december 2 2007 : mulegé, baja california sur, mexico, central america
After kicking ourselves out of our whorehouse bed in the morning we were happy to discover that despite the forecasts the sun had come out. We loaded the bus back up and went down to explore Santa Rosalia. It’s a different town than the rest of Baja in that it has color. Every other town consists of one color, dust.

In Santa Rosalia the clapboard houses are all painted brightly in blues, greens, yellow, and anything else that might have happened to be on sale at the time. Being a Saturday the town was hopping. The streets were full of men shooting the breeze, women shopping, and kids staring at the toys in every shop window. Christmas is here and it doesn’t seem to matter what a store sells the rest of the year, for this month they sell a hodgepodge of toys. The church in town was designed by Eiffel, of Tower fame, and is pretty unremarkable except for the fact that it was shipped over here prefabricated. We gave that a quick once over before eating a very early lunner and hitting the road.

We didn’t go far, only about ten miles, before pulling into a campground for the night. This turned out to be our first experience with the long term RVers. I thought they called themselves full-timers, but down here they seem to be calling them permanents. And just like the 80’s permanent hairdos, these permanents were big, frizzy, out of control messes. Not the people themselves, but the homes they had created. These people drive down here in all manner of machine, the most common being the 5th wheel RV. But that’s not all they’ve got. Once they are here they proceed to turn their plot of land into about the lowest class mobile home park you can imagine.

Generally it goes something like this. RV parked perpendicular to the water, a big aluminum shed constructed haphazardly behind that, a large tent off to one side, a truck on the other, a trailer squeezed in there somewhere, and an inflatable dinghy (which they call a boat) pulled up on the beach beside it all. Getting all of that down to Mexico and squeezed into their 15 feet of beachfront was the man’s job. Then the women take over. They collect beach debris and build fences around the whole thing. The most common “landscaping” was the fence made of a piece of driftwood at the corners with miscellaneous rope, fishing line, and netting, making up the fence. Then of course are the shells. Row upon row of shells delineating one persons space from the other.

Friendly folks for the most part, even to us outsiders just dropping in for a night. Which I suppose should keep us from poking fun at them, but man, they are living in their own strange little world,  a world in which a banjo would be the only musical instrument.

We bid farewell to our mobile neighbors in the morning and cruised 30 miles down the road to Mulegé. The guidebook called it the prettiest town in Baja, which we think is only because it has a lot of palm trees. The town itself wasn’t really a standout, though it was a pleasant place to wander the streets, eat, and pick up a few snacks before moving just down the road another ten miles or so to the beaches. We found a huge beach with just a couple of campers spread out across it. We picked a spot, I unloaded the beach chairs, and Ali built a wall of shells around us. With that project done we were free to spend the rest of the day drinking beer, laying in the sun, and swimming.

december 4 2007 : loreto, baja california sur, mexico
We spent the next day lounging around the beach again. Though in the morning we did get a couple of quick projects done. I adjusted the valves again, though this time not one of them actually needed to be adjusted. So I guess I just looked at the valves. Our other projects were so minor I’d be embarrassed to even list them. Truthfully we did nothing all day long.

This morning we got back on the road. It turned out to be a beautiful drive, winding through the mountains with huge cactus fields stretching out forever on one side of us and the calm waters of the Sea of Cortez on the other. We passed one perfect strand of beach after another until we came into Loreto. Loreto is a big town by Baja standards, but driving through it seemed like a nice place. We found a park for the bus right in the middle of town and went for a walk to explore.

In truth, walking around these towns there isn’t a whole lot to see other than a church or two. But we like these lively towns more for just the daily life that is going on. The mission (church) in this town was from way back in 1697, and still stands right in the heart of town, being used and looking pretty good.

While down there we popped in to the grocery store where we picked up some staples, like peanut butter and bread, determined that on our next off-road adventure we’ll be able to cook up a wholesome meal for ourselves. After that it was back to the park to do laundry. Ali was thrilled at the prospect of having two machines all to herself. Not to mention getting that big dirty bag of clothes out of the bus.

december 7 2007 : todos santos, baja california sur, mexico
The next day, after stopping off for gas and water, we had plans to drive over to the Pacific coast. The Transpeninsular didn’t cut too close to the coast, but according to the map there were plenty of dead end roads leading down there. Along the way we stopped off in Ciudad Constitución where we found a great taco stand on a busy corner. We ordered four tacos, but through a series of miscommunications we ended up with seven. We didn’t mind a bit.

