Studying and surfing
Day 167
San Blas, Mexico
When I finally rolled out of my tent the surf had died down and I had missed my chance. Perhaps I should have camped where the sunrise would get me in the morning after all… With nothing better to do I set about going through the Spanish flash cards I had bought in the US. 1000 words shouldn’t take too long to learn right? I separated them out into words I knew, words I probably should learn soon and words I didn’t know. I have about 15% of them learnt already, but that’s nothing with Spanish. I think I impressed everyone by sitting and bashing away at them for several hours, but I probably would be better just getting 10 done a day. Now if only I had started this at the start of my trip…. 1670 words? Bleh….
I chatted to Kira for a while too, who I had met briefly the previous day. She was cooking up some soup in a big pot in the kitchen for a party she was attending later and I did my best to charm her into an invite, which mostly worked. She was originally from Russian but has been in the States for the last 15 years. She told me all the action in the evening was in the town square so I would have to check that out later. In the meantime I got my board out once more and hit the surf. The water was kind of dirty though, it seemed some storm was bringing in burnt wood from somewhere and the water was getting pretty black. Not nice to walk on while racing to get past the breakers!
I went into the town in the evening, which was a fairly long walk, it would be time to rebuild my bike I think since it had sat unused in my van since Texas. I found a nice place that did seafood tacos and stuffed my face and then sat in the square hoping Kira would show up and invite me to the party she was attending but it wasn’t to be, and I hadn‘t seen Thomas, the Finnish guy who was also camping at Stoners for most of the day so I contented myself with a quiet day in a beautiful town and tried to ignore the sandflies which were occasionally biting my ankles….
learning flash cards/chatting to Kira/loaned thomas my board/learning all day/surfing/soup for party-pot/tacos in square/no party
Tags: eve, finnish guy, stoners, ears, cards, board, tent, sea, sun, sandflies, quiet dayDriving down to purgatory
Day 166
San Blas, Mexico
Most of my afternoon was spent driving down the coast to a small fishing village called San Blas. I had heard that it was a good place to practice my surfing and I was looking for a place to chill and improve my Spanish. It was only 4 hours or so down the highway and I listened to my language course and Manu Chao as I rolled along. My planned place to stay was a camp ground place called ‘Stoners’, nothing to do with any illicit activities, it was built by a gringo called Bob Stoner. The present owner is the Mexican surf Champ, an imposing guy called Pompis, helped out by his German girlfriend Nicy. It sits right next to a nice break on the beach and has a few cabanas for $10 or camping for only $3. I found myself a nice little spot where the sun wouldn’t kill me in the morning and said hi to the few other guests before heading off to see if I could remember how to surf.
The afternoon break is pretty rough, I would have to try to get up in the morning and catch that one instead but the area seemed pretty good. The camp ground has boards for rent and offer lessons too as well as a kitchen and fridge, which is great. The only problem is that it pretty much closes at night, so after I had showered and watched the sunset the place was deserted apart from the night watchman who just wanted to get an early night. I was happy to join him, although it would preferably be alone in my own tent…
drive to san blas/stoners/surfing-offer rick my board/quiet night
Tags: desert, board, highways, pot, cabanas, manu chao, stoner, san blas mexico, night watchman, fishing village, mexico, set, stoners, tea, fridge, sunAlone in Mazatlan
Day 165
Mazatlan, Mexico
I enjoy being with people and I enjoy being alone so I was perfectly happy to spend the day reading in my cheaper hotel room before heading back to the square in the old part of town for some food. After more than a month with Sheena and Roland it was good just to sit and do nothing 
doing nothing./coffee on square/
Tags: cheaper hotel, coffee, sheena, mexico, roland, hotel room, heap, mazatlan mexico, TravelWindy by the Pacific
Day 164
Mazatlan, Mexico
Today was the day of partings once more, Roland decided it would be time to head to Guadalarja to meet his father in a few days and would have to go now. We checked the bus station and the buses left every 1/2 hour 24 hours a day so he would be off whenever, but we wanted to try to see a few things first. Mazatlan boasts the second highest lighthouse in the world, but the weather was awful, with low clouds and a heavy wind, it would be pointless to climb that today. We decided to go over the bay to the local ‘island’ (its attached to the mainland) where there was a nice long beach but we didn’t last long. The wind just threw sand everywhere and after an hour of getting blasted we gave up and headed back. Today would have been the one to drive down the coast, but how were we to know!
