The land of Vados

2/6/12

San Felipe

Jesus

Weird Mexican Medicine

I've always liked this sign.

New Beige in San Felipe

Desert New Beige

After the Mud highway

The road is flooded

Our hotel is flooded!

Today has been a great day in San Felipe, Baja Norte, Mexico.  We have had tacos pescado y cameron, cervezas and now we are going to dinner at Restaurant Chuy where we love the clams.  We still haven’t found the churros man which is very sad but we’re hoping he’ll have his cart out tonight.  I am relieved to find out how easy it is to find free wifi.  I can use my iphone mostly anywhere in a big town and I’ll be able to use my laptop at motels.  I wasn’t sure about the accessibility but it seems to be that bigger cities will have access.  I used my SteriPEN today, which is an ultraviolet light that looks a like a magic wand, that I put in my Nalgene to purify my water.  It is supposed to kill 99.99% of all viruses, bacteria and protozoa.  I think it is a great invention, Jon thinks it’s really weird and is expecting me to grow a third nipple or something. Hopefully we don’t get sick ;) 

Chuy’s was just as great as we remember it.  I got Cameron Au Coco which is coconut shrimp and they were delicious.  They were actually the best I’ve ever had.  They were fresh shrimp, hand dipped in shaved coconut and were so sweet and really big too.  Jon had Pescado Veracruz with vegetables and tortillas.  We actually saw the churros guy while we were having dinner so I chased him down to see where he was going.  I got his location for later but we were a little tired so we came home after dinner and a little walk.  I guess no churros this time in San Felipe.  Maybe later on down the line. 

We are driving tomorrow down the eastern side of Baja, on a road that isn’t paved the whole way and we are going to camp.  It’s been an excellent visit to San Felipe.

2/7/12

Today has been a very tense day for me.  After consulting current maps and speaking to a couple locals we decided to take the partially paved road south out of San Felipe to El Huerfanito as opposed to the 498km-paved road we would normally take.  We drove probably a total of 80 unpaved km., which ran a spectrum of road conditions including washboard, rocky, mountainous and sandy.  We also came upon a military checkpoint on the unpaved portion where they used rocks and bones in their walls…. where did they get those bones?  They were checking pretty hard-core in my toiletry bag and actually thumbed through our Mexico Lonely Planet pretty hard. I don’t know what they thought they would find in there.  I was pretty tense this whole ride.  The truck was also flashing the ABS light every once in awhile and lost power a few times.   I imagine we jarred some wire loose that I’m going to have to ask my dad about before we try to talk Spanish to a mechanic.  I was envisioning breaking down somewhere out on this road where no one is driving by the whole time and maybe the military would use our bones in their wall. We made it to pavement though and a camping spot on the side of the road. 

We drove in the desert a little and cooked another awesome dinner and had a fire.  We made a fish hash with onion, corn, cilantro, blue corn meal and the fish we got from the fishmonger before we left San Felipe (10 pesos).  We threw those on tortillas with some fresh avocados and hot sauce to make a pretty excellent dinner. 

It just started raining lightly, which really amplified all the olfactory hues of the desert.  There is a full moon tonight and it is my BFFAOT Tanya’s birthday, but I can’t see it or her. Bummer.  Hopefully I can relax a little.  I’m pretty tense still and camping renegade in the desert doesn’t help that.  On to Bahia Tortugas tomorrow.  If there are sea turtles there then everything will be better.

2/8/12

We woke up this morning after a nice sleep in the desert.  It rained all night, which I think is a little weird for the area, so we decided just to start driving and put some miles behind us. They seemed to be doing construction on the highway and made us drive next to the highway on a dirt road, which was now a mud road because of the rain for about 5km.  Our truck got wicked muddy. We came to about 3 military checkpoints before lunch but they don’t seem to care too much about us now that it’s raining.  It rained a ton all day today so we didn’t stop at Bahia Tortugas and just decided to drive on through to Mulege. 

When driving through the Baja peninsula one may notice these things called Vados, which are dips in the road where water rushes through when it rains (rarely). They are basically a paved arroyo.  Now, I’ve always seen the signs for these but never the supposed water.  Every other time we’ve been in Baja up until now we have never even seen a cloud, let alone rain.  But today it has been pouring all day like Kerela in the monsoon season.  Near Santa Rosalia we came upon about 8 cars stopped on the road.  We found out that the vados were flooded because of all the rain and traffic was stopped up both ways because all the Mexicans were afraid to drive through it.  I’m driving at this point and Jon tells me to drive on through.  I’m obviously not comfortable with that if about 20 other cars of local Mexicans aren’t comfortable with that either.  So, Jon takes off his shoes and socks, rolls up his pant legs, curses all of the Mexicans in their cars as “weak” and walks the whole way through the flash flood rushing through the vados.  He then from the other side proceeds to motion me to drive through.  I’m really uncomfortable at this point, but I go for it anyway and I make it through.  All the cars that were stranded on our side of the road follow me and cheer for Jon.  They are probably thinking “Loco Gringos”.  We drive on further and come to yet another flooded vados with the same thing going on.  Again, Jon walks through and signals for me to come on.  Again, I lead the way.  Some people didn’t follow this time.  They may actually still be on Vados island right now. 

Because of the rain we decided to get a room and we found the oldest hotel in Mulege where we are right now.  It is still raining and the old saying goes, “It never rains in Baja, but when it does, it pours.”  Hopefully tomorrow it will be nicer and we can go kayaking because the river here is supposed to be really nice.  Until later!