From there we drove about an hour south looking for our turn off. We weren’t feeling overly adventurous so we picked the one road that our map showed as being paved. Of course, it wasn’t. In fact it was a terribly rutted out washboard of a road, and after spending two unhappy miles on it we turned the bus around. South of us there really wasn’t much for a couple of hours at least, so we instead decided to backtrack an hour to Ciudad Constitución to spend the night.

We got an early start the next day, this time with the plan to get off-road and to the coast. I had one particular stretch of coast in mind which something I read had described as 40 miles of pristine beach break. We didn’t have any directions other than the name of some small town located somewhere along that dirt road. So when we got to the point where I thought the dirt road turn off should be we stopped and asked a local rancher for directions. He indicated to us that it was down the road, about maybe three kilometers. But there was no turnoff. We then asked a highway worker who told us 10k. But again, there was no turnoff. And before we knew it we were pulling in to La Paz. We stopped one last time at a gas station and asked a few people but nobody seemed to know what we were talking about. So we gave up on that idea and continued in to town.

We had been expecting good things in La Paz, having even made plans to meet Ali’s parents there for Christmas, but after one drive through town we weren’t digging the place at all. We expected perfect beaches, but instead found a touristy strip along the water, where the tide was out and there were no beaches at all. At the end of town there were a couple of bigger hotels with private beaches, and we later found out that fifteen minutes out of town there are some beautiful beaches, but overall it didn’t look like much of anything to us. After a quick lunner we were making our way through the maze and back out on to the 1, headed for Todos Santos.

The drive down to Todos was another spectacular one. It was the perfect time of day and the mountains and cactus seemed to pop out at us like a 3-D movie. Todos is apparently a North American artists colony, and driving through town it had sort of that upscale artsy feel to it, with gallery after gallery interspersed with loads of high end looking restaurants. It took us a little while to figure out that the beaches here were also located out of town, about 10k farther down the road. We grabbed some supplies and headed that direction.

We made our way to Los Cerritos, where we were assured a nice mushy beach break and camping. When we got down there we found the campground had been shut down, but the one restaurant on the beach assured us we could camp anywhere, even their parking lot. The parking lot was full at the time though and it wasn’t looking all that appealing, so we backed out to try a different beach and a couple of the RV parks on the road to town. The RV parks turned out to be nasty little places with absolutely no appeal to them whatsoever. And the next beach road we took led us down an ever increasingly soft sand track.

Eventually we found a spot just big enough to get the bus turned around and get out of there before we got buried and had to dig our way out. That led us back to Cerritos where as the sun set over the Pacific the crowd disappeared and we were the only people left in the lot. That served us just fine and, after a much longer day than we had expected, we made the bed and crashed quickly.

We had a nice quiet nights sleep and woke up to gorgeous blue skies and the crashing of waves just yards away. By about 7:30 the parking lot started to fill up with surfers and boogie boarders. Ali brewed herself a few cups of coffee and I got the board out to take a shot at some rather large looking waves. After a strong first wave I proceeded to get buried time and time again.

By the time I came back in Ali had made a new friend, a dog we called Peanut Butter because of the numerous peanut butter sandwiches Ali made for him over the next couple of days. She’s a sucker for a skinny mutt with a good personality.

We ended up spending the entire day, from sunrise to well after sunset, sitting on the beach. Surfing, sunning, and eating more fish tacos. We even made some new friends who were down here traveling, sleeping in the back of a pickup truck, and taking advantage of time share scams to score themselves free hotel stays. It was a perfect day in Baja.

december 8 2007 : cabo san lucas, baja california sur, mexico
After another night in the parking lot we figured it was time to move. But before doing that we repeated yesterdays performance of coffee and surf while the sun comes up behind us and the waves crash on the beach in front of us. With that completed we loaded up the bus and went to scout out a few more beaches. A couple looked promising, but it’s pretty clear that stealth camping is about the only thing available out here. No campgrounds, or even areas with a handful of campers hanging out, were anywhere to be seen.

After that we made our way back in to Todos Santos. We still weren’t really sure where we were going to have Ali’s parents stay when they visited for Christmas, so we thought we should probably iron that out. We hopped on the internet and in quick succession ruled out La Paz, San José del Cabo, and Cabo San Lucas. All seemed a bit too touristy, and we didn’t think the all inclusive resort would appreciate having us show up in their lobby every day ready to use the pool. So we found a cool little boutique hotel in Todos, booked that, and decided to get ourselves out of town. We figured if we were going to be spending another week there we should probably go check out those other places that we just crossed off our list.