Cloudy Lighthouse.
We went back to the main beach as the sun slowly started to appear but it was still pretty windy. For a late lunch we had the local speciality ‘Pescado zzzzzzzzzzz something’ which was pretty good and then went back to see the old town some more in the daylight.
Cheers!
We spent some time in the Catherdral before wandering back to the square where we sat and people watched for a few hours. There is a local music school nearby so we listened to the students practice their various instruments and just chilled, quite literally, it wasn’t a good place to sit still in shorts. That became too much so we went off for some internet usage and returned to the potato woman for some much needed late supper. I was going to be sorry to see Roland go, but he’s in the country for a few more months and we’re both going south, I will no doubt bump into him again. Maybe then he will have become a Couchsurfing Ambassador like me and I won’t look down on him so much
new hotel/checking bus station/over to ferry/lighthouse cloud/sitting on the beach/too windy/horses.ATVs/back to maz/claifornia grass/fishy dish/catherdral/sitting in square/fast internet/potato woman/bheer by the beach/bus for roland
Tags: couchsurfing, mazatlan mexico, catherdral, Travel, late lunch, roland, local island, liters, trousers400 km run to Mazatlan
Day 163
Mazatlan, Mexico
Time like an ever rolling stream keeps on moving and so should we, next stop : Mazatlan. A major tourist city 400km south of Los Mochis. There are toll roads on the way but we opted for the more interesting route of the free roads which snake through the mountains. Nothing really to report about the drive, we stopped at a Walmart on the way down and stocked up on crap we didn’t need, although a steering lock for my car probably didn’t fall into this category. I nearly killed us by doing a stupid u-turn in the highway and not having the space to get all the way around and nearly being beaten up for having the gall to refuse to get my wind screen washed. My car might be filthy but my windows are perfectly clean, thank you!
We got to the main town in the early evening and started looking for a place to camp before the sun set but to no avail. This was for posh tourists and there wasn’t a tent to be seen. We decided after not spending money on accommodation for the last 3 weeks that a hotel wouldn’t kill our budgets too much but were pretty annoyed to find the 2 bed room for 200 pesos on the phone became 350 pesos when we arrived, 300 with some negotiation. The usual tricks. We set off for a walk around town and saw the crazy statues all along the beach front before heading into the old part to find the funky square where everyone hangs out in the evening. Very romantic but Roland isn’t my type. It was far too expensive though so we wandered back to the hotel and happily found a street stand with tacos and roast potato that turned from being healthy to a health risk after they finished filling it with fat. Was pretty yummy though
 Roland enjoys his street food roast potato + 1/2 kg of butter,cheese, cream and meat! |
long drive/toll roads?/walmart/illegal u turn/more driving/onto the beachs/no camping/phone hotel/350 not 200/walk along beach/statues/square/catherdal/roast potato/no cafe/free wifi
Tags: walmart, tent, set, toll road, mountains, accommodation, highways, long beach, rolandSushi by the sea
Day 162
Los Mochis, Mexico
The next morning we had a serious problem (not counting 2 hangovers), we couldn’t get out of the apartment. The previous night we had set the big dead lock and now it wouldn’t open. We pulled it, tried all the keys, tried taking it apart, climbed through windows and tried to open it from the outside, pushed it, shouted at it, bashed it, removed more screws, used some pliers, gave up and went back to try it all again before Roland just pulled a knob on the end and the door opened. Beer creates these fuzzy thoughts but it seemed quite obvious once we had done it once.
