Click on a photo to enlarge it.
We are so far behind with our website diary at the moment that we have decided to do weekly reports whilst we are in
Mexico to try and catch up. So here is the first of the weekly reports.
After having breakfast with Leslie, Rod gave us a map of Baja California which was a lot better than the one we had
been given by Michael and Michéle. He also gave us a lot of tips which proved very useful. One of the tips was to
drive to the border at Otay, North east of Tijuana, as it was not as busy as the border crossing directly off Highway
5, and we could also park up to go and get our passports stamped. The problem was that we never found the car park!
We got waved through the border without realising that we were actually at the border! Before we knew it we were in
Mexico and we couldn't go back to America to get our passports stamped! Because Tijuana is so dangerous, even during
the day, we couldn't even park up and try to find out what to do! We had no choice but to drive to Ensenada, 64 miles
south and to sort it out there.
We thought the roads in Mexico would be bad, but in fact the main Highway that runs all the way down Baja California
for over 1000 miles, is better than the roads in San Diego! We managed to find the free road to Ensenada - the main
tourist road is a toll road - and we decided to drive along the free road on the way south. We read somewhere that
you have to be an experienced Tijuana driver to find the free road, so I think we deserve a pat on the back for
finding it!!
We made it unscathed to Ensenada although we had to be very careful driving as most of the stop signs are hidden and
you can't tell what colour the traffic lights are on!! We went to the tourist office and they told us that there
wouldn't be a problem with our passports and told us how to get our tourist cards for Mexico. This took us about
2 hours and involved going to the immigration office, filling out a form, taking this form to a bank, paying $19 each,
taking the stamped form back to the immigration office and retrieving our passports! Obviously, the immigration office
officials can't be trusted with the money!
As Kirsten didn´t have her pin number with her, we couldn't get any cash whilst we were at the bank. So we drove out
of Ensenada for about 17km and found a campsite where we could pay in dollars. The full hook ups are a lot cheaper
here in Baja than in the US which is a good job as, for safety reasons, dry camping won´t be possible.
For the next four nights we stayed at a beach camp on La Bufadora peninsula. We were quite exhausted. For the last
two weeks we had been continually on the move, staying at a different spot every night, driving every day and trying
to pack a lot in to our last days in America. We needed a holiday! And decided that Baja California would be a good
place to relax a bit.
Unfortunately, the campsite where we were staying was not the best. As neither of us have been to Baja before, we didn't
know what to expect from the campsites and so when we found that the showers were salt water and the soap wouldn't
froth up, we thought this was what we had to expect from now on! Fortunately, we were wrong. Another reason for not
returning to this campsite, is because of all the Americans not bothering about who's tyres their dogs pee'd on!
After washing our front tyres, we made it quite clear that no dogs were allowed near us! I don't think we made any friends!!
On the positive side, Ensenada had a large supermarket and we even managed to find really good yoghurt and bread without
sugar in it - neither of which we could get in America! We also went for a beach walk and managed to write our website
diary up to December 22nd! So we were only16 days behind!
On one of the days we went for a drive to the end of the peninsula to try and find a blow hole. We never got to it because
there was a market blocking the street. We drove through the market even though there was hardly enough room for Winnie
to get through between all the stalls only to find that the road was blocked further along anyway. So we had to turn around
and drive back. We found out a few days later, that we could have parked up before the market and walked to the blow hole,
but as the blow hole only performs during high tide and we were there at low tide, we wouldn't have seen much anyway!
On Friday 9th January we drove South to El Rosario, passed a lot of small villages with shops that were more like shacks,
and uninviting restaurants - pretty typical for Baja. We kept filling up with petrol when we found a petrol station as we´d
been warned that there aren't many of them. The good thing is, that the petrol is the same price throughout Baja as the
petrol stations are all government owned. It´s a bit more expensive than in the US, but at least we don't have to bother
driving around comparing prices! We´re just glad to find a petrol station!
We drove for about 4 hours and stopped off at a beach campsite called El Pabellon which only cost $5 and had really clean
showers and no salty water. We walked along the beach and watched people digging for oysters.
The next day we drove through El Rosario and through our first check point. Got through without a problem. But then we saw
a sign saying that the next petrol was 314km away. After doing a quick calculation, we realised we would only just make it,
but it would be tight. So we pulled over and had a look at our extra petrol can attached to our back bumper. As it was attached
very tightly and locked in place, we didn´t want to take it off until we had to. But we couldn´t work out how to open it
and get the petrol poured into the tank!! We hadn´t bothered looking at it before as we thought it would be obvious!
Well, there was nothing for it, but to go back into El Rosario, back through the checkpoint and get topped up at the petrol
station. We found out that if we said we were Europeans, the checkpoints were easy! By this time, it was getting too late
to drive too far. Driving in the dark is a No-No. There are too many animals around, crossing the road, the road is quite
narrow and the trucks race past, totally ignoring the speed limit, and nearly blow us off the road unless we slow down!
It seems that all Mexicans ignore the speed limits and all road signs, judging from all the roadside graves we see. You
certainly need your wits about you here!
We managed to find a campsite called Rancho Santa Ines for the night which also cost $5 but there weren't any showers. We
met up with quite a few other motorhomes. 3 men who were travelling together with their wives came over and it took them
15 minutes to work out how to use our petrol can! So we´re not so stupid after all! But at least we know now and it was
nice of them to help. We also swopped some books with one of the wives and we were lent a really good camping book for
Baja from another couple. Helen spent 3 hours making notes from it!
The next day we drove to Guerrero Negro (clocks go forward 1 hour) along a windy road through desert terrain. We got waved through
another checkpoint and then found that the next petrol station was closed. It was a good job we'd topped up with petrol
because we now had another 40 km to drive to the next petrol at Guerrero Negro.
Then we got stopped at an Agricultural checkpoint. This time we had to let an inspector inside Winnie. He asked Helen if
there was any fruit (frutas). Helen said "No frutas" He looked in the fridge (our oranges were out of sight in one of the
compartments). He didn't see our bananas which were under a few plastic supermarket bags at the back of Winnie! Then he
opened up one of the cupboards and the orange squeezer fell out onto him!!! Helen thought "So much for no fruit!" We both
thought we would get into trouble, but he was so embarrassed that he just left straight away!! We´ll have to be careful
on the way back up north!
Then we had to pay 10 pesos ($1) for our tyres to get sprayed! But we didn't care as just around the corner we found a
petrol station that actually had petrol and we sighed with relief. We found a campsite and met up with some americans we'd
been with when we got our tourist cards. They'd had oranges and all their meat confiscated at the checkpoint! So we had
been extremely lucky.