With those decisions taken care of we made our way out of town and down to Cabo San Lucas. It was yet another pretty drive with some really nice views of the Pacific as we wound our way south. At one point along the way we had a series of cars flash their lights at us. We figured something was going on so we slowed down, and sure enough around the next corner a herd of goats were slowly making their way across the highway. After we got through them we flashed our lights at a truck roaring around the next corner and watched as he quickly hit his brakes and slowed down. A few miles later this same thing happened for a big group of cows. I love the communication that goes on down here on the roads.

I don’t know what the statistics are but to me driving actually feels safer in Mexico than the States. Down here we never get tailgated. And that’s because there is a system. When a car is flying up behind us it is our job to tell them when it is safe to pass. So if I know it is clear for them to get by me I flick on my left turn signal. And with 100% trust the car, or truck, pulls right into the oncoming lane and flies on past us. If I don’t signal then they know it isn’t safe and they stay back a little bit and wait for a clearing. Nobody ever seems to get mad. Not even when they want to be doing 90 mph and we’re tooling along at half that. One other thing we’ve noticed here is that there is essentially no such thing as a traffic cop. We’ve only seen a couple of cops, and have yet to see anybody get pulled over. Apparently they just let the unwritten rules of the road do their thing.

By the time we rolled in to Cabo it was getting late and we were both exhausted. The last couple of days in the sun had wiped us out. We pulled in to the first campground we could find, parked, and didn’t do another thing. We did have to listen to the campground owner tell us about the attempted dognapping of his chihuahua the day before though. Here’s how he told the story. “This jeep pulls up and three girls get out, (dramatic pause, then low voice) Mexicans, and they pick the dog up and drive away.”

Yep, it was those damn Mexicans again. I tell you, I don’t know how we can keep them out of Cabo San Lucas. We got a good laugh when we met this white guy campground owner’s wife later on. You can imagine why. Yep, (dramatic pause, low voice) a Mexican.

december 10 2007 : parque marino national cabo pulmo, baja california sur, mexico
Well after finally reaching the bottom of Baja we find ourselves sort of unsure how we feel about the place. Cabo is the sort of city that would have thrilled us after a few months on the boat, but after only being in Baja a couple of weeks we are finding that we aren’t really in need of a big city fix just yet. We did stop in at Wal-Mart hoping to find a nice beach umbrella, but alas there were none. Then, after not finding a Taco Bell so we could eat some good ol’ American tacos, we tucked in to Macca’s for a bite to eat instead. After that we found ourselves ready to get back out of town.

Some friends had told us about a beach at kilometer marker 12 just outside of town. We found the place easy enough, a locals beach sandwiched between the cliffs and the mega hotels. Where we parked for the night we couldn’t see a road or a hotel, which in Cabo is very near impossible. The weather was terrible though. We spent the afternoon sitting in the front seat, reading and staring out the rain streaked windows at the surf crashing below us. By the middle of the night the rain had turned into a torrential downpour and Ali started asking questions like, “Is this cliff gonna wash away?” To be honest I wasn’t really sure, but I think I gave her a confident enough response that she was able to sleep a little bit.

When we woke up we found that the the weather hadn’t changed a whole lot but that our cliff seemed to be holding up just fine. We spent a couple of hours in our four season porch waiting for the rest of the world to wake up and hoping that the sun might make an appearance. While we sat around we watched this couple down below us pull in and then proceed to work on their car. It seemed sort of comical because the guy had the hood up and all I could see him doing was hitting the engine with a hammer. A while later he walked up the hill to us and asked if we could give him a jump.

On our way out we stopped alongside of him and hooked up the cables. When he told his wife to start the car there seemed to be some confusion. She crawled in the backseat and started throwing things around. Pretty soon she was back in the front seat with a pair of scissors. She jammed them into the space where the ignition used to be and tried to turn it over. The scissors didn’t work though so the guy dug around some more and came up with a pair of wire cutters. He stuck those in the ignition and she fired right up. Looking inside the car you just had to laugh. There was hardly anything left of it. The dash was nearly gone, the horn/airbag was long gone, and pretty much the entire steering column, including the ignition, were MIA.

San José del Cabo was just a bit farther down the road. On our way there we kept our eyes peeled for the last remaining RV park in town. Turns out it had been rubbed out by a couple of slightly higher income producing projects, hotels and condos. San José has a reputation as being the sort of sleepy neighbor to Cabo. But it seems to be doing everything it can to change that. You can’t get anywhere near the beaches, in fact, you can’t see the water from any road. The town center still has a local flare though. Plenty of local restaurants and busy streets. But again we just weren’t feeling in the mood for the scene, so we continued on.

Originally we set out to look for a dirt road on our map that seemed to hug the coast. After an hour of driving around aimlessly from one new development, to the next new golf course, and on to the new marina, we gave up, hopped back on the 1 and made our way out of town.

