It doesn't get much better....

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.

 View from the island.

 Paddle boarding!!

 Moonrise at El Requeson.

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.

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.”

 Catchin' some rays.

See the little white dot way across the water?  That's us - all alone - sweet!

A coot.

Knocking About in Baja

 Location:  A special beach north of San Jose del Cabo, Baja California Sur, Mexico

 We've spent the past three weeks traveling around and camping on the beaches between La Paz (“The Peace”), Cabo San Lucas (“Cape Saint Lucas”), and Todos Santos (“All Saints”), in the southern reaches of the Baja. 

Tropic of Cancer roadside centre

We crossed the Tropic of Cancer 8 times, south of which is considered the Tropics. As a result, it's started getting very hot now during the day <grin>.

 

Julie's brother Tony had to come to Mexico City on business, so he managed to get an extra week added onto his schedule and came across to spend it with us at La Paz and Los Barriles (“The Barrels”). We all had a lovely time together.

We wanted to watch the start of the Baja 300 race at Los Barriles, but it was run on the same day we picked Tony up at the airport, so we had to give that a miss, poor Mark.

We attended two nights of Carnival in La Paz and saw great floats, listened to a lot of live Mexican music, stayed at a lovely B & B, and had a great dinner for $22 for the 3 of us (including 2 beers each!!). We have really been enjoying sampling the Mexican food.

 

Tecelote Beach near La Paz

 We took a trip out into the bay north of La Paz and swam with the whale sharks – totally awesome!

from above

from below

At Todos Santos we visited Hotel California, made famous by The Eagles, saw 14' high surf banging in onto the beach, bought some lovely vegetables at a couple of organic farm stands, viewed the beautiful old town architecture, and met up with some friends from Canada.

mosaic outside an art studio - Todos Santos

No swimming today

standard road hazard

We spent five nights at Los Barriles where we saw lots of wind surfing and kite boarding, and swam or snorkeled every day. And we got to meet Jimmy who won his class in the Baja 300 we missed earlier in the week.

Tony enjoying a snorkel

larger road hazard

Before and after Tony's visit we spent almost 2 weeks at a very special place (we've been asked not to name it in our blog). We spent our time there walking, walking, walking on a wonderful trail system, snorkeling, bird watching, learning about scorpions (did you know that scorpions glow white at night under a black light?), and we met lots of new friends. Luckily, not a single rattlesnake was spotted.

on top of the 'mountain'

If you look closely you can see the RV

We're leaving here tomorrow to meet up with some old cruising friends who are traveling south in their camper. Then we'll start working our way slowly North, stopping at a lot of the places we missed in our hurry South to get warm.

Que estan teniendo un tiempo marveloso

Baja California North

Location: Santispac, Baja California Sur, Mexico

After a week in Mexico we are starting to get familiar with the currency, military roadside checkpoints, good and bad roads, what's available and what isn't – all the sorts of things that make life interesting.

We're finally warm so can now slow down and start to smell the bougainvillea. We'll explore the northern section in more detail on our way back up when it's warmer.

Our first night right on the Pacific near Ensenada

So far we've been having a great time, the scenery is beautiful, lots of cacti that we haven't seen before, rolling hills and sometimes really crappy roads. The people are very friendly and, luckily, we are being able to make ourselves understood even with our limited Spanish. We are also making friends with fellow travelers. 

Cirio cactus

There is only one main highway down through the peninsula. It is mostly well paved but only 2 fairly narrow lanes and no shoulder so you don't want to go too fast.  There are sections that are in terrible shape with potholes, some of which are quite deep.   You just have to slow way down so you can avoid them. Luckily the roads are not very busy, so we haven't run into any problems by being slow.  And if someone wants to pass you, they will - on hills, on curves, in the face of oncoming traffic, you name it - a bit scary. 

There are topes (pr. "toe-pays" - speed bumps) in some of the weirdest places, some of them are marked and some aren't. For instance, if you are coming upon a sharp curve there may be a series of topes approaching it to make you slow down and we mean really slow down! Some are quite tall and others are not, you never know. Most small towns that you pass through have several topes as you go along the main street, again some marked and some not. It's taken us a while to get used to them, be we haven't been caught out but once or twice early on. The tires and suspension are grateful to us for our caution.

San Ignacio Mission

San Ignacio cafe

San Ignacio square

One of our favourite stops so far, San Ignacio, is an oasis with a lake and lots of date palms surrounded by arid mountains. With the main attraction being an old mission, this quaint little town has a lovely shady town square. We really enjoyed our walk around the small town.

Traveling over to the east coast we came down out of the mountains into Santa Rosalia. The last bit of the road road was very steep and windy, and, as we approached town, was in terrible disrepair. We camped south of town and then spent the next morning wandering around. Alexandre Gustav Eiffel, of Paris Tower fame, designed a prefabricated iron-walled Church in Paris for the 1889 Paris World Exposition that, along with the Eiffel Tower, shared first place honors. Interestingly enough, Eiffel also designed locks for the Panama Canal and the framework for the Statue of Liberty.