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The guys went off shopping and came back with a massive sushi tray from Walmart. They were very proud about bribing someone there to give them a 200 peso tray for only 100 pesos + 40 peso bribe. I was guessing I would soon be hungry after all this rice though… |
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We went back to the Pacific for a look at the beach and being Sunday it was pretty busy, families with kites and kids in their expensive cars and clothes, the usual nonsense.
The Batless Bat Cave
There was also a bat cave but after exploring it (which took 20 seconds) we gave up and went back to town. I wanted to stay and watch the bats come out, but I wasn’t the driver, Roberto preferred to drive us up to the top of some hill to see Los Mochis at night, it was just a load of lights….
Rolando is stunned into retardation by the view
Stuck lock/walmart/sushi/beach/bat cave/look out/potato tacos/
Tags: beers, shopping, expensive cars, kites, mexico, sea, sushi tray, Travel, bats, los mochis mexico, walmart, next morning, thumbThe Three (drunken) Amigos!
Day 161
Los Mochis, Mexico
Even though it was Saturday I had to get up and move my van from outside Roberto’s office. I shouldn’t complain since he was kind enough to lock it up for me overnight but I hate to get up, especially since I had won the toss with Roland and snagged the bed. I should have sensed trouble when Roberto backed his car out to take me over there right into the front of a truck behind us. This wasn’t the only crash we would be facing this Saturday…..
After a shower and not much of a breakfast we then had to wait for the local plumbers to fit the kitchen. Roberto had recently separated from his wife and was now going through the painful process of not only living 400km from his 4 year old daughter but setting up a new bachelor pad for himself, the kitchen was just a shell and needed filing out. When the kitchen fitters had finally arrived and had gotten to work we went off on our mini-tour of Los Mochis. I’m not sure you would put it down as the cultural and architectural center of Mexico but it gets a steady stream of tourists all hoping on or off the train that heads up through the Copper Canyon, Mexico‘s version of the Grand Canyon, and an arguably better version of the same. We went for a walk around the botanical gardens, which was a hot walk in the middle of the day. I’m not quite sure why Roberto though we were interested in plants but it was a nice enough place, and free, which is always a bonus. It just looked like a park to me though, if the fact that it had plants in it made it botanical so be it. Roland took up the challenge of jumping over one of the irrigation ditches which was good of him, but the photo would have been much better if he had fallen in, as I hoped :p
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We did pick up an interesting snippet of information though, we learned that there was a baseball game on later on and since Roland used to play baseball a lot, and I’d never been to a game, it would be nice to check out. Best of all the tickets were only $3. Always thinking in the correct way, Roberto took us to a Taco place which he knew sold tickets and proceeded to demolish a load of food while I sat nursing my soda. Telling the average Mexican you don’t eat meat usually garners the equivalent response to saying I had castrated myself, they are horrified, couldn’t understand it and feel sorry for you… My life, my choice…. There was problem with the kitchen and we had to go back. Trying to save a few pesos, Roberto had hired some Mexican Cowboys and they didn’t have the right tools to connect up the gas and water. At least he had worktops instead of nothing as he did before.
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We had a while to kill before the game and Roberto now confronted me, saying he was very worried about me. I hadn‘t eaten since the night before and this was a cause for concern. I did remind him that I only eat vegetables and seafood and we had only been to places that only serve meat, besides I am perfectly capable of going several days without food and not feeling any ill effects but this didn’t assuage his concern and we set off in search of a ‘Subway’. I quickly reminded him I would rather eat fish tacos and happily he knew a good place that might still be open next to the 24 hour disco. Why it seems impossible to get seafood in the evening is still a mystery to be solved, as well as the 24 hour disco conundrum but at least I got something to eat. Roberto would be remiss to allow me to eat alone and joined in with gusto.
