Jan
05
2010

The Copper Canyon Part I

We took a fairly nice dirt back-road from Basaseachic to Creel, which is only a few hours away.  Creel is, for most, the starting point for trips to the Copper Canyon and is perhaps most famous as being one of the main stops of the famous Chihuahua al Pacifico train (El Chepe).  Most of the guidebooks we have read speak highly of the town, but hoping not to offend anyone we must say we didn’t really find anything all that great about the place, granted we only spent one day and a half there.  I guess it is probably the largest town in the area, and thus has all the amenities a tourist might be looking for, but the town itself isn’t that appealing.

We drove from Creel into the Copper Canyon towards Divisidero without having much of a plan on where or what we were going to do for the day.  At Divisidero, which has perhaps the best-known overlook of the “Three Canyons” area of the Copper Canyon, we found out that there is a 40 peso ($3.25) per person entrance fee. We were somewhat reluctant to pay the fee, but decided “hey, why not, this is the place to check out the Canyon.” Once in, we slightly regretted our decision to pay as it consisted of two small platforms connected by a swinging bridge at the edge one of the canyons. It was a nice view and we took a few pictures, but not any nicer than other views that we saw along the way into the canyon, some views were even better and they were free of charge. If this is as far into the canyon as you are going, the place is worth checking out. We continued driving into the canyon and passed a few other small towns. The whole drive is well worth it just for the surrounding country side. It is a small mountain road, winding through pine forests with views out across the canyons.  It is a side of Mexico one never thinks of, and although I am a big fan of the beaches of Mexico, this area is just as enjoyable. The sweet smell of mountain air mixed with the scent of the pine forest were enough for us to be quite content with this part off our trip.

The footpbridge at the Divisadero overlook

The footbridge at the Divisadero overlook, slightly sketch

The look down at Divisadero, quite the fall!

One of the many views of the Copper Canyon, hazy

Extended arm #500 and we still like doing it (the extended arm picture)

We drove to a place called Hotel Paraiso Del Oso (Paradise of the Bear), a small hotel located out in the “middle of nowhere” between two small villages in Tarahumara country.  Edmundo (our über-host at Los Mochis) had recommended the hotel as a possible stop, and a stop it became as it seemed like a much nicer stop than Creel for a second night.  Paraiso del Oso is located at the base of some beautiful rock cliffs, one of the rock formations looks like Yogi the Bear®, which was the inspiration for the name.  One of our tentative day plans was to drive back to Creel with a stop at some hot springs nearby and then driving down the other side of the canyon the next day. At Paraiso del Oso, we met Diego (Doug) the owner of the hotel, and after some small talk he was gracious enough to invite us to dinner with his family.  Dinner came in the form of two giant pan pizzas that where absolutely delicious, it was a great dinner that included great conversation and stiff margaritas.  The talking went on until bedtime (not too late)  and some of the talk included the canyon and places to go.

Following Diego’s advice, we decided to drive to the town of Urique at the very bottom of one of the canyons.  From Urique we could either drive on a very small back road to the city of Batopilas, or maybe take the road through the length of the Canyon to El Fuerte (near Los Mochis).  Doug has taken the road a few times, and he claims it isn’t any more dangerous than any other road through the Canyon.  Meaning that, something might happen anywhere, but chances are it could be perfectly safe (8 out of 10 people have advised us against driving out to the coast through the Canyon).  Who are we to play it safe, when adventure is out there (and it seems safe-ish).

A panoramic look at the Canyon and the town of Urique at the Bottom

The road from Paraiso del Oso to Urique is debatably one of the most amazing and scary roads I’ve ever been on in my life (Lacey). As the road nears the edge of the canyon and starts to drop the 2300 plus meters into the canyon, it becomes very narrow, with sheer drops to the bottom below. It is thrilling, and not a little scary, as you look out over the canyon, and the town of Urique sitting beside the Rio Urique that gives the canyon it’s name. Unlike the Colorado River of the Grand Canyon (at least before all the dams that tamed the river), the Rio Urique is a fairly smallish river, meandering slowly on it’s way through the canyon. During the rainy season I’m sure it is a lot more of a river to be reckoned with, but while we were here the river seems to belie it’s strength and it’s ability to carve a canyon as deep and immaculate as the one it sits at the bottom of. As I have mentioned, the views from the road going in are amazing, even though as you are looking down from the road you get a tickle of fear up your spine at the depth of drops below.  There is another tidbit that makes this road one of the scariest ones I’ve ever been on, The Local Drivers.  The road to Urique is a very narrow one lane-two way traffic road that corkscrews in on itself as it slowly winds down the mountain side. The locals that drive this narrow road go much faster than any sane person would, and they don’t stop or for that matter even try to get out of the way when they meet another vehicle in a turn. Because the road is so curvy, you can never see ahead to know if somebody is coming. Whenever we met another car on the road we quickly attempted to find a place to get out of the way, while the other car blew past us as if we weren’t even there. We wondered what happens when two locals meet on the road and neither person wants to yield.  How do they decide which one gets out of the way? We figure, it is the person that has the nicer car and therefore has more to lose that finally moves over to let the other car pass. We have seen this phenomenon on several occassions within small towns, two or sometimes more vehciles come to an intersection and no one will move for a few minutes!  We saw one where they waited until a cop arrived to make the decision, we call this the classic case of a Mexican stand-off.

