Deeper into Baja - Part 4

After laying up for almost a week at Playa Escondida we broke camp with our next destination only about 8 miles across the bay from where we sat as the crow flies.  To get there would entail a full day of off-road driving, truck excavation, road building, brush clearing and some route finding where the road was gone. The Baja Almanac topo map shows a red line depicting a road out to the tip of the peninsula.  It lies....the dirt road is sporadic at best and in places, non-existent.  Once turning off Ruta One at the south end of the bay is where the fun begins.  If you don't want to get your rig scratched, this is not an area you want to try and get to. For hours on end, it sounded like someone was running alongside the rigs running their nails along a chalkboard.  In places, we were forced to take to the sides of the track with pruning saws and machetes to hack our way through. The first hour or so it bothers you and then it's like....oh the hell with it, its just paint. It's a beautiful drive and where the road disappears you simply find the beach or an arroyo and drive that until you can relocate the road.  We got a late start, missed the turn off from the paved road and then spent some time hanging out with some locals at a fish camp so we ended up stopping the first night without making it out to our destination, Punta Concepcion.  At the fish camp, we met Pablo (pretty sure on his name but I may be wrong - should have written it down) his grandson and two locals who had crossed over from Mulege via boat. Pablo has been fishing and living here for 50 years.  We got an invite to come in and try some fresh fish he was cooking up along with a cold beer.  No way we were passing that up.  These encounters are what I love about getting back in the more remote areas.  Meeting and spending time with people such as this, enjoying the remoteness combined with the sheer beauty of the area and not knowing what lies around the next corner is what makes travel like this rewarding to me.  It doesn't get much better. 

 Pablo

Pablo's place. In the foreground is the west side of the bay. An easy trip by boat, but by road.....not so much.

Wayne getting some information on the area

A cold one waiting for the fish to finish.

After sitting around and shooting the shit over some fish and beer we loaded the dogs back up and kept working up the coastline.

Typical section of the road where it existed.

Wayne making some improvements.

After leaving Pablo's place we dropped off in a large wash and when I wasn't paying attention I dropped the rear off a steeper section where I shouldn't have. Front right and rear left in the air with no contact.  A little digging, "mucho" cussing, Wayne giving me a hard time about my lack of four-wheeling skills, some  jacking and road building and we were back on the move.

 It's not good when you can see the top of the camper like this.

I put Wayne to work.  Someone has to take pictures.

We didn't go much further than this and came across an old abandoned homestead and decided to make camp for the night.  We had heard about an old lady who had lived out here for years by the name of Baja Betty. We were wondering if maybe this was her place at one time. No structures left other than some old foundations and walls.  Wayne did some research on her later but came up empty.

 Old walls at the homestead.

 Rocky beach just below the homestead.

Old sea turtle shell on the beach

Following day after quite a bit of four wheeling on the beach we came to the roads end about a half mile from the point.  One could drive all the way out if you wanted to do some bushwhacking but we found a great site and set up. All was well in the world...great weather, perfect campsite, cold beer and no people.  We spent 6 nights out here and saw no one other than an old fisherman and his son out on the point.

Road less traveled.

I've been in worse spots.

Clear skies at night allowed for some great star gazing.

Days were spent fishing, kayaking and hiking the surrounding hills and beaches.

Views from camp each evening weren't bad either.

Sorry for such a long post but it was such a great week I didn't want to leave anything out.

More to come.......................

Deeper into Baja Part 3

Mulege

After our failed attempt to get over the mountains, or I should say our lack of trying, we rolled into Mulege late that afternoon via pavement.  We were both in need of refilling drinking water containers prior to heading a little further south to do some beach camping at Playa Escondida.  Good drinking water is now an easy commodity in Baja with water purification outlets in just about all towns and villages. Kinda like a rundown Starbucks with no seating where they only serve up purifed/filtered water by the gallon.  Only once on this trip was I required to utilize drinking water straight out of a tap.  We filled our 5-gallon containers, hit the grocery store for some grub and headed south along the coast to an area known as Bahia Concepcion.  A popular series of coves and inlets which is protected by a large peninsula which sits across the bay as close as 2 miles from the mainland in places.  We would explore this peninsula on the east side of the bay the following week and it would prove to be one of our most memorable campsites. 

