By this Author: divatmotoros

After La Paz we progressed further South, about 40 minutes from the town to a surfer's paradise, El Sargento. The road was very narrow and we had our toughest situation since we started in Montreal. We were driving behind a slow truck for a while and once I have seen a long enough stretch of road to pass I started to overtake. The truck driver was not really expecting us and came closer and closer, even crossing the yellow line in the center when our car was already next to his trailer. I pulled to the left as much as I could and the car's safety system indicated trailer sway! This means a yellow sign on the dash and limited power, and some braking, similar to when the ABS engages. There we were now travelling about the same speed as the truck when he realised we are passing and pulled to the right, giving us enough space. The sway of the trailer was gone, I was accelerating with full power and passed, being 10-15 cms from the truck with the trailer. This was close, our scariest moment for sure!! Glad that finally we did not touch each other and the sway was not sending us into the ditch.

On a much nicer note El Sargento has very stable and strong wind so it is very popular for kite surfers and wind boarders. This is a new to us sport where the board is a hydrofoil (a small wing is underwater and the whole board is flying above water level, while the rider holds a small sail in her hands).

The park we picked is about five minutes from the seaside on a hill and run by a kind couple, Marcela and David. It is a relatively small park with 10-11 sites and some rooms, it has a pool and a nice common kitchen area. On our arrival day it was pizza night so a perfect opportunity to meet all others in the park.

The local dog Azul is kind and plays well with Echo, unlike the hostile dogs we met earlier in Guerro Negro. Here we also met a Hungarian "vizsla" (for which our dog is often mistaken) and his owner came from the USA for the winter.

The main reason we awaited this stay is very different! It is a unique month for us as after 8 months of travels the parents of my wife visit us! They are keen travellers and prefer to travel to high mountains for hiking but this year they decided to visit us and their grandkids! Everyone was very excited and it was great to reunite the family after so many months on the road! I picked the up at the airport of La Paz and will spend the next weeks together, exploring the area.

We have found a very nice campsite near La Paz, it was the best so far by some factors. It had lots of families with kids, great facilities including a good playground, a laundry and a pool. The only negative could be the coooooold water in the pool as it was not heated. We still used it once with the kids as the days were very warm, around 20-24 degrees Celsius.

During our longer stay here we went to La Paz, the largest town in the Southern part of the peninsula.

We visited the Museum of Whale and Marine Sciences (Museo de la Ballena y Ciencias del Mar) which both Echo and the kids enjoyed.

After Mulegé we did not want to have very long drives so we decided to split the remaining kms to two days to La Paz. The overnight stop was at Palapa 206 RV Park which is a small, dusty camp, more like a parking lot but ok for a safe one night stop. It is near to the junction for San Carlos on the Pacific shore which we skipped this time. After our overnight stop we arrived to Marathana RV Park which is a very nice and well maintained camping site. It is almost full and many caravans are using it for 1-2 nights but we decided to stay longer. It has a pool, a nice playground and a coffee with some snacks and smaller meals too. The reason we wanted to stop a bit longer is to have some time for La Paz, and to get our new temp tag for the trailer again. It seems that we might finally get the final tag after about 8 months but our temp tag expired again so we needed a new temp tag until the final tag arrives.

We have a very relaxed stay and went for some walks, once to the beach and later to La Paz

We left GN after some further strange challenges: it was raining in the evening and the stairs and the door handle had some voltage via the water. It worked like an electric sheperd and was not leathal but painful. I rather disconnected electricity for the night to avoid any unexpected problems. Unfortunately Echo had his painful experience on top of his earlier defeat. When he was going out of the trailer he was also electroshocked on the metal stairs so he jumped out and avoids the stairs ever since. Now we have to retrain him that the stairs are not enemies.

We have visited a nice little town enroute to Mulegé. In San Ignacio there was a pretty little square with restaurants and a catholic church.
The site for the future mission was discovered in 1706 by Francisco María Piccolo at the oasis of Kadakaamán ("arroyo of the reeds"). The site was a busy agricultural center and served as the base for later Jesuit expansion in Baja. Jesuit missionary Juan Bautista de Luyando founded the mission in 1728 and the church was constructed by the Dominican missionary Juan Gómez in 1786. The mission was finally abandoned in 1840.

We had a good taco for lunch and finished our daytrip to Mulegé at the Villa Maria Isabel RV Park & Campsites. The place had dogs, parrots and large grasshoppers. We walked in the dark to the river where snall fish jumped all over the water. Our daughter grabbed one by hand and it was released afterwards. Sally, our trailer looked quite small between the larger rigs on our sides.

The drive from La Poma to Guerrero Negro was easy and smooth. The road is narrow (we almost completely fill the lane and there is no shoulder) so I need to concentrate constantly to keep the trailer in the lane but otherwise there are no big issues. The camp we stopped was right next to the main road a few hundred meters before Guerrero Negro which has a huge salt factory.

The campsite was quite rundown and the ground was covered by large seashells, most of which was already broken into small pieces. I was afraid of tire damage but we got away without that. Unlike poor Echo who was run over and badly bitten by a gang of three local dogs. He has scars on his front leg and it is quite swollen. We cleaned and desinfected the bites and he will be fine in a few days. So far every dog was very friendly at campsites so he was wandering around and greeted these dogs too but they were protecting their home as these were the local bad boys and not other campers. A tough lesson learnt.