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By Luis | Posted in Nothing yet... | Tagged , , , | Comments (1)
Dec
31
2009

Alamos and Basaseachic Falls

Edmundo, our Los Mochis host set us up with directions to drive around the Copper Canyon and some recommendations on places to visit. Our first destination was the small 17th century town of Alamos. The town is yet another Pueblo Magico and magical it is.  Alamos was once the center of commerce for the silver mines in the area, consequently there are some amazing homes built in the classical colonial style with big arches everywhere  and the classic square footprint building with courtyards in the middle. Owing to the wealth that was in the region at one point, many of the houses have multiple courtyards and are really fantastic to check out. Some of the homes have been carefully restored and some turned into hotels, while others are left abandoned and are slowly decaying (a sad symptom of most formerly wealthy towns). Luis couldn’t stop daydreaming about buying one of the disintegrating houses and fixing it up.

One particular home, now a hotel, caught our eye. The owners of Hacienda de Los Santos have purchased and restored several homes and connected them all through tastefully landscaped grounds, a lot of care and thought has gone into this place. When we walked in to check it out we were immediately greeted by a few different people obviously semi unhappy, yet polite and protective of the privacy of their high end customers.  We really wanted to check out the place, so Luis went in to the office to talk to the lady in charge, and proceeded to improvise by telling her we were scouting out places for a wedding and were interested in checking the hotel out. She was immediately happy to answer any questions, and next thing we knew we were treated to an all inclusive tour of the place. The grounds are huge, with a maze of hallways leading to many courtyards with rooms along the edges. We counted at least three or four courtyards and all of them featured a swimming pool, a small putting range and all very nicely landscaped. At some point they expanded the hotel to include a large property on the other side of a small creek and now a small rock arch bridge connects the properties. The bridge leads into another very large grassy area and some old stone buildings that included a restaurant, a high tech theater, and a bar. The bar features a selection of over 100 different tequilas and is open to the public, tempting us to return later that evening to try some of them out.  As the final part of the tour, our host walked us into the presidential suite, I guess figuring if we were planning a wedding we would need the honeymoon suite to go along with it. The room is very opulent, but beautiful and is more like a small house than a room (at 750 bucks a night I guess it would have to be). The suite has a nice living room area, a big bedroom with a fireplace and a very large, very comfortable looking bed and two bathrooms. Yes, you read that right, two bathrooms…a his and hers. Each bathroom is larger than our bedroom back home.  In a small courtyard between the two bathrooms there is a very inviting large tub for soaking. Needless to say this place was extra-planetarily out of our budget, but it was really cool to check it out. We think we might have to stick to this idea of claiming we’re looking for a wedding location in order to get this special tour of nice hotels.  No! It is not what you are thinking people, there really isn’t going to be a wedding anywhere in the near future, but they don’t have to know that and since there is only a handful of people reading this blog there is no danger in being found out :)

From Alamos we headed northeast to the Basaseachic Falls high up in the Sierra Madre Occidental in the state of Chihuaha. It is a long windy road in and we arrived right as the sun set. We generally like to have camp set before dark, but the long windy road had its own plans for us… We had planned on staying at a free campground at the top of the falls, but as soon as we stepped out of the truck we realized there was no way we were camping for the night, the temperature was somewhere in the twenties! We found some cabins nearby and after a bit of haggling with the manager, we moved into our expensive log cabin. It was a really nice place to stay and luckily our cabin had a stocked fireplace, the only heat source for what turned out to be a sub-zero night.

The next day we stepped out of the cabin to find this:

Our first flat! Brand new BFG AT's! But it could not be that simple...

For the life of me we could not find a leak, so we inflated the tire with our handy Chinese 12v air pump and drove to the nearest tire place… they were as baffled as us. No leak could be found so they added more water to the “pool” they use to find air bubbles leaking and realized the leak was coming from a tiny fissure in the rim itself, BF Goodrich was vindicated!  They wanted to sell me a similar sized non matching rim, but I had them take the tire off and weld a bead inside the rim along the fissure… tell me if this is dangerous (it couldn’t be more dangerous than the young man connectig the bare wires of the welder directly to the breaker box).  The wheel has held so far.

After the flat ordeal we hiked down to the falls where we were absolutely blown away, we didn’t expect the falls to be as amazing as they are. The Basaseachic falls are the highest year round flowing falls in Mexico at 807 ft tall.  Piedra Volada (Flying Stone) falls are taller, but are only flowing during the rainy season. The canyon in which the falls are located alone is worth the visit, with sheer rock walls dropping what seems like a thousand feet into the river below. There is a trail that leads down to the top of the falls where you can overlook the pool below. Standing at the top and looking down gives you a tickle of fear up the spine, as it is such a sheer drop down to the pool below. The trail continues down to other lookouts where you can see the falls from a distance, and if you are feeling up to it you can follow the trail all the way down to the bottom of the falls. We were running out of time and didn’t make it all the way to the bottom, which might not have been a bad thing, considering that the climb back out may have killed Luis (just kidding).

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By Lacey | Posted in Nothing yet... | Tagged , , , | Comments (2)
Dec
27
2009

Los Mochis and Around

After Luis’ seasickness adventure on the La Paz-Topolobampo ferry we stayed in the first hotel we could find, had a good night’s sleep and woke up to drive to Los Mochis.  We were scheduled to meet Edmundo Fuentes in Los Mochis… but let’s take a few steps back and introduce Edmundo.