Wayne and I rolled into Playa Escondida where we ran into two members of the original group.  Charlie, who had travelled with Wayne and I for a couple of nights, and Ace who had originally put the group together. Not sure how well the group thing worked out as it seemed to fall apart a lot sooner than expected.  I think Wayne and I were the only two who actually ended up travelling together for any extended period.  The large group travel is pretty tough to pull off unless you're into group travel and everyone has the same agenda.  Playa Escondida, as well as all the other beaches along the western side of Bahia Concepcion, is a favorite spot with gringos.  Beaches and campsites are easily accessible from the highway, beautiful with calm water, cheap and therefore......crowded during the winter months.  It's certainly not a bad place to spend a few winters months if you don't mind the crowds.  I guess I use the term crowds loosely here.  There were maybe a dozen other campers on the beach we were at and by Baja standards, is considered crowded.  When you've camped at places where you don't see anyone else for a week, a dozen rigs rates as crowded.  It is a beautiful area so we set up and ended up staying for a week. Days were spent kayaking, swimming, going for hikes, visiting with other campers, drinking beer, inhaling fish tacos, potlucks at night with other campers, day trips back into Mulege, reading and basically doing much of nothing. Wayne and I also sat around on our fat asses discussing world problems and came up with profound solutions on numerous occasions. Life in Baja is a lot of work..........

 Seniorita in Mulege sitting outside her taco stand

Mulege Mission

Downtown Mulege

I think it was while in Playa Escondida that I discovered Wayne was a regular chef. Unbelievable the meals he could prepare out of a cast iron skillet.  I hate to cook but love to eat.  Wayne was my kind of chef.....a good one who always prepared too much. My duties during preparation of the meal consisted of drinking beer, ensuring the chef had an adult beverage, supervising the chef and chopping garlic. The chef likes garlic.  

 Waynes Place

Fresh fish w/onions. Thanks to Wayne, we ate like this daily. I supervised!

Some street vendors from Mulege would usually show up on the beach in the mornings.  I never bought anything but it was fun haggling with them about their stuff.

Guy camped one bay over was impressed that he could feed the birds and just had to show me. He thought he was some kind of "bird whisperer" or something.  Think he'd been in out in the sun too much along with too many Coronas. Damn birds would dive bomb anybody who'd stand out there with some bread.

Ike on a boat ride

Heather, Heather Lenefsky Art and Lisa were camped down the beach from us and we all pitched in one day and rented a boat to go out in the bay for some sightseeing and snorkeling. Nice girls who were down touring around Baja. Heather on the left, is quite the painter and does pet paintings & portraits which I thought were very good. I'm thinking about having her do one for me of Petey. 

Petey headed back to camp after checking out some other dogs down the beach

 Pelican dive bombing some sardines right off of camp

Wayne and Ike returning after an afternoon paddle

Petey and Ike catching an afternoon siesta

It was a lazy week of just lying around doing much of nothing.  One gets good at this kind of stuff after a few weeks in Baja. While doing so we were mapping out and planning our next stop...east side of Bahia Concepcion.  When I was down last year I had wondered about the east side.....this year I checked it out.   

Next update.......east side of Bahia Concepcion.

