Deeper into Baja - Part 7

With so many places to explore here in Baja, it can become difficult making decisions on where to go next.  Leaving Aqua Verde we were still undecided on where, next, would be.  Kirby (see previous post) had mentioned the small village of San Jose Comondu which lies in the interior of Baja.  He reported that it was one of the oldest settlements in Baja, was off the beaten path and was worth checking out.  To get there we'd have to go west toward the pacific side and then back to the north before heading up in the foothills of the Sierra La Giganta Range. Having been camped on pristine beach spots for the past few weeks it was decided that a change of scenery was in order.  Our plan was to get to San Jose Comondu and decide if we could then head further north off-road, through the village of San Isidro and end up at Scorpion Bay on the Pacific. Arriving late in Comundu, we parked in front of what was by far the nicest building in town which turned out to be a small recently renovated motel.  A lady was sitting out front and I inquired as to the cost.  Only thing I could get from her was $400 pesos.  Inquiry into whether there were showers couldn't be understood so I finally motioned for her to show me a room.  Pretty nice on the inside, concrete floors (dogs were OK) two single beds and it contained a shower.  For $400 pesos ($23.00 USD) we were not setting up camp as a shower alone was worth the cost.  Comondu is a little village that I would like to go back through.  We kind of blew through there but I think we missed quite a bit.  Had we set up camp we'd of probably ended up staying a few more nights.   It's a quaint little village with cobblestone streets, goats roaming the hillsides, old buildings and a slow pace of life.  Although we only stayed the one night it was a memorable one.  Not wanting to drag the food and cooking stuff out since we weren't camping we began looking for somewhere to eat.  After walking around the village we found nothing.  One small taco stand that was either closed, or out of business entirely, appeared to be the only place to eat in the village.  Back to the hotel lady for some more sign language, grunting and the simulation of shoveling food in my mouth, she grasped that we wanted something to eat.  She simply motioned for me to follow her.  While Wayne stayed back with the dogs I followed as we wound our way over a few blocks and came up to an old house.  With a rap on the door some serious discussion commenced in Spanish.  Only words I picked up from the discussion was "gringo" and "hambre."  The dumb hungry gringo, that would be me, is standing there staring at them like a lost puppy waiting for instructions.  The lady in the house eventually looks my way, smiles and motions for me to come in.  Since Wayne is a few blocks over probably standing around looking like a dumb, hungry gringo himself, I motion to the lady and in my finest Spanish tell her "uno momento", turn and run off to fetch Wayne.  Two complete strangers, we were welcomed into Carlita's home, where she fed us. I find the people of Baja to be some of the most friendly and caring people I've ever met and encounters like this confirm it. Carlita spoke no English, as in zero, but somehow we managed to get by with my limited Spanish or through sign language.  We were able to figure out that her husband was in La Paz working as a stone mason and that she had lived in Comondu her entire life.  We think she also understood where we were from as well but I wouldn't bet on that. She began showing us some statues that appeared to be of a religious origin after we'd eaten.  We wanted to  know more about the statues and how old they were but the language barrier was just too much.   Regardless of our lack of verbal communications, we had a great time dining and hanging out with Carlita.  Upon returning to the room, we discovered there was no power so I went out to the truck to get a headlamp in order that we see something.  As I'm headed back an old Mexican guy is headed across the courtyard towards me, bends over and pulls out a busted up solar landscaping spike that is putting out about as much light as you'd get from a firefly trapped in jar. Points to the power line..."no mas". Points to the landscaping spike....."mo bueno".  This was his solution for our predicament of having no lights in the room. Struck me as funny and I didn't really care because I'd already had a hot shower, with lights, when we had power.  Wayne however, took a nice cold one in the dark.  You snooze you lose.

 From the looks of the wall behind the stove, I'd say Carlita has cooked a few meals here.

 Cobblestone streets.

 Some really old structures are scattered throughout the village.  Some still occupied.

Old cemetery outside of Comondu. I'd hate to be the gravedigger for this place. It'd kill the average man who had to dig a hole in this terrain. 

We made it through the following day to San Juanico after some wrong turns. In short, the road....was crap and has nothing more than a couple of  goat farms along the route. Took us about 6 hours to do one 25 mile section. Definetly requires a four wheel drive rig with ample ground clearance on the section between Comondu and San Isidro.  After that it's basically just a dusty, rocky road until you get back out to pavement near the coast.  Was a fun day and since we were in no hurry we just poked along through the rough stuff.