Luis met Edmundo through an internet forum that has been pivotal in much of our trip planning so we should take a moment to plug said forum: Expedition Portal or ExPo.  In this forum, like minded vehicle dependent travelers from all over the world share their tips and thoughts about just about any topic most importantly vehicle dependent travel.  In any case Edmundo is an active ExPo member, a Los Mochis native, and he is pretty much an expert on the Copper Canyon (in fact he has a website dedicated to the canyon Copper Canyon Gate); one of our dream destinations.  Sounds like a match made in heaven?  It gets better, he offered us a free place to stay and one of the first things we found out is that he also shares our love of food and our epicurean curiosity.

So our culinary tour with Edmundo in Los Mochis began, he took us to some of the best places in town to sample the local fare.  Due to the large amount of extremely good food we ate I will limit the posting to a few of our favorites, please excuse the less than acceptable photography until we figur out how to take photos of food.  The first pics are of our favorite place, it is called Mariscos del Pacifico a street seafood joint.  First and foremost, the place is immaculately clean and the owner/cook is a very dapper gentleman who does most of the prep work in front of his clientele.  This man makes the best ceviche I have ever had and he can cook octopus so that the resulting product is a perfect morsel from heaven.

Los Mochis has an interesting and colorful history, as it turns out the town was founded in 1893 by a group of utopian socialist U.S. citizens led by Albert Kimsey Owen. Owen, an American civil engineer who came to the area to do feasibility studies for the railroad industry, fell in love with the area and imagined a city where railways and shipping lines converged to ship throughout the entire world.  Hence his utopian socialist “commune”, but it seems like he gave up after some years… The city was not incorporated until a few years later when another American man named Benjamin Johnston came to make a fortune in the sugar industry. The grounds of the former house of Johnston have been turned into the Parque Sinoloa, with ongoing efforts to restore and maintain many of the species of plants that were originally here. Edmundo took us for a walk through the park and it was pretty obvious that Johnston spared no expense in building his house and grounds, as the park is quite large even though it currently doesn’t encompass all of Johntson’s original land. There is also a nice rose garden that is being restored and a beautiful cactus garden to stroll through.

As we mentioned Edmundo was gracious enough to let us camp on a property he owns just outside of Los Mochis. As it turns what he called a “modest property” turned out to be a beautifully landscaped parcel overlooking the Rio Fuerte, complete with palapas to hang out under and some caged cougars next door that became Luis’ best friends. We really enjoyed our stay here, and are indebted to Edmundo for his wonderful hospitality.

Since we had a great free place to stay and Edmundo offered to show us around, we also took care of some of the minor mechanical and technical (packing) issues that had been plaguing us.  One day when we weren’t busy getting mechanical work done, we took a drive up to the town of El Fuerte, about 100 km east of Los Mochis. The town is fairly old (founded in 1563) and is one of the many Pueblo Magicos we have been visiting in Mexico. El Fuerte (The Fort) was for almost 300 years, the most important commercial and agricultural center in the northwestern region of Mexico, serving all the silver and gold mines from the nearby Barranco de Cobre.  It is a charming town, with a really nice plaza and some nice hotels to check out -did we mention we like to go into hotels that are 1000 times over our budget, just to admire how the other half lives. One of the nicest hotels we have seen in Mexico is here, the beautiful Posada del Hidalgo. It is a sprawling  (one story) property, probably covering at least a whole block and several houses, and has lot’s of different halls leading to small nicely landscaped courtyards through out the whole place. One of the houses within the hotel is the supposed childhood home of the famous El Zorro, the masked alter ego of Don Diego de la Vega.  On a hill above the hotel is the old fort which gives the town it’s name, and is now a museum. We walked up and checked the fort museum out, there wasn’t anything really interesting to see in the museum, but the views from the top of the fort were worth the money to get in.

The following photos are a sampling from our drive to and around El Fuerte, they include a very hardworking brick making yard that we found fascinating.

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By Lacey | Posted in Nothing yet... | Comments (2)
Dec
23
2009

The ferry from Baja California to Sinaloa, Mexico

With slight fear of being berated, I (Luis) must say I am not a big fan of ferries… there I said it.  Most people seem to lay back and enjoy the ride, but I am usually seasick and fairly immobile throughout the ride. In order to leave Baja California and continue our trip through Mexico and further south we had two choices; travel all the way to northern Baja and then east to the state of Durango or ship the truck and ourselves from La Paz to the “mainland.” Even the shipping gave us two choices: shipping to the famous city of Mazatlan or north to the small port town of Topolobampo (try saying that 3 times fast).  We happen to know a really cool guy that lives near Topolobampo in Los Mochis, so the choice seemed simple and as a plus  -for us seasick types- the ferry ride is a few hours shorter to Topolobampo.
The day of our ride started with a visit to the customs “office” at the ferry port. The customs officer was very polite and he informed us that one of us had to get out of the vehicle and press a button. Said button is connected to a “randomizer” connected to a red and a green light bulb. Green light means go (duh) and red means full vehicle search.  Of course red it was… Lacey laughed and said: “Good luck searching this bad boy” meaning: you have no idea how much stuff we have. A male and a female customs agent started the search, but it was a fairly feeble attempt at searching and the guy seemed more and more interested in the truck than the search… after a few moments the male agent was only asking questions about our set up and had completely dropped the search.  Pretty cool.
After an uneventful and almost fun search, we proceeded to the ticket lines. Long and slow, but there was some entertainment waiting for us as we witnessed army soldiers try to open the back of a semi trailer for a good half hour, I even though of offering the help of our handy Hi-lift jack, but I assumed they would not appreciated the unsolicited advise of some random gringo. They proceeded to destroy the trailer door with crowbars and anything they could get their hands on in order to get into the trailer (we never found out the outcome of that search).