 At any rate, after the exposition it was dismantled and stored in a warehouse until the owner of a French copper mine in Santa Rosalia discovered it and had it shipped to Baja around Cape Horn. Also in town are some of the best examples of French colonial style architecture as well as many French-built wooden houses that are very quaint. We spent a morning wandering around the grid of narrow streets between the mesas, enjoying looking at all the different shops and houses. This was a copper town - the copper ore from the mine was shipped up to Washington state for smelting. Not wanting to come home empty, the ships brought back hardwood lumber on the return trip. It's very unusual to see so many wooden structures in this area. Our favourite shop was an old French bakery, we didn't just window shop there...Yum. 

Mark made our solar panels tilt so we could catch more of the winter sun

We are now camped on the shore of Bahia Concepcion, a national marine preserve. Along the shore are many beautiful beaches on which you can camp.  Some people spend the entire winter in this spot. We were afraid it was going to be really crowded but so far we are not finding it so.

Our first stop was Playa Santispac. We've spent 2 days here and are enjoying walking the beaches and along the rocky coastline. There are 2 restaurants here, right on the beach, one even has wifi which is why you are getting this Khronicle. 

Vendors wander up and down the beach in the mornings selling various fresh foods, water, Mexican rugs & blankets, etc. Cruising boats are anchored off the beach, that's what attracted us to this particular spot. We've already met and chatted with a couple of cruisers, so we're right in our element.

We are half way down the Baja peninsula on the East side, wow this is a really long piece of land, and we're really looking forward to seeing more of it.

Bitter and Sweet

Location: Tecate, CA, Mexican border

Our bitter/sweet news is that Rachel has sold (sorry Jill!). The final papers were signed yesterday. We shall miss her greatly, she has been a huge part of our lives for the last 12 years. She saw us safely home after over 25,000 nautical miles, from Maine to Panama, from newbies to experienced cruisers with countless friends and acquaintances. Over the years she has proved to be a safe haven, a great friend, and a stalwart companion. To many of our cruising friends, as well as to ourselves, we'll always be known as “Mark & Julie, The Rachels”. Weepy eyes.

Now that all the paperwork involved in Rachel's sale is taken care of, we've decided to head down into Mexico for a while. We thought the Southwest US would be a warm place to spend the winter...but it's not. It's been in the 50s or 60s during the days, but down in the 30s or low 40s at night. And that's in the low elevations. Today we crossed over 4000' and had snow and ice on the side of the road. A chilly breeze made it uncomfortable to be outside. Brrr. No walks up there. We miss being able to wear shorts and tee shirts! So we've decided to head down into Mexico and check out Baja California

Today, we are poised on the border of Mexico at Tecate, CA. Earlier today we drove to the border, parked, and walked across to get our tourist cards. By doing that today, we hope to cut down on the time it will take to cross into Mexico and will, hopefully, get an early start on the road tomorrow.

Unfortunately, when we were done with our paperwork, we just reversed our course and walked back up the road the way we had come, apparently crossing from Mexico back into the US without passing through US customs and immigration in the process. Oops.

As we headed to a currency exchange to buy Mexican pesos, a US customs officer in an SUV stopped us and let us know in no uncertain terms that we needed to retrace our steps and head up an alley we hadn't noticed to pass through the border station. After a lot of apologies, they realized that we were just clueless and let us back into the US.

We've put 16,000 miles on our RV in less than a year. Wow that's weird – we've already put on over half as many miles in less than a year that we put on Rachel in 12 years. The world flies by so much faster at 50 mph.  The clueless mind boggles...

Happy New Year to all and stay tuned.

Julie & Mark

PS – no new pictures on the blog – we'll update the blog and add more photos after we spend a bit of time South of the Border.....

Time is not on my side

Location: Tempe, Arizona

On our way across the US this summer, Time was pretty well behaved. We'd cross a time zone, gain an hour, make sure the GPS, phone, computer, Kindle, and travel alarm clock were all in agreement, and we'd be set until sometime in the future when we'd go through the exercise again as we continued to move West. It was all very predictable and we were okay with it.

Last month, we left California, crossed through Nevada, into Utah, and entered a different time zone. This time we lost an hour, but no big deal – we figured we owed it after all the gaining we did on the way out here. We willingly made the adjustments to the time on all the electronics.

But when we headed south into Arizona, Time started acting like a petulant toddler at bed time. Arizona doesn't do Daylight Savings Time (DST), so we were suddenly back on California time, 3 hours after Eastern time and 8 hours after English time. But we made the adjustments and carried on.

Then, still in Arizona, we entered the Navajo Nation's “Big Reservation”. The Navajos DO do DST, so we lost an hour again. Once again, we did all the adjustments and got settled in.

Heading North, back into Utah, Time was once again relatively well behaved until we crossed the border back into Arizona. This was followed by more kicking and screaming as we proceeded to cross back and forth between Utah, Arizona, and the Navajo Nation over the next few weeks. By the time we were done, we were thoroughly confused and had decided that, whatever the old Rolling Stones song says, Time is NOT on our side.

Finally, we settled in for a visit with one of Mark's old Copper Hill friends who lives in Tempe, Arizona. Time once again began behaving admirably, remaining the same as California, and 3 hours behind the East Coast.

That is, until this morning when Time pulled a fast one on us. Everyone else in the US reverted to Standard Time last night except Arizona, which was already there. Now, while we know what time it is here, we are, once again, not sure what time it is anywhere else.

 Obviously we're not the only ones who need time zone reminders - we saw quite a few signs like this.

 Speaking of time, we just had to insert these pictures from Petrified National Park - Look at the timeless strata in these hills

 225 million year old log

 225 million year old mulch