Eventually we saw a turn off for Parque Cabo Pulmo. We swung the wheel over and made our way towards it, not really sure what we were going to find. After about a half an hour we spotted a tiny sign next to a guard shack. It said Playa Publica, and had a little arrow pointing down a dirt road. The guard shack appeared to be for a big house with a landing strip running alongside of it. Something we seem to be seeing a lot of lately.

The dirt road ran right alongside the landing strip for half a mile, pinched in between two barbed wire fences just wide enough apart to allow one car. Of course halfway down the road we ran into a dumptruck. Amazingly, he graciously backed up a couple of hundred yards to allow us to pass by. When we popped out of the road we found a huge beach completely deserted, save for a couple of huge houses half a mile away. We scouted out a nice spot right in the middle of the beach and set up camp.

Tonight we had a nice bonfire, at which I learned two new things. One is that oyster shells explode in fire. Like firecrackers. Especially fun if you can find a rock with dozens of them attached to it. Two is that scorpions live in dead logs. That one I learned the hard way. After burning about half of one particularly large log I reached down to push it the rest of the way in. Instant stinging, burning, searing pain in my finger. We didn’t know what it was at first, but a few minutes later there he was clinging to the end of the burning log with his menacing curly tail held up high. I didn’t save him.

I was able to squeeze a little blood out of my finger and not knowing what else to do we poured a little alcohol on it and called it good. Two hours later it was numb and still burning a little bit. Then we remembered that the Lonely Planet talks about things like this. We got it out, looked up scorpion bites, and found some great information. You are supposed to immediately apply ice, immobilize the affected body part, and go to the nearest emergency room. Check, check, and check, we didn’t do any of that. The worst part is that the book didn’t say anything about what could happen to you. So now, six hours later, I’m typing this with a numb finger while monitoring my breathing. Ali is going to wake me up tonight if I start to foam at the mouth, but we think that is from dog bites, so we are pretty sure I should be okay.

december 11 2007 : parque cabo pulmo, baja california sur, mexico (32 nights in the bus : 8,487 miles)
When we woke up to yet another stormy morning we began to wonder if we were in the right place. Who gets this much bad weather in Baja? I was thankful however for the fact that my numb finger was the only appendage affected by my run in with the scorpion the night before. We spent a couple of hours in the cab of the van waiting for the clouds to blow out and then packed up to leave.

We didn’t make it far however. The moment I pressed the gas pedal I knew we had problems. We were sinking. The first hit of gas had only sunk us in a couple of inches so I got down and dug out a path for the tires, hopped back in, hit the gas, and completed our burial. Now the bumper was nearly in the sand. Fortunately we weren’t late for any appointments, and the sun was peaking out, so we took our time getting out the shovel and getting a plan together. I started to dig us out while Ali gathered up some rocks to pile up underneath the tires. But no sooner had we started this than a guy came roaring up in his truck.

An RV was parked about a hundred yards from us back in the woods/bushes. We could hardly see them yet somehow they knew the minute we had gotten stuck. We were a little disturbed at the thought that somebody had been spying on us with binoculars again, bringing back flashbacks of our sailing days, but were happy for the help. At first we tried to figure out a way to hook up a tow strap, but couldn’t find a good spot to tie it that wouldn’t put all the pressure on the bumper. Anticipating just this scenario, I had asked for and been promised tow hooks on the bus, but they were never installed, and we never got around to doing it ourselves either. Fortunately now, with three men, two of whom were well into their sixties, we had enough physical strength to push this lightweight vehicle out.

Ali climbed behind the wheel of the bus for the very first time. Not because I won’t let her drive, but because she simply has no desire to. Anyway, as her Great Race experience proves, she is great at hammering the gas, which she did while we pushed. In seconds the bus lifted out of its hole. Ali kept the gas pinned and whipped the bus around on the beach, flying down the dirt road out of sight. After handshakes and obligatory jokes about her not stopping until she got home, I gathered up our stuff and walked out to meet her.

By now the sun was high and hot. We opened up the safari windows and continued south along the coast. Five miles on the pavement disappeared into a rutted dirt road with barbed wire lining the edges, hundreds of elaborate no trespassing signs, and even guard towers. We of course plowed on ahead, enjoying the views of the coast, the desert, and the mountains, all at the same time.

After an hour or so of this we suddenly found ourselves in a little town. Cabo Plumo seemed to be a little place in the middle of nowhere set aside for scuba diving.  There were a few nice homes, two dive operators, and a nice little restaurant, where we stopped for lunner. The tacos de pescado were terrific, fresh fish chopped and grilled, not deep fried, makes all the difference. Despite this being a “town” we still couldn’t get anywhere near the beaches, so we continued on down the road.