Deeper into Baja Part 2

Remote beach south of Bahia Asuncion

The weather ended up running us out of Ojo de Liebre so we opted to break camp and head south towards Vizcaino and then turn west towards the pacific side of Baja to the little town of Bahia Asuncion.  From there we'd be back on dirt and follow the coastline to Punta Abreojos.  I was in Bahia Asuncion last year and had planned to do the coastline to the south but got really ill after eating some bad fish taco's at a little road side stand.  It was a miserable few days afterwards and I knew I was going to die in Baja! I survived and was looking forward to exploring the remote coastline that I missed last year and reminded myself to bypass the same fish taco stand this time around.  We stayed in Bahia Asuncion for one night and then worked our way down the coast spending one more night out before returning to pavement in Punta Abreojos.  Remote area as I remember only seeing one other group camped in this section which was about 40 miles along the coast.  Main reason it's not crowded is having to deal with washboard roads from hell. In places, it is really bad and will beat a rig to death if you don't air down or slow the hell down. Other than some small fishing camps there isn't much here.  Miles and miles of open terrain, sand dunes and beautiful beaches.

 Coyote encounter

Sunset from camp along the pacific side

Miles of remote coastline

Mission in fishing village of La Bocana

After hitting pavement again we were headed for San Ignacio which is a small village located about halfway down the peninsula of Baja and is genuinely unique.  It's like taking a step back in time as the pace of life is slow & the people are friendly. San Ignacio should not be missed if in Baja.

 San Ignacio Mission (founded 1728)

Our end goal was to cross the Sierra el Cuchillo Range, spend a couple of nights in the mountains, before ending up in the village of Mulege back on the Sea of Cortez side.  We had also seen some ruins on our maps that we wanted to investigate.  Neither Wayne nor I had been up in this area and hoped we'd be able to get through.  We had heard conflicting reports as to whether the route was doable. Waynes rig is certainly more off-road worthy than mine but he was also pulling an adventure trailer which can be a problem if you end up somewhere you can't easily turn around.  This would all have to wait due to some legal problems! While walking around the town square I look over and a rotund Mexican cop is writing a ticket on Waynes vehicle.  This turned out to be very entertaining for me as Wayne was instructed to follow the police to the village station.  I followed a few minutes later and when I enter the station he's pleading his case to the police & administrative personnel in the station about how he is an innocent tourist and was being taken advantage of.  Not sure any of them understood a word of English but they either felt sorry for him or got tired of his begging because he eventually got the fine down to $100 pesos (about $6.00 American). Started at around $1000 pesos! Of course, as we're leaving I informed his captive audience that he was a bad hombre! One of the ladies found this funny and looked at me like I'd lost my mind. I'm sure the term "loco gringo" was uttered numerous times after our departure.  Only thing that could have been more entertaining would have been if they'd of locked him up for the night and I would have had access for pictures! I will concede that it was a total bullshit ticket and they simply saw a gringo rig and probably needed some beer funds for the day.  Where he was parked was not marked in any way.  I enjoyed the whole ordeal and of course,  gave Wayne a hard time for weeks afterward. 

San Ignacio town square and the crime scene.

The bad hombre!

After Wayne escaped the clutches of the police we headed for the hills. As it was getting late we eventually got off-road and looked for a place to camp where we ended up simply stopping at a wide spot as the sun was setting.

Petey doesn't like to stop this late and called it quits for the rest of the evening

Following morning as we were headed towards the mountains we ran across a local rancher and asked him about the road going over the mountains. With the language barrier, I reverted to pointing on the map showing what we were wanting to do.  He simply smiled, waved his hand and stated "no mas".  The road was not passable and in fact, gone in places.  We got out of him that even a motorcycle could not make it all the way over to Mulege. I doubted that a bike couldn't get over & we debated going up and checking for ourselves but in the end, decided to turn around.  It would have been another long day had we driven up towards the pass and then not able to get over. We talked about it in camp that night and regretted not to have at least tried it. Next time, I'll see it for myself before turning around. 

The "no mas" rancher.

We worked our way back out to pavement with a stop to check out a DC-8 dozer that had been abandoned in the middle of this dirt road.  Some engine parts had been stripped and it appeared to have been there quite awhile.

After dodging Caterpillars and cows we headed down through Mulege where we set up camp for an extended stay in Bahia Concepcion.

Petey ensuring it's safe to continue

More to come...................................