Before the game we quickly went to check our mail at his office and I rapidly uploaded all my missing blog posts that I had spent so much time on the beach writing. I still didn’t have enough time and was transmitting them from the car as we left. There is always another connection though, and 15+ posts at once would have to do :p
I have never been to a baseball game, the majority of my experience with the game is playing it on my Nintendo Wii, so at least I had some idea of what was going on, but then not much. I quickly gathered that the main objective was to drink at least one beer per inning.We took it in turns going off looking for ‘Senor Cervesa’ but with each trip up the steps to our seats I took my turn to be concerned as our host was panting like a car trapped dog, and the stadium was tiny…. For some reason we had chosen to sit right behind the local band and infrequently they would start belting out some random tune at breaks in the game. The guys played away but as no one was bothering to update the scoreboard no one knew who was winning. I soon lost interest and started reading my book, trying to ignore the annoying samples of music they would keep playing and the nearby band. The most interesting action came from the girls who would appear and start throwing promotional items into the crowd. Like plastic cups and key chains… To see the locals go after these was like watching refugees chase a UN food truck, I thought people would start fighting if they didn’t get something. I guess baseball isn’t my sport :p
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My First Baseball game, possibly my last…  |
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One of the teams won, I have no idea which, nor did most of the crowd, and we made for home. Roberto had managed to snag one of the big beer cups and was now on double portions of beer, I gave up after 4 beers and a trip to the disgusting cockroach infested toilets but my Amigos were both on double figures and were miles from home. I knew I shouldn’t have gotten in the car, I tried to persuade him to let me drive by admiring his car and asking how it handled but it was no good. It seems the idea of letting the person who has had the least to drink handle the driving is as alien as not getting completely wasted in the first place. Roberto assured me he wouldn’t go too fast, but the speed kept creeping up and thankfully the roads were quiet. He didn’t think it was a problem since he was a lawyer! Of course, you have the other drunken drivers to worry about too… ‘
By now our Mexican friend was hungry but he had a pescatarian guest to consider, luckily he knew a place that did potato tacos and we somehow managed to get there. I had 4, and probably would have had more if I had known they were only 2 pesos each! Bargain! Suitably full we went back to the apartment to get ready for an evening of drinking… it was close, we made it. Roland had set off searching for cigarettes despite my attempts to dissuade him and after smoking one agreed that is wasn’t a good idea, but there is no rolling tobacco in Mexico.
Roberto is a big Sopranos fan, as am I, and he put it on for Roland hoping to get him interested. Perhaps I should have gone to watch as well, then we might have stayed at home and lived, but it was not to be. They soon got bored and then insisted I get out my guitar, which I did. We had half an hour of painful shouting to various Beatles tunes before I had enough and succumbed to asking if we were going out. We got changed and set off to a good club Roberto knew of, after first checking we didn’t have any illegal drugs on us. A few more beers while hanging out kept the mood going and Roberto was in fine spirits as he cruised around looking for the club, telling us only the poor drink tequila in Mexico and his adventures in Amsterdam. Perhaps he should have been concentrating more on the road as he nearly killed us all by starting to turn left into the path of an oncoming car. Only my girl like screams of terror averted disaster and we pulling into the parking spot without a sound.
And we had to drive home….
The ‘club’ was empty, just a few locals in cowboys hats standing around outside so we went next door to shoot some pool and drink more beer. I’m ok at pool but its just a game, not a competition of wills, but Roland and Roberto were pretty drunk so it was a simple matter to keep playing for me. I was bored though, and soon gave up and started reading my book. By now I had gotten to the 7th book in one of my favourite series and there was a whole new novel waiting to be read, much more interesting that beer and pool I have to say. After a few hours of this the club must be busy now? We paid our tab and went out to check, I saw inside before the bouncer quickly closed the door, it was still empty but now they wanted 100 pesos to get in! Oh well at least I would be able to get started on my new book since it was too loud to talk and I doubted we would be dancing… Some Saturday night this was!