Break that door open I tell ya!

Break that door open I tell ya!

Notice the soldier on the very left cannot help and crack up...

Notice the soldier on the very left cannot himself and has a good laugh...

The ferry we loaded onto was huge. I would say that about 90% of its cargo was semi’s of all shapes, sizes, makes and age.  The rest of the ferry was mostly personal vehicles, two RV’s, the french couple we met at San Ignacio and us.
We packed some food and goodies in our backpack in order to avoid the expensive restaurant on the ship; however, our French friends were searched and they were told no outside food was allowed on board even though we witnessed quite a few passengers breaking out their own lunchbags… go figure.  In any case we smuggled some food on board anyway.
The trip was a fairly uneventful six hours (outside of my nausea), other than the group of truck drivers that parked themselves at the bar. These rowdy guys hooted and hollered along to mexican rancheras and norteñas all the way to Topolabampo while creating quite a stack of Tecate cans all around the bar.  It seems like they specifically requested that the cans be left there, as a matter of pride I guess.  By the time we reached Topolobampo these guys were wasted, really wasted.  I wondered if anyone would say anything, since these drivers were about to drive their trucks off the ferry and continue on to deliver their loads somewhere in Mexico, but as I was stepping into the stairway to climb the three stories down to the Landcruiser the drunk truck drivers came behind me insulting everyone on their wake and banging on the walls while slurring insults at the ships crew.  It was funny and scary at the same time.  Most folks were laughing, but avoiding any contact verbal or non verbal with the drunks.  It was fairly obvious that they could get more belligerent if provoked. Luckily (I guess) we left the ferry with no signs of accidents or mishaps, but we decided to find a place to camp or sleep as close as possible to the ferry terminal…  welcome to Sinaloa, Mexico.

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By Luis | Posted in Nothing yet... | Comments (2)
Dec
20
2009

Around the Tip of Baja Sur

We are having some technical difficulties with this post, here it is but it will be a little more “polished” when we get to a fast and cheap internet source in a few days… Thank you.

From La Paz we headed south to Todos Santos, which we had heard is a neat little town on the pacific side. Todos Santos has a nice downtown area with lot’s of art galleries and stores with a nice mix of crafts and art by locals and expats who have made their home there. It is a good town to spend an afternoon walking around and enjoying the shops, the scenery and the relaxed atmosphere. We stayed at a little campground in town which was nothing special but they did have electricity for us to plug in and recover.  We are still having troubles with our dead/dying battery, and are now having to find some place to plug in every few days. This tends to work out though, as it is nice to have a hot shower and a place to recharge all the other electronics every few days anyways. At the RV park we met a couple, Brian (Tallman) and Laura, who were on their way down to the east coast a little north of Los Cabos. They manage a small hotel on the beach there for the winter and they invited us to come stay a few days and check it out when we headed that way.

After a night away from the beach, we were missing the sound of surf to lull us to sleep, so we headed down the coast and found a beach a little way south near Los Cerritos. It was kind of a weird place to stay… apparently the land along the beachfront had been divided up and sold without deeds (this seems to happen often in Baja), some shady business had gone down and the property is sitting in litigation limbo, which in turn makes the property open for free camping. The whole beach was divided up and fenced off into tiny parcels and it was a maze of fencing to drive through to find an empty plot to set up camp for the night. It was yet another beautiful beach and we were happy to be lulled to sleep again by the sound of the waves crashing in the surf.

The next day we headed down to Cabo San Lucas. We were somewhat reluctant to go there as it sounds pretty much like a tourist trap, but at the same time we have this tremendous curiosity to see everything we can, so into the city we drove. Cabo San Lucas turned out to be the tourist trap we thought it would be and we ended up driving through town without stopping. The town is set in one of the nicest bays in Baja as far as beaches and water go, but unfortunately the infrastructure has been completely built around tourism and there is not a single authentic or interesting place in town. We drove on to San Jose del Cabo a few kilometers down the road. The two towns are referred to collectively as “Los Cabos” since they are so close to each other, but we found San Jose has been developed more tastefully (in our personal taste I guess). The town is more enjoyable for strolls around town. There is a nice “historic” part of town with neat shops and art galleries housed in old restored buildings that give it a nicer appeal than Cabo San Lucas. We spent an afternoon walking around and checking out the shops. Driving through Cabo San Lucas and looking at all the restaurants had given us a craving for a hamburger for some strange reason so we found the gringo-est looking place in town and had a delicious burger and a beer while watching a Steelers game.

The next day we headed north to some hot springs near Aguas Calientes that Brian and Laura had told us about in Todos Santos.  Apparently Aguas  Calientes has nice hot springs, but it has been well developed for more tourism so we opted for the lesser known springs. The hot springs we went to are outside of the small town (10 houses or less) of San Jorge on a ranchers property.  The spring comes out at the base of a big rock cliff and there is a beautiful sand bottomed pool that has been formed with rocks, sitting up above a small creek of cold water. The water isn’t especially hot, but it is in a beautiful setting and best of all we were the only ones there. We spent the morning soaking in the pool and laying out in the rocks, occasionally getting in the cold water of the creek running below.

