2-15-05

I haven’t made it to La Paz yet, too much nice country on the way to just speed on through.

I left Los Barriles and instead of taking the paved road via San Antonio to La Paz I decided to take the little dirt road along the coast. It started out a very nice dirt road all the way to Punta Pescadero which turned out to be a small resort area complete with paved airstrip. I made my way down to the beach where I found the wind surfers (sail on surfboard) as well as a bunch of kite-boarder-surfers. I had seen these kite-boarder in the Colombia river gorge in Oregon, but this is the first I had seen them in Mexico. I couldn’t get a photo of the kite and sail boarders out in the ocean but I got this photo of a guy that sells sails that was teaching a couple the basics of kiting. You can see that he is holding on to the girls belt to keep her from being pulled away by the kite. The teacher could make that kite do almost anything.

I made camp for the night maybe five miles beyond there at a very  nice camp. The beach was a combination of sand and rock outcrops. I had the entire beach to myself. At this part of the road the gringo developments are starting to thin out, but they continue all along the road until the very end. I saw several realtor signs offering lots, both ocean front and view lots for sale.

that is $160 US dollars a square meter. I saw quite a few offering 1/8 acre lots starting at $22,000 with $6,000 down, and they are selling!!! I doubt that the poor Mexicans are getting in on any of this money. I think I understood that there are 8 or 12 families in Mexico that have all the money. I don’t know what the story is in Baja, but probably that is true here too. Along this road are several small Mexican villages and they are very poor affairs although I would imagine that the residents of these villages get jobs working building and taking care of the big gringo places. Some of these places are BIG very expensive affairs with huge high rock walls and fancy iron work.

I took a walk early in morning just after first light. There are a very few ocean birds here and I wonder why. It seems like the Pacific side had more sea birds. I did see this guy crossing my path first thing when I got out on the road.

If you cant see it or don’t know what it is, it is a roadrunner. Some times, like this, I wish I had a telephoto lens.

I had to take a few photos of the beautiful trees along the way. They are so spectacular.

This kind of tree seem to be tied in knots.

the photo doesn’t do this tree justice, it was stunning.

This tree is huge and  I think must be in good  water location.

this is the base of the tree and  it is much larger than Lil’ Red.

The further north I got, the rougher the road got. The road past Boga de Almo was the worst I have been on to date. The last four miles is along the cliffs of the Bahia de las Muertos and the tail end of the Sierra Al Gata. There has been a lot of rain and the road was washed clean of sand and dirt in places leaving nothing but rocks and coarse gravel. Quite a bit of the road was just blasted out of solid rock and steep, let me tell you it was VERY steep in spots. I am in total amazement of Little Red. She is just feisty like a terrier with a rat. I finally had to put her in four-wheel drive and when I pointed her up the hill and held the throttle to the floor, up we went just a scratching and clawing. Did I mention that this is all taking place on the cliff over the ocean 300 feet below? Oh, I love this little car. I met two couples coming the other way on quads. I asked how the road was that way and one of the guys said, “there is a road.” As it turned out it was a much better road than what I had been over. A quad is the preferred method of transportation around these parts. There are quite a few rental outfits and I think gringos that live down here buy or bring them down. I see a lot of them around these small towns, villages and RV camps. They run up and down the beaches with them and you have to get to a out of the way beach to get away from the tracks in the sand. There is a lot of exploring done on the quads.

The road finally tops out just this side of San Juan de Los Planes. I stopped and took these two photos looking back toward the ocean and looking forward to the farming valley ahead.

After I made it down to San Juan de los Planed I decided to take the side trip to the coast town of La Ventana in the Bahia de la Ventana. This is close to the Isla Cerralvo which has its most southern point named Punta Montana, that is with a funny little mark over the n. I was going to go on out to the lighthouse but I am dirt roaded out at the moment. Everyone has been talking up these fish tocos, so I stopped at a little roadside restaurant and had one. I was totally unimpressed with a small dab of fish on a plain corn tortilla. There must be more to it than that.

I missed a hot spring on the  way up here. I was told that there was this nice hot spring and even saw a photo of it, hot water coming out of a rock wall into a river that  had a bunch of rocks stacked around to make a nice pool. I was told that it was near San Jose del Cabo but I couldn’t find it on my map. I was so bummed out by the scene down there I only wanted to get the hell out of there anyway. Latter I see that it is near Santiago and is called Agua Caliente (hot water, dah) oh well, there is always next time.