We got back in the car and went looking for something, finally spotting some police cars outside a club and calculating that if the police were there it must be good… Well it wasn’t the best place in the world, but it was busy, people were dancing, occasionally a load of teenagers would get up and play some pretty appalling music which the crowd seemed to appreciate. I wasn’t being an old fart, the music was awful, but I was still bored. I thought it hilarious to see Roberto finish his beer and then stand waving his bottle around for 10 minutes trying to attract the attention of a waiter while the bar was only 3 meters away :p Eventually the DJ kicked in and Roland and I went off to dance. Roberto didn’t want to dance with us, apparently that’s a bit gay, but eventually he came over to sit nearby while I hoped and prayed to go home to bed…
getting van/crash/shower/kitchen wait/botanical gardens/jumping Roland/tacos/baseball tickets/kitchen install/fish tacos/office&uploads/baseball match/panting Roberto/too drunk to drive/10 beers/cockroach/potato tacos/cigarettes/sopranos/drug discussion/Beatles/drive/near crash/empty club/pool/not caring/reading my book/100 pesos empty club/police club/kids/terrible band/reading again/waving bottle when bar so close/dancing/Roberto not happy/interesting girl/drive home
Tags: drinks, eat meat, vege, rash, apartment, sod, toilets, rainRace to the Ferry
Day 159
La Paz, BCS, Mexico
It was time to leave Baja after nearly 4 weeks of fun but the whole of Mexico was still stretching before me. We got up, packed up and made our way back up to La Paz to get the ferry back to the mainland. The ferry left at 3pm, but you had to be there 3 hours before, ie noon. It was a simple calculation to make and a simple mistake. The road went north from the RV park and so did we. It curved around the coastal road and traffic was light. We passed the places we probably should have been camping for free but then I can confess we sneaked out in the morning without paying for the second night :p Roland‘s idea! The road became really quite bad, strange for a main road, sometimes the fallen rock debris forced us into one lane and the tarmac had fallen into the cliff on the right more than once. Up and down, around treacherous bends and over rutted sections we finally came to a place where the tarmac ended and it was just a dirt track. This obviously wasn’t the main road! We needed to go inland to get back to La Paz and we had just driven for half an hour north on the wrong road.
Nice View on the Wrong Road |
Cursing our stupidity we turned around and went back on the same terrible road, now an hour behind schedule and wondering if we should bother going to La Paz at all. We had been to the terminal before and it states quite specifically that you must be there 3 hours before. We would be there 2 hours before, but it wasn’t an international flight, and hey! We’re in Mexico! I was half hoping La Curva would be open for breakfast but it wasn’t and we found the proper road and put the pedal to the metal. Around 1pm we made it to La Paz and then went up the 25km to the ferry port but we need not have hurried, they would actually sell tickets up to 45 minutes before departure so we stood in the queue, I paid $180 for a 6 hour ferry ride and we went for a much deserved breakfast of fish tacos from the van near the entrance. So long Baja, hello mainland Mexico!
| The ferry ride was pretty mundane, Roland was kicked out of my van and I had to negotiate the boarding alone, which was mostly waiting around for the lorries to get on board. It was a pretty big ferry, and I was soon sitting on a ramp inside and trying to work out what I needed for the journey. I took so long that eventually the ramp behind me was raised and I stood there for another 15 minutes waiting with a deck hand for it to move. When I eventually set off to find another way out and wandering the |  The scary ferry ramp! |
lower decks for 5 minutes I ended up at the same point I started but with the ramp now down. Well I do like to explore. I found Roland and we stood in line for our included meal before going out to watch the ferry depart. A completely unremarkable journey, it soon went dark but the wind was enough to get us inside pretty quick and we read, I watched the end of ‘Stardust’ until my batteries ran out (the ferry had a non standard plug 
) and we tried to ignore bad American movies dubbed in to Spanish.
