Day 8 - February 14th, 2025
Ah well, I did say that keeping up posting daily could be a challenge. And I’ve proved myself right! Been too busy working and enjoying the beach life!
Anyway, here’s day 8:
7:26 a.m. Temperature 17.5 C
We wake up to the sound of the ocean. Waves crashing on the rocky beach. It’s warmer here than it was in Southern California but it’s definitely windier and the wind makes it feel cooler than it is. We drink our coffee watching the fishermen starting their day. Some of them head out by small boat whilst others drag what look like large black rectangular mats down to the shoreline. We are not exactly sure what they are doing but they look like some sort of means of catching shellfish. Another local heads back up the beach pulling a child’s toy red car (think Little Tykes) with a Home Depot type bucket in it where the child would normally sit. When he gets to where we are he calls us over to look at the clams he’s been collecting from the rocks. He’s got about 25 huge clams and he tries to sell some to us but we politely decline. Off he goes, heading towards town stopping a few times on his way to try to make a sale to people out for their morning walk.
Shortly after, our neighbour (he’s from Pennsylvania with a motorhome and a side-by-side Raptor type thing on a trailer behind it) comes by holding one sandal. He asks if we’ve seen the other one. Turns out that he left them outside his RV last night and figured the camp dog has made off with one during the night. That explains why there is one solitary brown shoe on the shared sink area behind where we are parked. Our neighbour tells us that another visitor had left that there when he left, the other shoe no doubt lost forever to our doggy friend. He then wanders off in search of his sandal (his wife tells us they are his favourite pair) walking up and down the beach area and finally onto the beach itself, searching in between the rocks. We tell him that the grey Sandal is not the easiest colour to find in the rocks, maybe he should have bought orange ones. He laughs along with us but looks like we find it funnier than he does. As he continues his search we also find it funny that he’s carrying around his one remaining sandal. Perhaps to protect it from the doggy thief, perhaps so he can compare it should he find a sandal in the rocks to make sure it’s a matching pair. Emma finally saves the day (for our single-sandaled friend at least) as she finds the missing sandal on top of the bbq outside the restaurant. One of the workers must have found it and put it there out of the dog’s reach. When his wife returns she tells us of a pile of single shoes she came across close to the house we think the dog is from. If there’s anyone reading this who only has one leg and is in the market for a job lot of single shoes, reach out and we’ll let you know where to find them. Not sure if they’re left or right though!
After pottering about for an hour or two, we packed up and headed out of camp. It’s getting hotter, up to 23 C. First we go to an aqua purificada store where we fill up our three, five gallon water jugs and then onto the gas station to top up with diesel. We also took the opportunity to fill our Rotopax diesel can which we have mounted on our rear storage box. Just a few extra litres in case of emergency. Now, full of water and diesel, we headed South.
Our Destination for the day was a remote beach on the Pacific coast just North of Guerrero Negro where we could dry camp for free. But first we had a few hundred kilometres of rough Baja roads to drive. Hwy 5 South from San Felipe started off relatively OK however, it quickly became a tedious game of dodge the pothole. Potholes here are sometimes small, sometimes large and sometimes enormous. We have read many, many stories of travellers hitting these pot holes and having blow outs and even damaging wheel rims and worse. And this year, the pothole situation was considered the worst in recent years. We wanted to avoid any tire and wheel damage and so travelled slowly, weaving in and out of potholes, copying other drivers when sometimes they just crossed lanes and drove on the wrong side of the highway to avoid the worst if they happened to be unavoidable any other way. The most nail biting (ass clenching) times were when we could see potholes coming up but there was also a vehicle (the semi- trucks were the worst) coming towards you as you knew you didn’t have much room for manoeuvre. The highway is super narrow and there is mostly no shoulder, just a few inches and then a drop off, sometimes six inches, sometimes up to four feet! In those situations the best course of action was just to slow right down in case the holes were deep. And we always breathed in when a semi truck passed, as you know it makes your vehicle narrower when you do that. It was like one of those 80’s arcade driving games where your car was stuck to the bottom of the screen and you could only move from side to side to avoid the obstacles coming down the screen towards you. And the obstacles repeated themselves over and over. We are calling this game Baja Blitz. We had a system, Emma calling out “hole” if she saw a large pothole, “side” if the shoulder was crumbling away and “middle” if she thought the only safe route was moving toward the middle. These call outs were just to back up what I was seeing as I was also keeping an eye on the rear view so I could see when faster vehicles (they were always faster) were coming up behind as then I couldn’t swerve into the other lane as they would be overtaking us. All in all, this just made for a stressful, tiring drive.