It looks like I am only a little over twenty miles from La Paz now, so I will head in tomorrow and get lined out for the ferry over to Topolobampo. I am going to get one of those Rotisserie chickens this time even if I have to grab it from a little Mexican and make a run for it.J I want another of those chickens with all the trimmings.

This is my neighbors camp. He is from Quebec Canada and  has been coming down here and camping in this wash for 18 years. He says he goes up north a couple of weeks a year, but mostly just stays here. He was a wind and kite surfer until he was in a car accident that totaled his van he was living in. I asked about the flash floods and he said you always know when they are coming and you move camp to high ground. These floods happen in September he says. These sandy washes are the public access points to the beaches and here in this little place the wash between fancy houses and campgrounds are full of free campers. Some of them have elaborate little camps while others get by with a small tent and a drift wood windbreak. Down at the beach is a wind guage that is a piece of plexiglass about 12”x12” that hinges on the top. Next to it at a 90degree angle is a scale with points starting with white and going to green to yellow to red. I guess the green is safe and yellow is for experts and red, you better not go out. yesterday was a very mild day and I don’t think the gague got even up to the white. I did see some guy out practicing with a kite from the shore.

I met a guy from North Dakota down here. he has been coming down for six years since he got divorced and his wife got the farm. He lives down in Baja but tends to move his camp to different locations depending on the weather  and surf. His outfit is really amazing. He has an old pickup with canopy and on it is strapped a wide variety of surfboards, sails, boogie boards, kayak, and other stuff I don’t know what. 

My neighbor was telling me that up the road from here is where all the really rich people live (El Sargento). He was saying that they have huge three story homes and only come here for a couple of weeks a year. I was telling him how I couldn’t stand all the bars on the windows and the security at the store. He said tha the kids on drugs need to get money and they will steal anything. He said that one of the big houses up the road made of rock had some bandits come in and with sledgehammers broke a hole in the wall of the house and went in, opened the door and cleaned out the entire house.

2-16-05

My neighbor just came by. His name is Norman but they call him Normando he says. We were talking about traveling and how a lot of people will try to dissuade you from going and taking chances. He said I had to go to La Paz and see the sculpture on the macado (main drag on the beach) where  there is a statue of a guy in what  looks like a paper boat around his waist. He also has a paper boat hat on. There is a poem near by that  explains the scene. Normando says that whenever he reads it, he cries. I hope that Anna  or  Oscar can translate it for me. The guy wrote in a journal and he called it his book of dreams. One day he tore a page out of the book and made the boat and he is off to see the world. Normando thought it was called the ‘book of illusions’. I will try to get a photo of it today. I remember it when I was there last. He says I should definitely get on the BMW and go around the world. 

Normando came by this morning on his way swimming. He had a wetsuit on and he says he swims everyday now an hour or two to keep in shape. He is 73.

I made it to La Paz and  finally found my way down to the bay along which is that statue I talked about.

This first class translation supplied by Anna Spector Bernal:

There is some sort of enormous party that is about to happen or has been happening. It is a quarter to eleven and not much is happening yet. There are stalls set up all along both sides of the road and it was hard to get a parking place even two blocks off the main drag. There must be four or five band stages set up to play every block or so similar to the one for the Reggae festival. This looks like it may be a major party time. I haven’t found out about it yet, but I think I will stay over and check it out tonight.

I had taken my bike down to the other end of the road where the statue is. On my way back I was ridding along and wasn’t looking ahead and noticed an electrical wire on my throat. There was nothing I could do, it just pulled me off the bike onto my back, on the paving tiles. I hit my head pretty good and  screwed up by knee again (dang, I was doing so well on it). I think I have a mild concussion and have been laying in the shade of a bandstand. I finally felt well enough to sit up and see if the computer would still work. I had it in a cloth briefcase slung over my shoulder. I had heard that these laptops could take some abuse and I guess this one has taken a direct hit on concrete/tile.  I cant see anything broken or damaged. My lucky day, evidently. I may end up with a headache over this and the party tonight might not be so much fun. I’ll just have to wait and see.

The carnival started yesterday and ends Sunday, a guy here at the internet café says.