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Why is Roland wearing a dress? |
Roland had organised another Couchsurfing host in Los Mocis, a town of a quarter million people some miles inland from the port, so we gave him a ring and met him at a supermarket near the highway. Roberto was a big guy, talks good English and the only host in the area, so I guess we were lucky. He showed us the room we would share and then took us out for some 10pm tacos and we discussed a few things to do over the weekend. He works as a lawyer so I guess out timing was pretty good, however Roland had to head off to pick up his father soon so the timing was getting tight….
Waiting on the ferry…
up/wrong road/la paz/ferry terminal/shrimps/ferry/meal/laptop power/coffee/roberto/dinner
Tags: jerk, tacos, girls, couchsurfing, mainland, set, trousers, fish tacos, whore, highways, tent, mexico, insuranceLooking for a puncture
Day 161
Los Barilles, BCS, Mexico
God it was hot! Happily I had camped closest to the wall and didn’t have too much sun on my tent in the morning, but I woke as usual at 9.30am and prepared myself for the day. After 4 days of being stinky I had another shower but only for pure enjoyment of being clean. We had kind of decided to stay another day. There wasn’t really anything to do but there was a beach nearby and a pool. When Roland finally rolled out of his blue oven we started chatting about trying to find the puncture in my air mattress in the pool and that became the activity of the day, although not in the pool. We blew it up and found one large hole using water but no more. The pool + facemask idea would have been better I’m sure as it was still leaking. We also removed everything from the van in an attempt to discover what had happened to the bottle of vodka Roland had bought in San Lucas the week before but it was gone baby, gone. Someone is going to have a nice surprise at one of the 2 campsites we dropped it at I had solved my GPS marker problem and then started looking at compressing the tracks a bit better. I was also terribly out of date in my blog and despite a few days effort was still 12 days behind. Roland fell asleep and I took advantage of the nearby electricity outlet to try to get back up to date.
Eventually hunger called to us both and we took a walk into town to fix our appetites and Internet addiction. We went for Tacos at La Curva Restaurant and had simply the best tacos yet. First they heaped fresh nachos and salsa in front of us, with guacamole to die for, and then we had fish and shrimp tacos which were piled high for only 20 pesos each. Simply stunning food and just the thing for my appetite. I got another car key cut while Roland checked his email; we had found a place to stay in Los Mochis, the next town after Topolobampo where we would get off the ferry. It seemed likely we would try to get the ferry the next day and Roland gave Roberto in Los Mochis a ring to confirm. We enjoyed our last evening in Baja by revealing to Roland my video game emulator collection on my laptop and he spent a few frustrating hours trying to get Street Fighter to play properly with my cheap gamepad. When he eventually gave up and went to bed I stayed up far too late watching Gone Baby, Gone which was pretty good (8/10) and then despite my previous loathing for Family Guy watched Blue Shift, their Star Wars parody and enormous fun. It looks like I’ll have to start downloading all of them again soon, if only I could find a decent Internet connection….
lazy/puncture/shrimps at la curva/gone baby gone/blue shift
Tags: rope, Travel, stink, mail, few days, pool, tacos, girls, dorms, USA, vodka, eve, beds, clothes, trousers, bamLooking for a shower
Day 160
Los Barilles, BCS, Mexcico
Roland had most of the shade under the campsite tree and hence was getting more sleep than me, I got up at 9.30 as usual when the suns heat on the tent became unbearable and went to work on my latest obsession, putting the date information on my GPS track. Using Excel I was slowly working out how to search through the information until the date changed and then put in a marker which would also be a link to that days blog entry, but my lack of knowledge of excel macros was holding me back and I couldn’t understand why it was giving me errors. My laptop battery doesn’t last very long anyway and Roland blearily enquired from his tent which bastard was running a generator so close to his head so early… I told him it was 10.30am and shocked him into getting up. We had kind of decided to leave and go north somewhat, if only to look for a shower. Roland is cool, if I had wanted to stay another day it would have been no problem, but we were both getting a bit smelly and the milk had run out! :p
Back on the appalling road we learned it soon became sealed and then we only had to watch for the usual insane pot holes dotted around the highway and the ever present ‘topes’ or speed bumps. There was an occasional cow wandering too and we saw a couple of escaped horses but I kept my speed down enough to avoid such dangers. Later on we saw a rolled car, complete with emergency vehicles right outside a school along with scores of on looking children and a body on the ground… Not the way I want to go…
Up at the next town, Las Lagunas, we drove around looking for a Taco place and checked out the beach. There was no surf as promised in our guidebooks so we looked, reversed and drove off towards Santiago. We needed somewhere to camp, with a shower and we hoped to find somewhere there. The weather is just great now, its mid twenties all day and the nights are usually cloudless with a nearly full moon, cold enough to enjoy a fire but not so cold to be uncomfortable. Perfect weather, it can’t last. When we eventually found Santiago we discovered a charming little town with no cheap food and no where to camp. The one hotel/bar in town was no longer allowing camping and again we couldn’t find a Taco place. I was getting very hungry now after only eating half a papaya in the morning but Los Barriles was only 25km away and I thought I could make it.