Eventually we came around a corner and found about a dozen RVers, permanents, set up in a wash on the right side of the road. On the left was a huge beach with a fisherman’s camp on one end, a few small palapas set up on the other, and a couple of dirt tracks leading down to the beach. We turned off on the dirt track, drove right down to the waters edge, and settled ourselves in. A helpful RVer came over from the other side of the road to warn us about staying on the beach, saying security would kick us off, but we stayed put and, typically, didn’t have any problems at all. We had a beautiful afternoon swimming and hanging out on the beach, before building a nice big bonfire, and watching the stars come out.

december 13 2007 : playa tecolote, baja california sur, mexico
The drive along the East Cape of Cabo is terrific. The hills rise up over the water, giving you great views across the ocean and endless stretches of beach, then drop back down again to where you can drive right out onto those same beaches. The road itself was brutal though. Not overly rough exactly, instead it was 40 miles of nonstop washboards. No amount of swerving from one side of the road to the other helped at all, and speed wasn’t the answer, so we contented ourselves with a steady 15 mph pace instead.

When the road finally spit us back out into civilization we realized that we had been about 100 yards from the entrance when we had been looking for it two days earlier. We retraced our route through San José and made our way north again along the same road as before.

After spending an uneventful night at a campground in Los Barriles, we arrived back in La Paz. We figured we had to see those beaches and allow the city to redeem itself a little bit. But first we stopped in at the ferry terminal office to book our trip over to the mainland. The ferry saves us a couple of thousand miles, half of which we’ve already seen. It’s not cheap though. It cost us about $400 for the bus, the two of us, and since we were feeling lavish, a $35 cabin, which I might add, includes a private toilet. It’s certain to be the height of luxury sailing. It turned out that it was a good thing we booked it today as well, because it was filling up fast. There was a nearly two week period around Christmas that it was filled. In fact we’ll be arriving in Mazatlán on New Year’s Eve.

A bit farther down the road was Playa Tecolote. Again, if it wasn’t for the terribly cloudy, cold, and windy weather it would have been scenic and wonderful. But since it was cloudy, cold, and windy we wrapped ourselves up in sweatshirts and complained along with anybody else walking along the beach about the unusual weather.

december 17 2007 : los cerritos, baja california sur, mexico
Bad weather makes us really antsy. Playa Tecolote was a nice spot to spend a couple of days, but with the cold wind and heavy clouds we couldn’t sit still all day. There simply isn’t a lot to do cooped up in the bus for that long. So we started driving again. We picked a road off the map at random and took it.

We had a nice drive, and soon found ourselves all alone along a rough stretch of coast. We were hoping to find a town where we could get something to eat before finding a deserted place to camp for the night, but instead we found ourselves in an army base. The road we had picked had led us way out into the boonies and dead ended in the midst of a military compound. We flipped around before anybody seemed to notice and made our way back to La Paz, where we ate dinner and took the easy way out, finding an RV camp for the night.

The campground was far from scenic and we abandoned it early the next morning. There was a dirt road on our map that I had been wanting to investigate since we got down here, but we had been unable to find it on our previous attempts. This time we took the freshly paved road that seemed to be in the general vicinity and it turned out to be the right one, quickly turning to dirt. We took a rough track leading off towards the ocean and were soon bouncing along through yet another long ago abandoned real estate development project. These places are a dime a dozen out here. The “roads” were little more than rutted out tracks, but yet they still had street names and signs at each intersection. This particular development looked as if they had been ready to sell a couple of thousand homes far out in the desert. It stretched on forever.

A couple of miles down the road we made it to the ocean. Actually the ocean was hidden behind a never ending stretch of dunes which also kept us from getting to close to the water in the bus. We off-roaded a bit more and eventually found a low spot in the dunes where apparently there had been some flooding that hardened the ground and allowed us to drive right up to the edge, just behind one small dune separating us from the Pacific. We were well and truly in the middle of nowhere.

The first day the only people we saw were in three dune buggies flying down the road. Meanwhile the beach, which stretched as far as we could see in either direction was deserted, save for a flock of pelicans taking a break in the sand.

We had a peaceful night and woke the next morning to clanging bells. We peeked outside and found ourselves surrounded by cattle. Ol’ Bessie was leading the way with her cowbell tied around her neck. They hung around the bus most of the day and at one point we came over the dune to find a cow with our garbage bag in her mouth and another nuzzling up against our door, its big horns inches from our paint.

