went from being fried to being cold within a few minutes.
Compared to other places I’ve been snorkeling—there weren’t all the exotic fish you see some places. No barracudas, turtles, rays, sharks, or big groupers. But there were a lot of fish, some incredibly beautiful. Maybe 20 different species. Some were swimming in schools of 3-4 different species. The most exotic fish I saw were several pipefish—about 2.5 feet long, and extremely skinny and stretched out. Their heads were about a third the body length. Their tail didn’t have the usual fishy tail fin, but instead tapered to a tiny little bright blue thread.
The beach was just behind a rocky point. On Maine beaches you see rounded pebbles on the beach, maybe fist-sized. Here, the “pebbles” were boulders up to a meter or more across, many perfectly round—and, they had been tossed by the waves up to fifty feet above the present water level. I wonder what kind of storms can do that! Higher up, the granite had been eroded into elaborate shapes, at what appeared to be rapid rate.
As I was coming back, I was nearly surprised by a bigger wave that was beginning to break. I struggled to turn to face it, and luckily it passed by just before it curled over and broke, so no problem. If I had gone over, it wouldn’t have been fatal, since I was close to shore, and there wasn’t a lot of surf.
By the time I got back, the waves had come up some, and I had to land in some moderate breaking waves, but I backed in, and only shipped a few cups of water.
I was camped in the town parking area by the beach, with a few funky business and houses around. Generators are chugging. About 15 young Mexicans were playing volleyball next to the trailer. The whoops and laughs were exactly the same you would hear in the US, except for the Spanish.
View of Cabo Pulmo village. My trailer is visible in left center.
I headed out to one of the restaurants, where I ate on the veranda. Little kids of the proprietor’s were toddling around. In Mexico, there are always children. As I left the parking area, a fisherman headed back from his boat on a ATV. For fun, he was racing in the dusk about 4 dogs, large and small, who were making a terrific racket. They swarmed around him like a cloud of bees. But at one point, he must have run over one dog’s foot—It yelped in pain, and slunk away, but apparently not much harm was done. I had an entire red snapper, pan fried.
With all that exercise and sun, I am really bushed!
Wednesday, 3/24
In the morning, I went snorkeling on the reef just in front of the village, but the wind had come up, and it was too rough. The water wasn't clear. So instead I went for a walk on the sand dunes and bluff tops. I saw lots of track from crabs that come out at night and go everywhere, a coyote or fox, and several snake tracks, one of them large.
I packed up and headed south. The landscape was very barren, and the mountains sharp. There are two cities on the tip, about 20 miles apart. As I approached the first, Santiago del Cabo, there were suburbs and lots of development. After much traffic and strip malls (Mexican style), I got to the tip and saw the luxurious hotels. They went on for miles, then there was a bit of undeveloped land before I got to Cabo San Lucas. As I got into Cabo San Lucas, there was a stunning view--a huge cruise ship in a half-moon harbor, with rocky pinnacles jutting into the ocean at the furthest point to the southeast.
The tip of Baja is just behind the bow of the cruise ship.
View of Cabo San Lucas. Not an eco-tour destination.
I stopped briefly at the beach, then started to look for my RV park, called Club Cabo Hotel. From the guide book, I knew roughly where it ought to be--on a road not far from the beach. So I headed down the only such road, but it dead-ended at a huge luxury hotel--obviously not my place.
I was scratching my head--when I noticed a little dirt road leading from where the taxis were parked. A tiny dirt road! So I followed it about half a mile, and passed a little walled compound--where my RV park was located. It was a little forgotten oasis, somehow missed by the developers on an odd spot of land. The proprietors are very friendly, and it's a beautiful, quiet little spot. It was very hot. I went for a swim after setting up.
Enjoying the pool at Club Cabo Hotel with the bimbos.
Then I went into town to get a software problem with the computer fixed. I was waited on in a little hole-in-the-wall computer shop, where I was waited on by Dr. Frankenstein and his twisted assistant with slicked back hair. While I was waiting for them to fix it, I decided to take a walk around the block. On the loop away from the main street, I found myself in the red light district, with guys beckoning me into dark bars, and floozies on the street corners looking at me and saying "Senor?" Back at the computer store, I was still alive, and the computer was fixed.
The next challenge was to find a place to eat. I found a good one in the guide book, but I couldn't seem to locate myself on the map. Several bystanders couldn't figure the map out either. So I stopped at a "Tourist Info" place, where they tried to sell me a condo. But I did manage to find out that I was looking at the map for Santiago del Cabo, whereas I was in Cabo San Lucas. That's the problem of twin towns.
I had a meal of fresh sea scallops that was served up in about 5 minutes. But it was something of a disappointment, along with my other two dinners. My experience so far--you get a main dish of fish or scallops that's bigger than you can eat. It's pan-fried in garlic--tastes good, but unimaginative. The side vegetables are few and uninteresting, maybe half cold.
Years ago, I had a meal with Lisa in Cuernavaca. There were about 5 waiters hovering over us, delivering a 4-5 course meal in a beautiful garden, with peacocks strutting about. Now that's the kind of place I'm looking for.
My setup at Club Cabo Hotel.
In front of the office, I noticed a sign attached to a tall palm tree. I've driven a wild, desert peninsula of 900 miles, braved many dangers, and finally thought I'd reached safety--only to be confronted with one last test:
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