Location:
San Ignacio, Baja California Sur, Mexico
Baja California has turned out to be more mountainous than we expected. However, it IS about as arid as we expected – think southern California and Arizona. As spring comes on, it starts to get hot. We decide it's time to begin heading north, taking our time and enjoying the trip. As we head farther north the nights are getting cooler, but it's still hot during the days.
Loreto is one of our favourite towns down here. It is home to the oldest mission in Baja California, has wonderful architecture, inexpensive mechanics, and great food. After staying at one of our favourite campgrounds (thanks, Yolanda) doing camper jobs, exploring the town, and hanging out with friends, we move about 70 miles north to another of our other favourite campgrounds, this one on the beach.
Gorgeous old hotel on the square in Loreto, La Posada de las Flores
Since Tony's visit, we've been with various friends nearly every day. Needing some down time, we decide to spend several days camped on the beach at El Requeson on Bahia Conception, sampling the wonderful seafood (tuna, scallops, sea bass, etc.) brought around daily by various vendors. We discover the skeletal remains of a porpoise on the shore, hike across the sand bar and around the island, along the shore east and west, watch the sun and moon rise and set, and in general have a wonderful time. We even have our own grill and palm frond palapa to sit in out of the sun and wind, all for only 100 pesos ($5.50) per day. Friends loan Julie their paddle board to try out and she manages to paddle around for quite a while, not falling in once! After a very short discussion, we decide that it really doesn't get much better than this.
The sand bar, only visible at low tide.
However, it's time to turn our attention back northward and continue our long, slow progression back to the US. You may recall that we hurried south until we got warm – now that it's warmer, it's time to check out some of the places we blew through on our way south.
We 'haul anchor' around 10am and drive up to Santa Rosalia to do some shopping. A pit stop for gasoline and we're on our way.
After negotiating the terrible roads in Santa Rosalia (one of the worst sections of Mexico 1 we've been on), we leave the coast and look forward to making the climb up into the mountains hoping it it will be cooler at a higher altitude. We manage the climb up the Cuesta del Infierno (roughly translated as “Grade to Hell”), the steepest grade on Mexico 1, with no problems – the radiator and fan clutch we installed last fall in Redding, California have really done the trick!
Once at the top, we realize that it's even hotter up here – sort of like being in the desert – oh, wait – we ARE in the desert! The sun beats down, the windows are open and the warm breeze coming in isn't doing a whole heck of a lot to cool us.
We remember San Ignacio as a cool spot on our journey south, so it becomes our next goal – shade and coolness, please!!
We make the turn off Mexico 1 and check out a couple of campgrounds on our way into town. We park by the mission in the shade and our first stop is the nearby ice cream parlor! A scoop of moose tracks for Mark and a pecan praline for Julie, por favor. We take our precious cones of coolness out to the shady town square, find a bench under the huge trees (we don't know what kind of tree because the new Trees of North America book we bought doesn't seem to cover Mexico, although we are pretty sure Mexico IS part of North America), and sit down to giddily savour our icy treasures. It's at this point that we decide, once again, it really doesn't get much better than this.
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| Ice cream plaza |
Having made a decision on where to 'anchor', we find ourselves parked in the shade of a grove of date palms, inches above water level and about 5 feet from the shore of a fresh water lagoon, watching snowy egrets, brown pelicans, coots, some kind of nearly tame white duck with a red bandit mask and a black topknot, and loads of other birds calling and swimming and splashing and flying around. And it's cool! Julie wastes no time donning her suit and going for a swim. We sit outside in our chairs, reading, watching the wildlife, sipping a cool beverage, and think “No hay nada mejor que este.”
A coot.