When we were sufficiently soaked and our toes and fingers wrinkled, we headed north to Cabo Pulmo, where Tallman and Laura are caretaking at Papagallo, a beautiful little hotel on the beach. Bill, the owner of Papagallo, was there as well and we had a great few days hanging out with them. We really liked it here. There is a main palapa building with bricked in rooms 2 bathrooms, a kitchen area, and living area, as well as two more rooms upstairs near by. A really nice little patio is attached out front with gorgeous views of the beach below. This place would be perfect for a large group of people to come stay and relax for awhile. It is very comfortable and we instantly felt like we could easily stay a month or maybe even longer….The other great part of Papagallo is that is located in the middle of a big empty beach right near one of the only hard coral reefs along the pacific coast of north america and a marine sanctuary. Needless to say the snorkeling and fishing here is excellent. As I said before, we could have easily set up camp and hung out here for awhile, but the immenseness of the journey ahead keeps pulling us along, making it hard to stay in any one place for more than a few days.

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By Lacey | Posted in Nothing yet... | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (2)
Dec
15
2009

Bahia Concepcion en route to La Paz

The Bahia Concepcion is touted as having one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline on the Baja peninsula and this was part of the reason we wanted to get to Mulegé so bad. We stocked up on supplies in Mulegé and drove south in search of a good beach camping spot. We weren’t disappointed with the beaches along the highway, and in fact every beach we passed was a nice stretch of white sand fronting the turquoise blue of the Sea of Cortez.  The first one was Santispac, absolutely picture perfect beach, but heavily populated by RV’s and campers so we passed on staying there.  We  eventually stopped at Playa El Requezon. It is a beautiful small stretch of beach with two mini part-time bays… sounds funny, but at high tide there is an island across the beach and at low tide there is a sand bar that connects to the little island creating the two mini bays and you can walk out to check out the island. Just be sure to keep an eye on the tide, because the sand bar is completely covered during high tide, cutting off access to the island.

The wind was blowing pretty hard when we pulled into Requezon, but we found an empty palapa to pull up next to that created a great wind break for us.  This was our first palapa experience, imagine sitting under a palapa while looking out over the white sand and turquoise Sea of Cortez, all we needed was some Corona bottles and we could have been in a TV commercial.

Our Palapa set up

Our Palapa set up

Our palapa and a 4 legged visitor, always reminding us that Tie is not with us :(

Our palapa and a 4 legged visitor, always reminding us that Tie is not with us :(

A lot of folks from the US and Canada spend their winters along most of the beaches along this stretch. We met a great group of folks from Canada that spend their winters in Requezon every year, we spent most of our morning there hanging out with these guys, Luis even inherited an old fishing rod from one of these fine folk.

Our neighbor's home for the winter, not to shabby really

Our neighbor's home for the winter, not to shabby really

Due to the heavy winds we decided to head out in the early afternoon and drove to the town of Loreto. We stopped at Loreto for a few hours and walked around, checked out this cute town, there is an old mission that is worth checking out and some cute shops along a walking street near the mission. There is a really classy looking Italian spa (Italian owned and run) that was tastefully designed, there is even a rooftop lounge with a swimming pool with a glass bottom that you could see from the lobby below (I would think this would be slightly awkward for the bathers). Needless to say, it was a little out of our budget (the prices were listed in Euro), but it was a neat place to check out. On our way out we picked up some great tacos at McLulu’s.  Tacos have pretty much become our diet, they are cheap, you can always find stand anywhere, and they are always pretty tasty, the busier the taco stand the quicker we pull in.

The Church at

The Church at Loreto

Another view of the Loreto Church

Another view of the Loreto Church

We decided to head south a little bit to a beach we had heard of, El Juncalito. Juncalito is one of the many, many beautiful beaches along this stretch, so we pulled in and found a nice spot to set up camp. Juncalito has its own group of folks running away from winter, we camped next to a very nice couple and the first evening they even shared some of their BBQ’d fresh Wahoo with us… hmm delicious! The next morning we were informed by some of the residents of the beach that the weather forecast said it would be great for the next few days and after many nights of insane amounts of wind this had a nice ring to it, so we decided this great spot deserved a multi-day stay. Besides, Luis had been dying to try out his new rod!  Luis did some fishing and we snorkeled around a point at the end of the beach. It was amazing how much life we saw so close to shore! There were dozens of little rays, luckily not sting rays, all over the beach close to shore making it impossible to get out of the water without stepping on a few. They didn’t sting or hurt or anything, but it was still a little alarming to step down and have something flutter out from under  your foot.

This was the original spot we selected to camp, but it was very windy and we later moved next to a very cool group of temporary expats

This was the original spot we selected to camp, but it was very windy and we later moved next to a very cool group of temporary expats

Nice view from our campsite

Nice view from our campsite

The beautiful mountains behind our campsite at Juncalito Beach

The beautiful mountains behind our campsite at Juncalito Beach

It looks like he is peeing, but Luis is really fishing here... he is surrounded by dozens of non stingin rays.

It looks like he is peeing, but Luis is really fishing here... he is surrounded by dozens of non stinging rays.

We found this very cool puffer fish floating on the shore, sadly we see tons of them dead on the shore... we hope this guy made it.

We found this very cool puffer fish floating on the shore, sadly we see tons of them dead on the shore... we hope this guy made it.

Two little leatherback babies turtles

Two little leatherback babies turtles

Luis went looking for clams, but they are so overfished he only found one and it was at 15 feet of depth! He did not share it with Lacey :)

Luis went looking for clams, but they are so overfished he only found one and it was at 15 feet of depth! He did not share it with Lacey :)

We got up the morning after our second night very cheery, but to our dismay we realized that we had reached the maximum number of days we can go without recharging our battery. In all honesty we do not know how many days it had been, 4 or maybe 5 days, but the battery was completely dead, this was not a good thing. We decided that we needed to buy a battery charger as a short term fix and it was time to start thinking of a long term fix for our electrical needs. We weren’t too far from La Paz, which has a Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and all the big chains we are used to seeing in the U.S., so we beelined to La Paz, arriving just before dark. The RV park we planned to stay in no longer existed, so we ended up in an over our budget hotel ($25).