The sun was out and it was the quintessential Baja day. A couple of trucks passed down the road, and an off-road army vehicle stopped by to climb the dunes and survey the area with their binoculars, but aside from that we, along with the cows, had about a twenty mile stretch of beach to ourselves.

After a couple of days of peanut butter sandwiches it was time to head back to civilization. We followed a different dirt road out and were pleasantly surprised a couple of hours later when we popped out in Todos Santos. There was a popular taco stand in town that we had been wanting to try out, and with our hunger, today was the perfect day. I don’t know if it was the peanut butter or what, but we had just about one of everything on the menu and it was all awesome. I don’t think you can beat a Mexican taco stand for good cheap eats.

We wandered around town for a little while and then headed back to Los Cerritos, where I was sure that there was a camping area that we just hadn’t found the last time we were out here. Sure enough, about a mile farther down the beach along some unmarked dirt roads, we found it. There are about a dozen campers scattered around the dunes, everything from tents to conversion vans to full on RVs. It seems like a pretty cool place to hang around and surf for a couple of days.

december 21 2007 : todos santos, baja california sur, mexico
The Los Cerritos camp did turn out to be a nice spot. We stayed there for a couple of nights, hanging out on the beach the entire time. Then since Ali’s parents were flying in to town we made our way back to Todos and an RV park for the next week.

The RV park is officially the least attractive place we have stayed since this trip began, but the price is right at $5 a day, and the location just down the street from the luxury digs her parents are staying at makes it work out perfectly.

We rented a car for their stay since traveling around in the back of a panelvan isn’t really the best way to see Baja. When Ali and I showed up to pick the car up we watched as the Budget rental guy arrived with his family of six in the car, all eating breakfast out of styrofoam containers. They climbed out, picked out the worst of the garbage and handed over the keys. We’ve had some pretty sketchy rental cars in our day, but this one takes the cake.

After getting the car we drove on down to Cabo to pick them up at the airport, where they arrived right on time. We quickly loaded up the car, backed out of our parking space, and were immediately stuck in traffic. Traffic in the parking lot itself. It was one of the best little scams I’ve ever seen. The parking lot charged by the hour, and apparently figured out that they could squeeze an extra half an hour out of everybody by only employing one ticket booth worker. The line to get out had to be close to a hundred cars long, and by the time we made it to the front of the line our parking fee had increased by 25%.

We drove to town and got them checked in to their hotel, a really cool little seven room place on the beach, where we listened to the proprietress give dire warnings against eating seafood of any kind at the street stalls. She was vehemently against it. Ali and I were terrified that one of the couple of hundred fish tacos we’ve eaten this month would come back to haunt us. We bit our tongues as she continued on with the warnings: don’t pet the big dog outside, under no circumstances should you swim in the ocean for fear of rips, and lock up all your valuables because there are thieves lurking nearby. Throwing caution to the wind we then loaded into the car and drove back into town, where we steered clear of the dreaded Mexican seafood, water, and evil looking characters. We kept it simple for the first night, hitting happy hour for beer and hamburgers, before letting the parents get some sleep.

Today we spent lounging poolside knocking back Tecates and getting some sun on those pasty white Minnesota legs. Ali gets her competitive streak from her dad, and he and I tend to get a bit competitive with each other as well, so we spent the afternoon engaged in cribbage and attempts to take over the world at RISK. The girls just shake their heads, but don’t say anything as long as one of us plays cabana boy every now and then by bringing them cold cervezas.

Instead of bringing Christmas presents this year we were brought the news that our credit card company had called the day before questioning some strange activity. Apparently a $503 charge at a fast food joint in California raised a red flag. Though with Ali and I you can never be too sure when it comes to fast food bills. They must see charges that big at Carl’s Jr. every day right?

It had only been going on for about three days, but by the time we called today and put a stop to things there was about $3,000 worth of charges on the account. Almost all of them at fast food joints, including over $500 at Starbucks. Somehow they must turn these charges into hard cash, but it’s beyond me how it all works. Regardless, VISA hardly batted an eyelash, and I was on the phone less than five minutes before it was taken care of. Thing is, normally we’re on the internet every day or two and we check our accounts every single time, but this week we’ve sort of been out of contact on the beaches, leaving those California credit card bandidos to run loose.

december 25 2007 : todos santos
The week is flying by. We spent one day hanging out on Los Cerritos beach. The weather was absolutely perfect and the holiday crowds had shown up, making for a lively day of beer drinking and people watching. We had dinner by the fire as we watched the sun go down at the end of the day.

