Travels With Andy, Baja Norte

The other day, my neighbor Andy May asked me if I wanted to help him drive down Baja to La Paz Mexico. Andy captains a seventy foot yacht which he takes down to La Paz for six months of the year and wanted some help driving his truck with a boat trailer in tow. Being I was waiting for a large check to clear at the back and was essential stranded in the marina because I only had $3 in my pocket and I considered it a trip of a lifetime, I said hell yes. Now I, and a hell of a lot of other people, have traveled extensively. I’ve hopped on airplanes and have jetted to Europe, Australia, Japan and Korea which are all basically pleasure trips. Driving down Baja was a bonfide adventure. Literally, a trip of a lifetime for me. It’s not the Baja 1000 race over dirt roads but we were pulling a trailor with a nineteen foot Boston Whaler on it down some pretty crummy and narrow pavement.

Long Beach to Ensenada through TJ was pretty routine. South of Ensenada you cross the “frontier” into the “real” Mexico. For a few hundred miles, most all of the bridges along the road were being replaced and there aint nuttin’ like a Mexican detour. The boat trailer was bouncing like hell and the Whaler was bouncing on the trailer most of the time.

We stopped for lunch the first afternoon at a little restaurant near the Mission San Vicente. I figured that as long as I am in Baja, I'd load up on fish so I had grilled Yellowtail which is the "well" fish in Baja.

We spent the first night in Catavina, a little town in the Mexican desert that appeared to be dying. The Pemex gas station had closed and there was a very nice hotel called The Desert Inn is where we stayed which had to make it’s own electricity with their own generator which quit periodically. It was a bit pricey, $85/night for two, for being in the middle of the Mexican desert, but it was truly the only game in town. No fish here, so I had Pollo con Mole. It was bueno.

Off we went the next morning at 6 AM through some of the most rugged terrain that I have ever driven through. Narrow bumpy roads with dips called vados that water washes through when it rains. When it rains along there, there is no way you could get a car, or even the pickup truck through. Along the way, I drove over a rock, imagine that rocks on a Mexican road, and punctured the left front tire. Before we could get the jack set up, an Angeles Verdes appeared and changed our tire. The Green Angels patrol the highways in Mexico to assist tourists at no charge. It was the first time I recall seeing one and there he was and we were on our way in no time.

About noon, we stopped for coffee in Gerraro Negro which is where the Twenty Eighth Parallel is. The 28^th is the official dividing line between Baja California Norte (North) and the state of Baja California Sur (South). Every fifty, or so, miles there is a military checkpoint where some uniformed, and armed, Mexican solder asks you where you’re coming from and where you are going. Most don’t speak a word of English and talk very fast but after awhile, you just automatically say Long Beach California after the first burst of Spanish and then say La Paz after the second burst. They all seem to be nice and friendly and a few want to chat a bit to try out their limited English. I’m not sure what is really going on, but I’m guessing that the Mexicans are trying to discourage the drug traffic and also to try and show that everyone is relatively safe from the gangstas.

Next Baja Sur to Mulege.