In the morning we explored the shore line.
A strong wind had blown all night. Many mussels had broken free from their kelp attachments and had been washed ashore. The seagulls took advantage of this bounty and carried the mussels into the air, dropping them on the rocks until they broke.
Cyrus took one of the mussels and fed sea anemones and hermit crabs in the tide pools. The anemones quite enjoyed the meal, closing down tight over the flesh and slowly opening up again, ready for more. All this was done in the warp speed of about 5 minutes. It would have been fun to take a time lapse photo of the process.
There was a spot on the beach where all the drift wood, flotsam, and floating trash had accumulated. The small pieces of wood were cactus skeletons I think, because there weren’t any trees for miles. Mixed in with all this were plastic bottles as well. In fact there was a layer of trash all over, unfortunately. It was strange how it seemed to pool in one place.
We overlooked the trash and instead focused on the beautiful beach rocks. The rocks tended to sort themselves by size. One area of the beach had pea sized rocks, while another area had quarter sized rocks and so on.
We left after breakfast, passing a tiny fishing village on the way out. We saw a man out fixing his nets. Another person was tending a boat.
We headed south on Highway 1 towards Guerrero Negro, or Gro. Negro as it was abbreviated on all the signs, or senales. There were several military check points along the way. The checkpoints varied considerably in their thoroughness. Sometimes they consisted of as little as a “Donde vamos?” and a quick wave through. Other times a soldier entered the Earthroamer and opened every drawer, pouch, and cabinet.
We heard they looked for weapons when you were headed south, and drugs when you were headed north. Drugs were smaller and harder to find, so the lines behind the checkpoints were longer in the northerly direction. It did appear that your appearance mattered. More scrutiny was placed surfer/hippy/rasta looking people. I made a mental note to not wear tie-dye.
Many towns we passed through consisted of nothing more than a few shabby run-down buildings. Every town had a Llantera (tire repair) and a mechanic. Usually these were the first two signs you saw. A blue sign witth a symbol of a crossed lug wrench on it was for the Llantera, and a blue sign with a wrench on it for the Mecanico.
As the road wound slowly inland, we started seeing more and more cacti. First there were yuccas trees called Datilillo. They were very similar to Joshua trees but didn’t branch quite as much. Next the Cardon, the world’s largest cactus, and cousin to the Saguaro, appeared, adding height and weight to the flora.
There were little trumpet shaped blossoms on the Cardon cacti.
Another tree called Boojum, or Cirios, which means candle in Spanish, provided even more height to the vista. The boojum looks like a giant furry upside down green carrot.
I’d never seen it before in real life, but I’m sure I’ve seen it in cartoons drawn by Dr. Suess. Soon the red blooming Ocotillos were common as were some type of fat blooming Agave, with lovely yellow flowers on a thick stalk. There was a short squatty tree with a fat trunk, light colored. I thought of it as the hobbit tree, until I looked it up and determined it was an Elephant Tree, or Tortote.
Eventually we saw signs for a protected area called “Valle de los Cirios” near a town called Cataviña. This was where the desert became really spectacular.
White smooth granite boulders surrounded the many different varieties of cacti. The shapes, sizes, height, and textures of the cacti arranged themselves to make surreal garden-like scenes. It was like a rainforest of cacti.
We’ve been to many deserts in the USA, and this one even topped the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, which had been our favorite until now. We pulled over and marked the location on our GPS, intending to return to it in the future. There was a dirt road that went all the way to San Jose de la Piedra. We hoped to explore that on a future trip.
In the afternoon Jason noticed several things suddenly go wrong with the ER. The performance monitor froze up. The transmission temperature gauge suddenly read zero. The tow haul stopped working. The gear shift indicator light that illuminates the gear you are in stopped working. The rear back up lights and back up camera ceased to work as well. It was a strange set of maladies. We assumed it was a simple issue of a blown fuse.
We pulled over to investigate. After checking all the fuses, all looked fine. But then when Jason tried to restart the vehicle, nothing happened. There was one click and then nothing. With increasing worry, we tried and retried to fix it. The engine didn’t even try to turn over. Something was not allowing the vehicle to start. It was an electrical problem, and nothing we did worked. This left us in quite a pickle. We were in the middle of nowhere, at km marker 32, about 60 miles north of Gro. Negro, and about 15 miles south of Punta Preita. I already knew the answer, but I checked my phone anyway. There was no cell coverage. A pit was forming in my stomach.
After a few hours of troubleshooting, we knew we had to spend the night. It was too late now, but in the morning we would hitch a ride to a place where we could call Ford.
It was a long night. Not only were we breaking two of the rules of driving in Baja…don’t camp by yourself, and don’t camp by the side of the road outside of town, but we were dreading the thought of what we were going to do next. A 500 mile tow, or finding a english speaking mechanic, who would be willing to drive to our vehicle seemed expensive and unlikely. I made dinner. We ate listlessly, and slept, only 8 feet from the road.
Even though this was the main freeway, only 4-5 trucks went by every 30 minutes. The entire camper was sucked toward the road as they blew by. I was worried about being mugged in the night. We stashed most of our money in a hidden locked area and kept a disposable amount on our persons. We also left our outside led lights on, figuring it would look less like an abandoned vehicle.
A note about driving… Highway 1, was about the width of a small residential street, similar to Old Santa Cruz Highway in Los Gatos, only not as curvy. On this passed all the big-rigs going between Ensenada and La Paz, and all the other car traffic too. While driving, Jason worried about kissing mirrors with on-coming traffic. The road had no shoulder and in many places it was raised, so that if your tire cheated off to the side at all, you ran the risk of rolling. The big-rig practice, which we adopted, was to drive about ¼ of a lane over the center line, until another car coming the other way was visible. At that point you swerved fully back on to your own side until they passed. This minimized the constant stress of maintaining your right side wheels on the road.
At every town, there were sporadically marked speed bumps, some quite large. These sometimes appeared quite suddenly. The condition of the road was mostly quite good, better than we expected! But every now and then you’d find a large pothole. The other unexpected thing was the signs for VADOs. These were dips in the road. During the rainy season these can get full of water, but for now, they were dry.
Another interesting driving custom was the use of the left blinker light. Apparently if the car in front thinks it is safe for the car behind to pass, the car in front turns on the left turn signal. I assume this only works when you are NOT about to make a left turn… Another use of the left blinker was as a professional greeting between truckers passing in opposite directions, especially at night.
It was fitful night. Jason jerked bolt upright at midnight whispering that someone had parked behind us and he heard them run outside on the gravel. I quickly slipped on my pants and put on my glasses. If we were going to be mugged I at least wanted to not be blind and to have my pants on. We peeked out our closed windows and flashed our parking lights. I could see out the front and side and couldn’t see anyone. Jason crawled into the cab and tried to look in the side mirrors to see behind us, but he couldn’t see anyone either. After a few tense moments, we decided to open the door and look behind to see if there was really a car there. Jason did and there wasn’t. Whew! Likely they pulled off to take a bathroom break, and then moved on. We sheepishly laughed that we were being overly paranoid, but to be honest, it was scary.