We were sitting in the lobby of the hotel catching up on the internet, when to our surprise, Beto, a very interesting and worldly gentleman we had met in Mulegé came walking in yelling at us to disconnect from our computers and come with him…. what the hell?! Small world.  While in Mulegé, he had told us about a young woman who grew up in Mulegé and is a very naturally gifted opera singer was doing a show in La Paz. We of course had kinda forgot about it, and didn’t even know what day it was, but as it turns out he was staying across the street from us and he saw our Landcruiser, and the show was that night!  So we disconnected and hurried out the door with Beto and a few others from Mulegé and were treated to a fantastic night of a great selection of opera classics.  This young woman has an amazing voice and it was quite the show. Sometimes it really is a small, small world!

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By Lacey | Posted in Nothing yet... | Comments (1)
Dec
13
2009

Recipe: Machaca Burritos

We love food (maybe Luis more than Lacey) and a great deal of this little experiment in travels is for us to experience the regional foods of all the places we visit.  We make it a point to eat what the locals eat. We will, on occasion post recipes for any who want to try, and for our friends at Coastal Grove Elementary and their teacher Miss Katey.

Machaca, is basically dried meat, it could be beef, burro, fish, squid, you name it, anything available to preserve and eat. Machaca has been around since the days before refrigeration when the best and perhaps the only way to preserve food was to salt it and/or dehydrate it.  Machaca is most definitely not jerky, the word machaca comes from the word machacar which means to pound or crush, so perhaps think of it as jerky that has been crushed into very fine shreds. To reconstitute simply add water and cook to your liking.  We had machaca at a roadside stand and after observing the cooking process Luis recreated it with a few of his own twists, here is what he did:

Sauté finely diced onion and a few teeth of garlic in plenty of olive oil

Sauteing onions and garlic

Sauteing onions and garlic

Beef Machaca

Add the Beef Machaca (a handful?) to the pot

Add some more olive oil to the mix

Add some more olive oil to the mix

Add pureed tomatoes with plenty of juice

Add pureed tomatoes with plenty of juice

Mix and add more water/beef broth/tomato puree to taste

Mix and add more water/beef broth/tomato puree to taste

Add any spices you may want... I added pimenton dulce, oregano, a squeeze of lime and garlic salt

Add any spices you may want... I added pimenton dulce, oregano, a squeeze of lime and garlic salt

It is important to let the pot simmer for a few minutes to make sure the machaca rehydrates and absorbs all the flavors you are simmering it in.

Fresh flour tortillas are nice but not essential (another recipe, maybe someday), rice, and some shredded cabbage with lime, garlic salt and a small dollop of mayo (mayo not essential) and voila: machaca burrito

The machaca, rice, cabbage ready to roll into a tasty burrito!

The machaca, rice, cabbage ready to roll into a tasty burrito!

We also have a bag of squid machaca that was kindly given to us by Sandra the caretaker at the campground we stayed in Mulegé, we will report on that one later, but preparation is very similar.

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By Luis | Posted in Nothing yet... | Comments (0)
Dec
09
2009

You Don’t Know if You Don’t Go… Scorpion Bay to Mulegé

When the sad time came to move on from San Juanico, we were evaluating which route we wanted to take out of town. There are a few different ways in and out of the area, with only one being easy (easy meaning: only a small amount of washboard). The only problem with this “easy” route is that we wanted to check out a town called Mulegé which is directly to the east on the Sea of Cortez coast. If we took the “easy” way out we would have to drive south, west and then backtrack north a few hundred miles. Given our dislike of backtracking this wasn’t something we really wanted to do. Luckily we met Esteban (or Steven), but meeting him merits a little side story, so here it goes:

We were driving around town trying to find fresh shrimp for dinner, we were getting ready to stop at a little store to ask where we could find some when we see a guy in a quad coming at us.  He stops and says: “Is that a diesel Landcruiser? How much do you wnat for it?” This was Esteban, a “local” for all intents and purposes even though he is a gringo.  We got to talking about the truck and after a few minutes Luis asked him if he knew where we could find fresh shrimp, he just said: “Follow me” and he sped off in his quad.  We could barely keep up with him and as we thought we might loose him he pulled into a driveway, this turned out to be the driveway to his home and what a beautiful home it is!  He has beautiful xeriscaping intermingled with native species, lime and plumerias, a wonderful outdoor living area with a king bed and local leather and wood seating and ab indoor shower that made us want to move in.  Esteban and Donna Donna have been calling San Juanico home for some time and it shows. They invited us into their home and we hung out for quite a while, we had a wonderful time visiting with them and they were kind enough to give us enough fresh shrimp to feed ourselves like royalty.