The next day the weather did a complete 180, leaving us stranded by the hotel pool reading old magazines and playing cards. I did manage to install our new, or more accurately new to us, 1958 cargo door mechanism. This one appeared to be in much better shape but there was still a little hitch with it. One half of the mechanism wasn’t working 100% and caused me to have to do a bit of metal filing. This did the trick and we now have a fully functioning door again. Which is a good thing since Ali really didn’t like it when I would have to climb in through the back hatch with a handful of greasy tools every time the old one would jam up. And I didn’t like having to feign ignorance every time there was a new grease smear on the cushions. I’m a good liar, but not that good.

Fortunately Christmas Eve day the weather completed its circle and we once again had perfect blue skies and eighty degree temperatures. In celebration we loaded up the rental car with copious amounts of Pacifico and heavy duty sunblock.

We drove out to the beach that Ali and I had stayed a couple of nights at along with the cows. Ali’s parents didn’t think they’d ever seen a more beautiful and desolate stretch of beach, and it was hard to argue that. It’s only about an hour or so north of Todos Santos along some pretty rough dirt roads, but once there you really do feel like you are in another world, completely free of normal life, or just starring in a Travel Channel commercial. As an added bonus to our idyllic afternoon we were treated to whales spouting just offshore, stingrays jumping and belly flopping, and even a few dolphins surfacing while swimming along in a big group. However, no cows came by to lick our rental car all day.

While I don’t agree that you should “under no circumstances” go swimming along this stretch of coast, I will concede that there is an element of danger to it. Ali’s dad made this point clear for all of us a few minutes after I entered the water. Swimming around here is really all about the timing. The waves come up sharply from deep water and break almost right on the beach, one after another. But occasionally there is a lull in the swell, allowing you to make it out past the breakers where you can float comfortably for hours. I caught the lull, Ali’s dad didn’t. While I bobbed around twenty yards offshore, he was getting pummeled by wave after wave. After about the third one he hobbled back to his feet laughing and swearing that one more wave and he would have seen the light. And by light he didn’t mean the sun as he popped out the other side of the wave either.

And now here it is, Christmas Day. Which is really just another day by the pool for our little group. A much more relaxing and enjoyable Christmas than we tend to get back home in the States.

december 27 2007 : todos santos
I woke up this morning to find our rental car sitting there with a flat tire. We had also noticed the day before that the chip in the windshield had splintered and shot off into a full blown crack. I don’t know what our deal is with rental cars, but we sure do seem to cause some damage with them. Fortunately the car had a bald, but inflated, spare tire I was able to change out, and we were soon on our way.

With more weather perfection scheduled we decided on another day at Los Cerritos. It’s really just a perfect hang out beach. Just enough people to keep you entertained, lots of friendly dogs to fetch sticks (including our Peanut Butter), perfect waves for body surfing, boogie boarding, or surfing, and one casual restaurant for feeding yourself once the cooler full of beer is depleted.

And just like that we’re alone again. After the trip to the airport we drove back to Todos and returned the car. There was some minor drama when they tried to hit us up for paying for the cracked windshield. As I have always found, a flat out “No” solved that problem. Do people seriously pay for rental car cracked windshields?

december 29 2007 : playa tecolote, baja california sur, mexico
We ran a few errands yesterday before leaving Todos. It’s sort of like cruising, before you leave anywhere you need to fill up the water and the fuel, grab a couple of bags of chips, and pick up your laundry. The difference now is that we don’t have to walk ten miles and spend two days doing it.

By the time we crossed back to the gulf side the wind had picked up to gale force. Again. We’re not sure if this is an anomaly or if it really is this windy on Tecolote beach all the time, but it has certainly been an unenjoyable place for us. Sitting here in the bus now after twenty-four hours of VW rockin’ we’re starting to wonder just how nasty this ferry crossing is going to be tomorrow.

A whole bunch of different vehicles have surrounded us today as well. We’re in a line across the beach so if you took a picture it would look like some sort of evolutionary chart you might see in a book somewhere. To our left are two dirt bikes all kitted out for off-road travel. While the thought of traveling by motorcycle holds a lot of appeal to me, the idea of arriving somewhere, having to pitch a tiny tent, sit on the ground, and not grab a cold beer out of the fridge makes the idea a lot less appealing.

Then there is us, we can’t get as far off-road, but we do have some of the comforts. A bed, couch, water, refrigeration, electricity, all that good stuff. Not a lot of power in the engine, and not a lot of headroom on the inside, but all in all a pretty good touring vehicle.

Next up to our right is a brand new Land Rover Defender from Austria, with big gnarly tires, jacked suspension, all sorts of metal gadgets bolted up one side and down the other, and a pop top to sleep in. We got a look inside that thing today and one thing is for sure, there is no way they are as comfortable as we are. But they do have a bed, water, electricity, and the ability to do some serious off-roading.