We had read all about the potholes and crazy semi-truck drivers (not to be confused with the semi-crazy truck drivers :) ) on Facebook before we came to Baja but no-one had ever mentioned the strong cross winds. Holy shit, the gusts that came across the desert, in some place from the sea, in other places from the desert itself, rocked the van and made me grip the steering wheel tight as sometimes we felt we were fighting to stay in a straight line. The fact that we were driving a giant sail didn’t help of course, the wind certainly had enough surface area to hit. We did get brief respites from the cross winds as we drove through the many places where the highway had been cut through rocky hills however, these rocky hills were made up of loose rocks, some small the size of your fist and some the size of a small car. And a whole variety of sizes in between. The side of the road and sometimes the lanes themselves were littered with smashed rocks reminding us that rocks fell often and caused our stress levels to rise as we braced ourselves in case any came down and hit the van as we’re were driving through these hills.
Blowing a tire and damaging wheels and suspension in giant potholes, being blown off the highway into a ditch or being smashed by falling rocks. Living the dream baby!
Just before Hwy 5 joined with Hwy 1 we lost concentration for a second or two and BANG, we hit a rather large pothole going a little faster than we should. Our stomachs flipped and we held our breath for what seemed like minutes as we continued to drive and assess if we had sustained any damage by the way the van felt to drive. All felt ok but we would have to to pull over to properly assess if we had any damage.
We joined Hwy 1 and drove for a while, our focus back on the job in hand. At least the cross winds and rocky hills were no more, just the potholes to contend with. We pulled over outside the El Parador hotel to check over the van and have some lunch. Everything was good, we had escaped any damage and we took it as a sign never to let your guard down when driving on these roads. I took the dogs for a walk about the parking lot and Emma made some sandwiches. A few other tourists also pulled over, taking a chance for a break, one being a large class A motorhome (those RVs the size of a coach bus) pulling a jeep - we would see this particular RV again soon.
We were the last to pull back onto the highway and resume our journey south. After about ten minutes we caught up with the Class A from the hotel stop and were happy to follow it, the road here seemed ok but it was always better to have another vehicle in front so you knew when the potholes were coming up. We followed it up some windy roads and at least the semi-trucks coming the other way were stopping before the tight curves to let the RV pass first, we snuck along behind. The road soon turned against us again though. Soon there were construction signs and quickly the surface of the highway disappeared. The highway became a rough track, potholes, gravel sections, bumps (if you live in Maple Ridge think of the Albion Fairgrounds parking lot by the barns but one hundred times worse. If you’re not from Maple Ridge, go visit to see what we mean, or just use your imagination). We slowed right down as the van shook and vibrated along the road, it felt like we’re in a tumble dryer. If the interior van build didn’t fall apart from this abuse we would be confident it could take anything. This went on for KM after KM and just when we thought it would never end, it did. For about 2KM then back to the same thing for a few more before we finally got to the end of it. All that way and we only saw one small road crew working, why they couldn’t do small sections at a time we have no idea. At the rate they were going they will still be there next year. Although we think that may be the point.
We couldn’t lose focus now though, we were on the lookout for the small track off the highway, leading towards the sea. We had selected a spot we found on iOverlander where there was a beach we could camp at for free. We found the track and turned off the highway onto a narrow, bumpy, sandy track. Was this a good idea? We had some recovery gear but if we got really stuck would someone else be around to help? We pushed that thought out of our minds as we ploughed on, the road getting progressively rougher, rutted in sections with hard rocks, then loose rocks and small up and down gradients then sand, some hard packed, some softer. Maybe we should stop to air down the tires a little? We slowly moved forward, making sure to pick the high ground wherever we could to give us as much ground clearance as possible. The van lurched from side to side as we made our way over the rough terrain. At a few places the road split into two and we had to make a decision as to which way to go however, we could almost always see the ocean in the distance so we made our way in that direction. After about twenty minutes of off road driving we reached the beach.
A few KMs of coastline with enough space for fifty rigs and there was only one other person here! A whole stretch of beach almost all to ourselves! We picked a spot, backed in and levelled the van with our levelling blocks so we would have a comfortable nights sleep. I walked over to introduce myself to our neighbour for the night. His name was John and he was from Brooklyn but had been living out of the back of his 90’s Jeep Cherokee for over six years. He had travelled throughout most of the USA and Canada, going up as far as Tuktoyactuk, choosing the smaller 4x4’s ability to go almost anywhere over the luxury of something bigger. And he was in his early sixties at least! Pretty impressive.
As it was Valentines day, I made a chicken curry for dinner (under close supervision and with lots of verbal help as I’m not the best of cooks) and we had a romantic, misty moonlight dinner - just me and Emma, closely watched by the dogs in case we dropped some food! Later as night fell, light rain started to fall and patter against the roof of the van, the sound mostly drowned out by the much louder noise of the crashing waves of the Pacific. One more van arrived after dark (a brave, or foolish soul travelling after dark around here). One of the main rules of travelling Mexico is do not drive after dark - nothing to do with banditos or anything like that but just the state of the roads and hazards. You can’t easily see potholes, topes (Mexican speedbumps) or stray cattle in the dark.
We settled down inside for the night, almost all alone for once.