Now back to our regularly scheduled drive plans: We mention our route dilemma to Esteban and he suggested we take a road that is not even on our map, the road cuts directly east into Mulegé, our kind of route. He assured us that the road is pretty nasty, but we would have no problems with our trusty Landcruiser and it might be a fun adventure. We were pretty sold on the idea, but decided to ask around just in case.  The locals in town always gave us the same response “Don’t go that way.” It would with Luis asking about the road, the response would be, “no, that road is really bad, really ugly. There is only two ways out, the way in from San Ignacio (from the north) or the road to the south”. Luis would dig deeper, “well there is a road there right?” “Well, yes there is a road, but it is really bad, really ugly, I don’t recommend it”. Luis would point to the Landcruiser, “we have 4×4, do you think we can make it?” “Oh, you have 4×4, well then yes you can make it, people make it in 2 wheel drive. Yes it is passable, just very ugly.” With these words of encouragement (or was it warning), we were sitting at the gas station making our final decision, when the decision was made by Esteven who pulled up at the station behind us.  He made some excellent points: The road does in fact exist, (he has taken it a few times), and it is a beautiful stretch of road. If you don’t go, you don’t know. You can make an adventure of it and there are ranchos located every few miles along the road, so if you get lost you can ask for directions and if it takes you more than a day, you can camp out there and nobody will bug you. Armed with his words of encouragement and an eight pack or ochito (yes they make 8-packs of Tecate in Mexico…it really is a beautiful thing!), we set off to find the “ugly” road. We found the turn off and started down it, within a half mile the road completely disappeared into an arroyo and there was no sign of a road coming out the other side. We turned around and tried to figure out what to do. We had mentally prepared ourselves for this little adventure and didn’t want to abandon it so easily, but we couldn’t find any trace of where the road went. Luckily we found a rancher near by and after the same exchange described above, he pointed us on the way. It turns out that because of hurricane Jimena, the arroyo and the road had been completely washed out and melded into one. We ended up finding the “new road” and drove it all the way to Mulege, but it was definitely an adventure. In fact the whole time we were driving we couldn’t believe that anyone could call this a road! The “road” basically followed the river bed and crossed back and forth across the river at least a dozen times. We bumped along at an average cruising speed of 5 mph over river rocks, through the water, up the bank and through sand, back into the river bed and across the river, and so on for 7 hours. Esteban was right, it was a beautiful drive, with wonderful people living arduous lifestyles, big rock cliffs, green vegetation along the river bed, and dry desert cactus up above. It was a great opportunity to get off the beaten path and see a part of the Baja that many don’t get to see. If you have a sturdy vehicle with good clearance we highly recommend this road.

Scorpion Bay to Mulegé "road"

Scorpion Bay to Mulegé "road"

We pulled into Mulege in the late afternoon. After the drive through the “ugly” road, we knew that this area was hit pretty bad by Jimena, but Mulegé definitely got the brunt of it. Houses all along the river were completely destroyed and on the ones still standing, the high water mark was unbelievable.

After so long camping without any amenities, we decided to splurge for some electricity and a hot shower (by splurge we mean less than $15), so we found an RV park/Hotel right on the river, the Hotel Cuesta Real hosted by the wonderful Sandra and her Husband Pepe. They had suffered some damage in the hurricane, but had been hard at work, and the place looked pretty good. We found a small community of expats that live semi-permanently in the park here and were instantly welcomed into their community. One night we were invited for a delicious community dinner with fresh yellowtail caught that morning served as sushi and yellowtail-shrimp bouillabaisse that was to die for.

Fresh yellowtail sashimi, no sake but plenty of Tecate

Fresh yellowtail sashimi, no sake but plenty of Tecate

Sandra's Yellow tail and shrimp bouillabaise. Sandra is quite the cook!

Sandra's Yellow tail and shrimp bouillabaise. Sandra is quite the cook!

It was great hanging out with the folks in Mulegé, all of them from different places and different backgrounds, but they have come together in Mulegé to form a quaint and interesting family of sorts. After a few days we parted ways, but we enjoyed our time hanging out with some cool people in a beautiful town that is strong, proud and fighting hard to rebuild this wonderful area.

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By Lacey | Posted in Nothing yet... | Comments (4)
Dec
05
2009

San Juanico- Getting There is Part of the Adventure

We had heard about San Juanico- or some call it Scorpion Bay- from surfer friends back home. We were also ready for some Pacific coast beaches, so we decided to head that way.  There is a small dirt road that goes into San Juanico from San Ignacio, via the Laguna San Ignacio, so we asked around in San Ignacio about the road condition and everybody agreed that is was not that bad. So we headed down the dirt washboard road on our merry way. We got to a fork just before the laguna and realized that we had the choice of two roads to get to our destination (much like everywhere else in Baja so far). We knew one road went through salt flats and we were told it would be fast and free of the dreaded washboard, but there was also the chance of hitting some wet spots and getting awfully stuck. The other road went inland and we assumed it would be nothing but the dreaded washboard.

The dreaded and omnipresent washboard- or permamnente as it is known by the locals

The dreaded and omnipresent washboard- or permamnente as it is known by the locals

Well as the saying goes when you assume you make an ass out of you and me, and for some reason this point never misses an opportunity to make itself known.  We opted for the inland road and continued on our way. Pretty soon the road had turned into a single track and we were practically 4×4ing through drainages and over the mountains. We started thinking that there was no way this was the road into San Juanico and we had taken a wrong turn somewhere and were heading into the empty desert to be lost for days (at least this is what was going through Lacey’s head at the time). With nothing to do but to keep trucking, we eventually came to a gate where a wizened old rancher came out to meet us and open the gate for us. He assured us that we were indeed on the right road, still with some trepidation we continued bumping along our merry way. We have started to realize a trend in Baja is that when a local tells you the road is not that bad, expect the worse, as their definition of not that bad is probably not the same as ours! After about 6 hours of bumping along and crossing streams we arrived in San Juanico. Yet again, 6 hours to go less than 100 miles!