It would take longer since seeing my first dead Mexican…
Los Barriles is gringo-ville but still we couldn’t find a cheap taco stand, there was a nice seafood restaurant though and after not paying for accommodation for 10 days or so could afford to spend the $10 on the seafood soup which was very tasty but not very filing. I will get the special Tacos tomorrow then, Marlin, Octopus and Shrimp. If I didn’t eat seafood now I would be losing lots of weight or possibly ballooning out on cheesy quesadillas. The town was dotted with RV sites and after checking out the nice, but empty beach we decided to splurge on the $13 to park up and get a hot shower. The RV park is really just a big car park for Americans but lots of them stay here for months and make their spots really quite nice, planting fauna around and even building their own shower blocks on their sites. We settled for a place to pitch our tents and I got the usual regular comment about my Massachusetts licence plate. ‘Yes I have come quite a way….’.
Tonight was a lunar eclipse at 8pm so we showered, went to get beer and went over to the pot luck by the beach to watch the show. Roland didn’t know what a pot-luck was and seemed disappointed when I explained it wouldn’t be a party for stoners :p It was moderately cloudy but regular breaks meant that we saw most of what was going on . I have seen 2 solar eclipses but can’t remember if I have every seen a lunar eclipse. They happen regularly enough but its usually too cold or late to watch them. Either that or I have something more interesting to do. It wasn’t exactly mind blowing so we finished our beers and then went looking for some action in town, which basically meant we went for a walk because there was nothing going on at all…
Doing gps logs/papaya/sealed road/crappy beach at next town/no camping at santiago/up to los Barillos/seafood soup/shower at camground/130 pesos/out for beer/lunar eclipse/looking for bar/charlie wilsons war
Tags: macros, gps, highways, Travel, campsite, splurge, american, beers, fauna, eclipseBlog day
Day 159
Los Arbolitos Beach, BCS, Mexico
It seemed like I didn’t do much but I sat and tried to get up to date with my missing blog entries. I was on about 28 days and still had notes to fill out from before New Years Eve… How did I get so far behind? Laziness and laziness I guess. Writing my blog is just about the only thing I promised myself I would do everyday and it seemed it was slipping away. I justified it to Roland by saying that normally I would spend travelling time on buses reading but now when I’m bored I will just read my novel and everything else gets ignored… He probably just thinks I’m lazy :p I was surprised by how long it could take to write an entry though. When you factor in time to search for a few photos to flesh out the entry and hammering out the text, each entry can take 30 minutes or an hour. And the longer I left each entry meant I was sitting looking at the keyboard wondering what else happened that day that I didn’t make a note about. Months after I had travelled around New Zealand in 1994 I could recall pretty much every day, where I was and what I did, everything was fun and fresh but now all that remains of that trip are my photos and occasional journal entry. I didn’t want that to happen with this trip.
