Northern Baja

After leaving Pete’s Place we slowly headed out of town.  Our first stop street tacos, then the bank, then to the gas station and finally to buy groceries.  While filling up the tank Fritz noticed the air in our back tires was low, so we checked the pressure only to realize that our gage only went to 50 psi and our tires needed to be at 80.  That lead to a detour to the auto parts store to buy a better gage, back to the gas station and then to the Mercado, we left Pete’s at 10:49 AM and it was 2 by the time we hit the road for real, off like a herd of turtles as usual. 

We arrived at Gonzaga much quicker than expected as the 5 miles of bad road we encountered on our last trip has gloriously been reduced to less than one.  There were three other camper’s at our favorite spot, two men we didn’t meet, Jim from New Mexico and Vincent also from NM but not traveling with Jim.  Yes I could tell you their whole live stories because I spent quite a bit of time talking to each of them, Chatty Cathy as always.  We also meet our other neighbor who lives here full time, Alfredo, who was nice enough to show Fritz the proper way to clean a fish…

 

no we didn’t catch it we bought it at the fish market this morning, doesn’t get much fresher than this.

By 10 AM this morning the other camper’s had packed up and left, so now we have the beach to ourselves.  Our decision to stay my not be the most prudent one as last night the D.N.I.W. (spell it backward but just don’t say it out loud) came up.  It was blowing hard enough at 10PM for me to wake my saintly husband and suggest he go out and move our camp chairs and other valuable objects so we didn’t lose them in the night.  We hope it stays calm this evening (though anyone who has camped in Baja knows it is a false hope), and we are glad that we have a nice cozy bed in our truck rather than a noisy tent to sleep in.  Tomorrow we are off to LA Bay, we’ve been told the road out to Chalapa is much improved in the last 18 years since I last drove it, and I hope to God that is the truth as we only have one spare tire! 

When we woke up on Thursday morning there was no wind and I thought briefly about staying one more day in Gonzaga… until Fritz opened the door and a frigid breeze blew in...

 

that was enough for me to change my mind and for us to back it up and head further south.

The road from Gonzaga to Chalapa was much improved

but it still took us 2+ hours to drive the 30 or so miles, partly because we stopped to take pictures of the flowers

and partly because we had to follow these guys for a while.

Driving into LA Bay was a beautiful road, nicely paved and the hills were exceptionally green.  Once inside the views were amazing, but the hotels and houses that have sprung up in the last 30 years make getting to the beach difficult.  At first we thought we would camp, but after driving down a couple of roads only to find small campsites with rocky beaches or people who didn’t allow dogs, we decided that 4 nights of camping was enough and that tonight we would splurge on a hotel.  Rather than stay here for a couple of days as we first thought we would we are heading out tomorrow.  The thermometer hasn’t gotten over 73 since the trip began and we are getting tired of being cold, so tomorrow we hope to put some miles under our belt and stop at Santa Rosalia or Mulege if we can get that far.