San Diego was cloudy, unusually, had some very big boats (the Nimitz, Enterprise and Reagan - all the biggest US aircraft carriers) were there. We saw some great live music in the gas quarter and stayed in waffle-ishious HI, which was filled with laptoppers as ever. Again in SD we didnt get any positive American views on Mexico and no other travellers we spoke to were going to Baja - so we started getting a bit jumpy.
Anyway, we decided to skip Tijuana and its bad reputation. The SD tram goes straight to the border and it its a short walk and a bit of paperwork into Mexico. We were on the bus within minutes, got off at the wrong stop in Ensenada to change, but managed to proceed to the crossroads on the Baja highway for Erendira, where we cabbed to Coyote Cals. We were the only guests that night and had the superb crows nest room with windows on all sides and great views of the windy pacific. The owner Rick also drove us around and got Anna birthday cake the next night and conducted a birthday singalong with all the passing american fishermen.
Baja was stunning with amazingly varied desert scenery but it was windy everywhere we went. It is also very remote. The buses only go down the main highway and you have to hitch or get dodgy truck taxis into the coastal villages. We hitched the 70km from the deserted desert petrol stop at Parador Punta Prieta to Bahia De Los Angeles (but we had to pay the towns boy racers 30 bucks to get us out - as they were the only thing on the roads - and they were racing up and down the tiny village dirt tracks in mums people carrier at 70mph - it was a hairy but quick ride back to the desert stop where we waved down the bus).
Bahia De Los Angeles is a magical place. A lovely wide bay, mountains rising all around, islands shielding the bay from the Sea of Cortez, and a bay teaming with marine life. We stayed at the loveable, eccentric Larrys Place, a motel on the beach for american fisher folk that drive down for the sport fishing. Unfortunately the wind meant that boating, the free kayaking, beaching, swimming etc were not possible for us. If we were in Phoenix and needed a weekend break, in whale season, this is one place we would definately go back to.
The prices of the buses, accommodation and food in Baja shocked us and gave us the first feeling that our guidebook for Mexico might not be the most accurate.
From the Bay of LA we got our first monster bus ride to La Paz, followed by the overnight ferry across Cortez to Mazatlan. We followed that up with the bus to Tepic, which was held up by a tyre that exploded under Annas seat - and we arrived in San Blas on the Pacific Coast after about 50 hours of almost non stop travelling.
On the ferry and bus to Tepic we started to also notice that there might be a few other people travelling down the americas - the Cowboy Hat Kiwi boys we had met in Hermosa (LA) and San Diego were on the ferry and the bus...
Lunch time, it's always lunch time
Look over there!
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