I got my missing entries down to about 10 days and was mostly satisfied. When I return to the UK I would have more work to do adding photographs to my previous entries to make them better but using the Windows Live Writer program has certainly made my life easier. I could write, add photos and save the drafts without an Internet connection and upload them when I found an access point. I also started working on splitting up my GPS tracks into each days, and I have to think about making the tracks more efficient. I dont need 200 points when I’m travelling down a straight highway, the start and the end will do, but that will require several hours of hacking to figure out and the day was too nice!
Roland borrowed my surfboard, despite the total lack of surf, and went to the beach and I got out my Guitar and spend most of the afternoon making my fingers hurt. Another job I had mentally set myself was to move any guitar tabs over to my phone so I had a ready supply of songs to play when required. I love playing the guitar but finding myself required to play and not being able to remember the songs is just embarrassing :p
That night we burned ‘Mr Woody’.
Tags: eve, spite, photos, new year, photograph, set, trousers, seaShocking roads
Day 158
Somewhere in Baja California Sur
After getting gas and not having to worry about driving like a maniac the dusty, sandy road we had attempted the previous day didn’t seem to bad. We soon learned our mistake in that the road was really only rocky at the start, there were plenty of campsites soon after we gave up the previous evening and we had enough gas to get to the next station. However hindsight is always 20/20 and prudence is not always a bad thing, especially when you’re facing the possibility of getting stuck somewhere dangerous. It seemed Betsabe drove horrendously slowly and since we didn’t have her rolling along in front of us made much better time. The road up the coast was best in a 4WD but easily done in a regular car, as long as care was taken when the rocks started poking up. The amount of property for sale out there was astounding, it made little sense to me since there was little water available, the road was bad and there wasn’t electricity. All they had in abundance was sunlight and sea. I’m not sure what people will do when gas becomes so expensive they can’t afford to ship water in. It only rains for a month a year…
We made it up to Cabo Pulmo after only 2 hours, which was much less than the projected 10 hours from the previous day, but then once you hit 40mph on the slightly rutted roads you stop bouncing and glide over the mini-topes. It was pretty windy now, so no weather for snorkelling or diving, we had lunch at a place on the beach with the other gringos and drove back to Los Arbolitos to find a camp spot. Any spot on the beach would blow our tents away pretty quickly and we faced the challenge of getting my van onto the beach safely, and the greater challenge of getting it off again without being towed. We settled on the better option of camping near the road under a nice tree which was only 2 minutes walk to the water. The place was full of semi-permanent Americano’s with their satellite dishes and solar panels. Down by the beach there was a ramshackle village of mostly abandoned huts and shacks, I wouldn’t have risked sleeping on the mattresses down there though. We collected firewood for our new spot and Roland went off rock scrambling again. I went looking for him as the sun set as I didn’t fancy carrying him back in the dark. Why do I get stuck with the ones with the deathwish?? :p
Another perfect camp spot!
Tags: huts, 4wd, american, cars, Travel, rocks, sea, camping, sunlightBack and forth in San Lucas
Day 157
San Lucas, BCS, Mexico
We returned to the supermarket on the advice of our neighbour to buy more supplies for Los Arbolitos beach which was in the middle of nowhere and on a terrible road. We didn’t want to be driving around looking for food, we would be pretty much trapped with whatever we took with us. Betsabe was at church, it seemed Sunday had rolled around again without us noticing but had invited us to lunch and we drove over to sit and chat and leech her Internet connection. Expecting to spend the night at a dodgy beach I had left my laptop at her place, uploading photos and downloading movies. She is a Lost addict and was stunned to learn that the fourth series has recently started and I spent quite a while earning a extremely positive CS feedback by copying the latest 3 episodes to her laptop and ensuring they play. She made delicious lunch and I finally got to eat cactus which was really nice, although I have no idea how she made it. Roland is the chef, I hope he took notes.
Lunch was late though and I started wondering where we were going to spend the night. When we eventually got going it was 3pm and Betsabe drove us over to La Playita beach, which we had been looking for, before putting us on the road along the coast up toward Los Arbolitos. Of course all this passed me by as