Climbing up out of Comondu.

Crossing the La Purisma River.

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

Deeper into Baja - Part 6

We were camped in the lower left portion of this picture.  A short hike earned you this view.

From Loreto, it's an easy 40 or so "klicks" until the turn-off to Aqua Verde.  As you drive south out of Loreto you're traversing the Sierra La Giganta Range and shortly after turning off the paved road you begin losing elevation in a hurry as you drop back to the sea.  With the Sierra La Giganta Range in your rearview and the Sierra San Francisco Range staring at you through the windshield, it makes for a beautiful drive.  I would say that the view from the top as you look down on the Sea of Cortez is one of the best in Baja. I had come in here last year and was amazed at how much improvement had been done to the road.  Last year, four wheel drive was required at a few spots as well as "mucho" washboard!  This year it was in really good shape and made the drive in....easy.  Sure, it's still a dusty dirt road with some washboard sections but a world apart from last year.  Once you drop out of the clouds and can access the coastline there are numerous beaches, arroyos or bluffs up towards the mountains where one can camp.  There are also some hot springs which can be accessed during low tide.  The little fishing village of Puerto Aqua Verde sits about another 10 miles south on the coastline.  The road ends in Aqua Verde as the hurricanes over the years have destroyed anything further south. One small mercado and nothing else so one needs to be well stocked with supplies and water prior to making the drive in.  The little mercado does carry the basic staples, fresh fish when the local catch is in and some vegetables but not much else and their hours are......whenever they feel like it.  It is truly an old style fishing village with no electricity in a beautiful setting, literally at the end of the road.  We ended up staying for about 6 nights where we visited the hot springs, found some cave paintings, did a little fishing, kayaking, met an interesting old-timer, walked miles of deserted beaches, etc., etc.. Another typical week in Baja.

Road dropping out of the mountains down to the coast.

More of the same.

Some beach driving at low tide.

Side road leading to the bay where we ended up camping.

Petey and I checking out one of the beaches not far from camp.

After a few days, Wayne needed to charge his batteries to keep is ARB fridge functioning so he took off for a little drive. 

This is the drive he made.  Not your average commute.

Campsite for the week.

Visitors near camp.

Setting moon early one morning.

Of course, we had to eat so some afternoon hand line fishing was called for.

Dinner on the line.

I kept getting hung up on a ledge from where I was throwing the hand line and since we were running low on hooks, one of us had to go in to free it. Wayne decided, that since I was the one that got hung up,  he was supplying the mask and had the camera, I'd be the one to go in after it. I made the sacrifice for the team.

Village of Aqua Verde.

One and only store.

End of the road in Aqua Verde.

Kirby and his wife Pam, who had been coming down to Baja for the past 40 years, were a wealth of knowledge on the area.   After having dinner at their camp one night, Kirby and I poured over the map of Baja where he pointed out some of the "good stuff".  We'd end up covering some of that ground in the coming week. Also got the chance to do a little fishing with him but we struck out there.  No fish, but heard some interesting stories while putting around in his inflatable. Interesting guy who had a wealth of knowledge on Baja.

On the ridgeline behind camp, we'd been told of a cave that had some ancient cave paintings so the following day we checked that out.  You can see the hand prints over my left shoulder in the picture above.

Wayne viewing the cave paintings.

View from the cave on the ridgeline overlooking the beach.

The buzzards were circling as we exited the cave.

One afternoon spent at the hot springs which are only accessible at low tide.

Kayaking to another beach from where we were camped with a little fishing from the boat on the way back.

Petey soaking up the sun outside of camp one afternoon.

Aqua Verde was another one of those camps that you hate to leave but after 6 nights we packed up and headed out.

More to come.....