We had a great chat with a Hungarian podcast, you can listen to it to get better sleep (if you still haven't learned Hungarian)

After finishing another delicious taco dinner we said goodbye to San Felipe and drove further South.

We use a paper map in Baja California as google maps is not so updated it seems, we also otfen miss cell reception so it is more reliable to go the old fashioned way. We selected a bay with several camping options to make sure we can find a good site. It is very quiet these days so in most canpsites there are plenty of empty sites, if we fit in. This time we had tu turn off the main road to a 2 km long dirt road to reach the seaside and it was absolutely worth it.

Although it was dry camping there was a nice little playground for the kids and a restaurant (which we skipped this time, had a lot of great tacos in San Felipe). The only other camper was a nice outlander Mercedes van with a CH country sticker on it. We talked to the gentleman and after a few sentences in English we switched to Hungarian! His mother was Hungarian and he was speaking very well Hungarian although he never lived there. They built their van 20 years ago and used it several times in the USA and Mexico. Later another camper arrived who was a Korean-Canadian, (not speaking Hungarian). He started some fishing and our kids obviously started to watch hom, then talked to him, then tried fishing and our daughter cought a fish in a few minutes! She was beyond happy and after checking that the fish was all right they released it to the water. No pictures unfortunately but the memory remains forever!

We stayed another night to have a free day enjoying the beach, the birds and the sunshine.

To progress further South we crossed the peninsula on the main road number 3 towards San Felipe. The experienced Baja drivers recommend not to drive after daylight ends for several reasons. As the air gets colder cows use the warmer roads to lie on it, this can be a nasty surprise after dark on any roads. There are big varieties of smooth and potholed sections, unsignalled bumps can be tricky too. In general the traffic is slower than in the USA but road markings are often non existing. Our rig is a bit too big here as the roads are narrower and there is no paved shoulder. There is no margin for error sonwe also drive during daylight and shorter distances. San Felipe was about 300 kms from Ensenada so we wanted an early start.

Well, it was 10:15 when we left Seasons Baja Resort, not that early. The first 20 kms were slow in a traffic jam due to road constructions. Then we reached road #3 and there was almost zero traffic there, but the road became windy and steep up and downhill sections with sharp curves slowed us down.

We passed two or three military checkpoints where soldiers control the traffic. Our yellow "Bears crossing" Canadian plate and our smiling kids on the backseats made the soldiers smile and they did not check our passports, just waved us through. Later on the road became more straight and flat as we have reached the main road #5 leading from Mexicali to San Felipe.

Our first stop was at a seaside small RV park with about ten sites. I walked in and checked the place, it was almost impossible to fit our trailer between the two palapas giving shades. I tried but after about 30 mins of moving the trailer inch by inch we gave up and left. Either we could not open the door of the trailer or we could not push out the slide. Too big rig.

Then we drove to another place where we got more luck. The sites were much bigger and the price was even lower. We decided to stay three nights and explore the beach and small town.

After enjoying a lazy morning on the beach we did a lot in zhe afternoon. Filled the car and the freshwater jugs (drinking water is safer from the "Agua Purificada" suppliers which offer fills or replace the large, 20 liters jugs. We also looked for a hairdresser so our son was transformed from "Pumukli" into a sweet latin boy. Then we enjoyed local food at Kikiriki on the main street, the Taco el Pastor was excellent!

During our two week break of constant travel we made some short excursions to Ensenada to see the town and also wanted to have a glimpse of the famous La Ruta del Vino (the route of wine). In this area ofShortly aBaja California there are lots of vineries and restaurants. While with three kids and a car it is not so easy to taste wine properly we drove to one of a family friendly restaurant called Corona de Valle.

The place was a bit off of the main road number 3 and the dirt road leading there was well maintained and surprisingly almost wider than the main road.

The restaurant was a modern building and a ten times bigger terrace. There were almost more waiters than guest on this sleepy January lunchtime. Shortly after us a bus arrived with about 30 elegant mexicans in nice cowboy hats and pretty dresses. We had to rely pn our good old casual camping style clothes but we do not care any more that much about fashion amyway.

The menu was simple with an interesting taco soup (tasted great!). My wife ordered seafood and I went for a steak which was nice. Honestly we still enjoy even more the authentic tacos and burritos at small streetfood places. The wine we ordered was very good (I just tasted it a biz as had to drive). Yet the best part was a short bicycle tour across the wineyard.

After Christmas at Mel's Landing we have decided to have a break and stayed for two weeks in Baja Seasons Resort. It was just 42 kms from Mel's Landing and enroute we passed a very strange building, the Castle of the Devil. Ot was built by an American with a lot of local artists and by now the constant flow of tourists made him move out of his home.

Baja Seasons Resort was much more peaceful and although there were a lot of trailers in the park there were almost no people at all. During the weekends a few families arrived but otherwise it was quiet and slow. We enjoyed the huge waves of the Pacific Ocean and walked a lot on the beach.

We enjoyed the gameroom with air hockey table, a pool billiard table and the quite slow wifi. The place looked a bit tired and run down but they were doing a lot of maintenance to improve it for the summer months. Pricewise we were very happy as we stayed for two weeks for the price of 4-5 nights in the USA or Canada.