Shouldn't there be a bridge here? Good thing we drive a Landcruiser!

Shouldn't there be a bridge here? Good thing we drive a Landcruiser!

San Juanico is a beautiful little fishing village set in a small bay on the Pacific. There are a few points around the bay that have excellent surf, and for us non-surfers, great beach views, tidepooling and fishing. This small fishing village is growing by the year as more and more surfer expats decide to make it a part time home or even a year round home. With any kind of change (even multi-million dollar homes) there are bound to be some growing pains, but the town seems to be accommodating the change pretty well. Everybody that we met here, surfers and locals alike were amazingly nice and interesting.

When we pulled into town we headed out to the bluffs outside of town to the Scorpion Bay Resort, which was the only camping that we knew of. We paid our camping fees (the most expensive camping so far, I guess this is what happens when lots of us gringos are around) and headed into town to find some food (Luis did not feel like cooking).  At the restaurant El Burro we met Mark and Judy, a couple from So Cal that has a “work in progress” house next to the restaurant. Mark came over attracted by our Landcruiser and its diesel rumble, we stated chatting and eventually they said it was time for Thanksgiving tacos! We looked at each other and said: “today is Thanksgiving!?” We had been thinking it was Wednesday all day. I guess somewhere along the way we lost a day in baja. I’m sure it is not the first time it has happened and I’m sure it will not be the last. We sat down for thanksgiving pescado with good company and had a great meal.

Our camping spot for the night was on a bluff overlooking the ocean, and we were lulled to sleep listening to the surf below, watching the stars and showered by moonlight. It couldn’t have been better!

Sunrise from the Scorpion Bay campsite, we never thought we would become such avid morning people :)

Sunrise from the Scorpion Bay campsite, we never thought we would become such avid morning people :)

The view from our first (paid) camping spot. Not to shabby.

The view from our first (paid) camping spot. Not to shabby.

We heard in town that you can camp down on the beach for free, so the next night we decided to move camp down to the beach in order to save some money.  It too was a nice little spot by the water, but maybe to close to the surf because we kept waking up all night to check where the water was out of fear of being trapped by the high tide or worse yet being engulfed by the tide, gulp. We woke up for one of the best sunrises yet and all was well. We sat on the beach with our morning coffee, watched the sun make it’s appearance for the day out over the water, and Luis felt like listening to The Beatles’ Here Comes the Sun playing on the stereo. It couldn’t have been a better way to wake up and all we could think was how lucky we are to be here!

Sunrise as seen from our camping spot the second day at San Juanico, imagine The Beatles playing "Here comes the Sun" on the background :)

Sunrise as seen from our camping spot the second day at San Juanico, imagine The Beatles playing "Here comes the Sun" on the background :)

A furry visitor at our campsite, there are so many dogs everywhere it makes us miss our Tie Dog :(

A furry visitor at our campsite, there are so many dogs everywhere it makes us miss our Tie Dog :(

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By Lacey | Posted in Nothing yet... | Tagged , , , | Comments (3)
Dec
03
2009

On to San Ignacio, Baja California Sur

The wind was blowing so bad in San Francisquito, we decided to head out after one night. The plan was driving a dirt road out towards a place called El Arco, but there are many tracks going off the “main” dirt road, with no signs indicating which one was the road we wanted. In San Francisquito we met a couple from Estonia and they had arrived from El Arco driving a little 2 wheel drive rental car, we figured it would be an easy drive for us in the Landcruiser.  After pouring over the map and some discussion, we set off thinking we knew which road we wanted. We made the turn off we had decided upon, and within a few minutes started having second thoughts. The little road quickly turned into a narrow track with big ruts. We were soon 4×4ing along thinking that there was no way the couple had come through this “road” in their little rental car.  Alas, there was no place to turn around and as someone told us: “here in Baja all roads lead to your destination,” so onward ho it was. Luckily a few minutes later, we met up with the the right road. It turned out we had taken a not so short, short cut to the road we wanted.  After some bumping along over washboard, we met back up with the Mex 1 just south of the town of Guerrero Negro on the Pacific Coast.

One of the highlight on the road was seeing this raptor and his prey

One of the highlight on the road was seeing this raptor and his prey on a cactus top

We drove south a little while and ended up in the town of San Ignacio. It is a really cute little town, and is the first we have seen in our journey through Baja that has the colonial/mission feel to it. There is a nice typical plaza with lots of trees fronting the Mission San Ignacio, a beautiful old mission that was built out of lava rock. One of the nice things about the town is that a river runs through the area so it is an oasis of green lushness in the sea of the Baja desert. Unfortunately, the town was hit by hurricane Jimena this September, the downed palms and evidence of flooding are still there as a reminder. We parked on the plaza and walked around a bit.  As we were coming back to the Landcruiser we noticed we were parked next to 2 rigs from France that looked like they were decked out for traveling and next to us was a motorcycle that looked the same. We ended up talking to the folks in the rigs and it turns out that we are all headed to Argentina! We all ended up at the same campground along the river for the night. We swapped information, and hope to meet up with them along the road.

Plaza San Ignacio and the traveling vehicles

Plaza San Ignacio and the traveling vehicles. The RV on the left is a family of 5, 3 boys and their parents :)

Our spot by the river in San Ignacio

Our spot by the river in San Ignacio

The motley crew of Americas overland travelers

The motley crew of Americas overland travelers

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By Lacey | Posted in Nothing yet... | Comments (0)