After the Landy are the Germans. They look like they just time warped here from 1944. The vehicle of choice appears to be some sort of troop transporter. Or possibly a roving bomb shelter. Or both. Every bolt on this thing is the size of my head, the tires are nearly five feet tall (and there are seven of them in total), and it towers fifteen feet in the air. Ali called it cute.

It does go to show that there are a lot of different types of people and vehicles driving around the world, or at least random sections of it. I tend to think that most of these vehicles are extreme overkill. How often will you actually drive on a road (or off) that is so rough it takes this much to get over it? But then again sailors know that they will only see storm conditions maybe 1% of the time, or maybe never, but yet they spend the majority of their time and money outfitting the boat for exactly those times. I guess only time will tell though whether or not the bus is actually capable, or if we should have built a super-duper-off-road machine.

december 31 2007 : mazatlán, mexico, central america
We arrived four hours early for our ferry yesterday, figuring that there would have to be some delays along the way. When we pulled up a friendly fellow walked over and had a look at our vehicle permit and vin number before asking me to press a button on a stop light machine. We came up green and were told to proceed on through. Apparently we’d bypassed an inspection.

Around the corner we spotted the sign for the Mazatlán ferry and made our way towards the open end of the ship. A guy quickly stopped us and pointed back around another corner. So we drove over and found a short line of cars being searched by dozens of soldiers. We resigned ourselves to the fact that we were going to get a thorough search after all. After a couple of minutes the soldiers converged on us and politely poked around the bus for a few minutes, obviously not the least bit expecting to find anything, and not trying very hard just in case there was something. Almost as if they’d feel bad if they discovered a few pounds of dope that we had cleverly hidden inside a pillow.

When they were finished we pulled ahead and asked the guy who appeared to be in charge where we should go next. He indicated that we should just go out the fence and to the road. What? No, we explained, we don’t want to get out, we need to get on the ship. This went back and forth a few times as it slowly dawned on us that we weren’t supposed to be in this line getting searched. The line was for cars that had just arrived from the mainland on a different ferry. Ali was thrilled because she really enjoys having a bunch of eighteen year olds with guns run their dirty fingers over her nice clean house. Ha, ha.

Anyway, we eventually got on the ship, found our miniature room, and then the bar. There was some serious beer drinking going on in this bar. I don’t know if it was the fear of being out on the ocean or if everybody in there just had a serious alcohol abuse problem, either way it made for some enjoyable people watching.

On an unrelated note, we noticed while we were in there that the only music we ever seem to hear in Mexico is polka music. They have different names for it, but to American ears it is polka. The amazing thing is that everyone likes it, even the eighteen-year-old kids. We hardly ever hear any English music, including rap, which is surprising because in just about every other country we’ve visited that seems to be all you hear. This polka stuff is good fun though. You almost can’t help yourself from hopping around and doing a little two step, or three step, or whatever it is. I’m a terrible dancer.

After driving out of the ship this morning there were no checkpoints and we were quickly making our way through Mazatlán. I hate to say it, but I’m afraid that Ali and I are starting to become travel snobs. We’re trying hard not to, but after driving past a dozen “Official Senor Frog T-Shirt Outlets” filled with tourists, it’s almost impossible. A city like this just holds very little appeal to us these days. However, we just smiled stupidly and made our way to an RV park right on the beach in town.

The park is filled to the brim with North Americans, most of whom are hiding out from the snow for a few months before heading back home. We talked to a few of the friendly and gray folks and I have to say that we really can’t believe how much fear there is of Mexico. We’ve gotten a lot of email that has made it pretty clear to us that the people back home think it is dangerous here, but we’re really surprised that even the people that are down here seem to feel this way. Nobody seems to have any real reason as to why it’s dangerous, but they sure aren’t going to venture too far from the RV parks in the main cities and find out.

It’s fine though, most of these people are quite a bit older than us and I suppose at some point in life you lose a little bit of your bravado. I do wonder though if Mexicans are afraid of going to the U.S. and being carjacked? I’ll have to ask.

Speaking of the Mexico threat, here’s a wonderful quote I pulled out of an RV forum that was talking about us.

“I sold a Subaru Brat to a couple in the mid ’80s that had the mother of all horror stories about their son disappearing into Mexico’s jails for six months. I sat on a jury with a lady who’s husband was nearly killed while on a baja trip. My buddy’s got stopped in baja and their whole caravan robbed by banditos in baja. My late wife’s best friend’s husband from Chiapas, and let me tell you there’s some serious reasons on why he’s FROM Chiapas!”

My late wife’s best friend’s husband. Follow that? Read it here.