Deeper into Baja - Part 5

"El Capitan" on Isla Del Carmen

The week spent out on the east cape of Bahia Concepcion was good, real good, and entailed everything I seek when travelling Baja.  Not sure how it could get much better.  But, it was time to move further south and go back to an area I had been to the previous year, Aqua Verde.  We hated leaving but we were out of beer and more importantly, water!  Had we know how good it was going to be we would have hauled more of each in order to extend our stay.  There is no water source or none I'm aware of, once you get out on the point.  After backtracking over the terrain we'd covered a week earlier we popped back out on the highway and headed south towards Loreto where we planned to stay a couple of nights in an established campground....laundry, hot shower, that internet thing, electricity, restaurants, etc..  Going to live like real tourists for a couple of days. After almost two weeks of dry camping, it was nice to have some amenities.  The campground in Loreto is run by a mother/daughter team, clean, well set up and is within walking distance to the main plaza downtown. A good place to lay up for a few nights, regroup and re-supply. This stop also turned into an adventure we hadn't planned.  While walking around the plaza one evening we were approached by a local who was providing boat tours out to Isla Del Carmen.  Usually not one to sign up for the touristy type things I relented after Wayne and I decided it would be fun and price wise, seemed to be pretty reasonable. I had viewed the island from the Malecon in Loretto and looked at it on the map when down last year so figured this would be a good opportunity to check it out.  We'd have the boat to ourselves for the day, would be able to tour the old salt mine on the island, could take the dogs and could also take Wayne's kayak over.  We handed over some money and were told where to meet our El Captain the following morning.

Leaving port in Loreto headed to Isla Del Carmen.

 We had a lot of fun with this guy and addressed him as "El Capitan" for the remainder of the day. I think he liked the title as every time I'd use it a huge grin would break out across his face.  With our limited Spanish and his limited English, we were able to make it interesting. Really friendly and made the trip all that much better. El Capitan was 83 years old and crawled in and out of his boat like he was a teenager. He'd purchased the boat about 5 years ago after saving for years to do so and was quite proud of it. What he should have been proud of was what kind of shape he was in considering his age. He'd been a fisherman in the area his entire life and now was hauling "gringos" either to fish or sightsee the islands. A seasoned man of the sea and it showed.  
We circumnavigated the island which was an all day affair due to the size of the island along with some rough seas that kicked up later in the day. The island is located in the Loreto Marine Sanctuary about 10 miles off the coast, is a little over 20 miles in length and is well worth a visit. Rough, scenic shoreline on the northern portion and stunning, pristine beaches on the south end. According to El Capitan, the fishing wasn't what it use to be......but what is.  

 Marine life on the north end.

Blue Footed Bobby which migrates to the island for a couple of months each year. I had been told by a local gringo back in town that it was too early in the season to spot any but El Capitan found a small rock outcropping that had some.

 Pristine, deserted beaches.

Crystal clear water.

Towards the northern end of the island is an old salt mine known as Bahia Salina that is no longer in operation.  The area was initially discovered accidentally by the Jesuits in 1698 when establishing the mission in Loreto.  The mine area and the old community is privately owned now and a couple of caretakers reside here to monitor the sanctuary, maintain the church, and guide private hunting parties to the interior.  Permits are required to enter the interior of the island even though the bulk of the island is not privately owned. El Capitan's father had worked here many, many years ago so he went ashore to see if it would be alright to enter.  With permission granted, I took a look around and crawled in some of the older buildings which are in a really poor state.  At one time there was around 100 people that lived and worked the mine. The mining of the salt flats ceased operation in 1984. The Guerro Negro salt flats opened up at this time and it became too costly to transport the salt from the island.  All the equipment and buildings were simply abandoned.  Walking throughout the area was like stepping back in time.  El Capitan stated this his father use to haul salt deposits back to the salt processor by horse and wagon prior to tracks being laid for a locomotive.

Church at Bahia Salina

While I was checking out the old buildings, Wayne hauled his kayak out and kayaked along the island. El Capitan and I later picked him up a few miles down the coast.

After a bumpy ass ride back to the mainland we spent one more day in Loreto before moving on.

 Mission Loreto (founded 1697)

 Mission interior

While walking around Loreto came upon this guy who was locked in a compound to provide security.  Initially aggressive, after spending a few minutes talking to him he allowed me to pet him.  Although this guy was being fed he just seemed lonely and I convinced myself that he simply wanted some attention. I really have a hard time with how dogs are treated in Baja as you see starving strays or dogs chained out just about everywhere you go. Most likely, during the day, he's simply chained up somewhere before being placed here after business hours.  Really sad to me how people can mistreat or neglect a helpless animal.

Next stop.........Aqua Verde