Day 3 - 13 day trip to Baja

March 1  Day two  Vicente Guerrero to Catavina - 130 miles.   Woke up to find out we left San Diego just in time.  Over night they had hail, mud slides and threats of tornadoes!  Funny how quickly you can appreciate that all you had was heavy rain!!  The sun is shining this morning and we are predicted to have good weather going south!!

It is kind of funny.  Since I am writing this in Mexico, all the directions on the blog are in Spanish!!  If it wasn't for the pictures next to the directions, I would be lost!!!

The roads are not as bad as we feared they would be.  There definitely are spots with little or no shoulder, but these spots are not so often.  The area is extremely hilly though so we have not been getting great mileage.  On the first day we got around 6 miles to the gallon due to a strong head wind and elevation changes.  Today was a little better and we got around 8, even though we had a climb to an elevation of 1921 feet.   We fueled up today paying $12.90 pesos to a liter - (roughly $1).  The stations are government owned and very nice.  An attendant pumps the gas for you and it is customary to tip them 5 to 10 pesos.  During the trip we were passed by a couple Mexican Military convoys.  It was startling the first time, as the lead vehicle in their convoys has a soldier standing behind a mounted weapon aimed at on coming traffic!!!  We got used to it after the first one.

The area we traveled through was a coastal plain area known as San Quintin Valley.  It is an important vegetable growing region in Baja and we saw many fields of strawberries.  At one point, we saw a group of workers planting new plants.  We saw whole families working the fields together - Moms, dads, and the children.  It is a very tough life here.

At the center of the Baja Norte state, we drove through the Desert National Park.  Here giant "Cardon" cactus (similar to Saguaros) abound.   Also plentiful was a tree called Cirlio - the "Boojum".  It resembles a huge upside down green carrot and is indigenous nowhere else in the world.  They were very cool.

Not sure what that little structure is, but there is the Cardon cactus.

Cirlio tree - they really do look like upside down carrots!!

Here someone made a house from the cactus.  

We went through another military check point, and this time they decided to board some of our caravan.  Of course, we were boarded!!  The soldier was very nice, but looked through our desk - each drawer and side cabinet.  That was a little surprising to us for him to go though our files when they are supposed to be looking for weapons.  When he got the to back of the rig he did not know what the cat litter box was and had us open it for him.  Once he saw what it was, he got a big laugh out of it - we did too.   He was really a nice kid just trying to do his job.

Along the road we have seen several memorials - a white cross and a little house.  We even saw one shaped like a truck and another one with the deceased name spelled out with stones and a small replica of the front of a truck.  These are constructed by family members so the deceased's spirit has a place to go.  It is a sign of respect.  Here is a picture I tried to take of one as we drove past - the white blob is not a ghost, it is from the flash against the car window!!!

road side memorial pic to come later (can't get it off my phone!!!)

Just before we got to our camping spot, we had to drive through a large gully.  Due to the rain yesterday, the gully was pretty washed out and had large holes we had to navigate around.  We had to go through it on the wrong side of the road to avoid the worse of the holes (we still had to drive through some pretty large ones).  Therefore, we had to time it right so no cars, or especially trucks, were coming the other way.  The caravan had to stop several times to let on coming traffic navigate through the gully.  It was a challenge to get through it. It seemed to get a little worse with each vehicle traveling through.  I wonder what kind of shape it is going to be in upon our return in 10 days. 

We had nice sunny weather all day until we got to our camping spot.  As soon as the wagon master gathered us for "walking tacos" the heavens opened.  We huddled under the awning of his camper until it stopped and then were able to gather around the camp fire for a very pleasant evening.

Walking taco - take one snack bag of Doritos.  Open the bag and crunch up the chips.  Into the bag put about a 1/2 cup of ground beef cooked with taco spices, shredded cheese, some chopped lettuce, chopped tomatoes, salsa, sour cream, and enjoy!!  They were fantastic - can wait to make them with the grandkids.