Around The World In 80 Waves

The sea is practically flat so I do another long drive south. The scenery is stunning and sometimes it seems like the jungle is about to claim the road back, but one heavily laden lorry or pickup truck and you are doing less than 20 miles per hour and progress can be painfully slow. It means I drove well into the night yesterday to just make up some ground.

This is not Top Gear though. It is supposed to be a surf trip and I have to say I am getting somewhat bored of driving on these roads. They have as many twists and turns as your average mountain pass through Snowdonia and it is really tiring even if at times it is a lot of fun chucking the car around the corners. However my left arm is developing a trucker’s tan and if I hit one more unannounced speed bump too hard the car may well have another moment on me!

I caused chaos at a toll booth along one of the toll roads last night. Checking my map in the queue it looked like I had taken a wrong turn so I wanted to do a U-turn and go back the other way. Explaining this was hard enough, but the operator had to open another lane and then get all 15 cars behind me to reverse back along the motorway and then turn into the new lane. While thanking him and explaining where I wanted to go he told me it was indeed the right road but just another example of the ‘interesting’ road signage used here. Ooops!

However I made really good progress yesterday and am now in the Michoacan state which is about two thirds of the way down the Mexican coast. I actually passed a few great breaks around Tecoman without realising it but given the sea conditions am sure there would not have been any surf anyway.

I was rather amused the other day to stumble across Top Gear on Mexican TV.

Despite their commentary to the contrary it is actually a popular show here

I had gone to sleep listening to waves crashing on to the shore a few metres away, and wake to this image which should give you some idea of how rustic the place is. As soon as I leave to check the waves I am savaged by sand flies which bite me so many times I look like I have chicken pox!

The noise through the night must have been deceptive because it is practically flat. However I am desperate to break my Mexican duck and Pompis lends me his 9′ board and tells me to head alongside the second breakwater you can sea in the distance here.

I wont tell you it was great because it wasnt but I did get two rides right along the breakwater which I am stoked about. Finally I can claim to have surfed in Mexico, and in just board shorts and a rash vest too. Whilst in the water I was being watched by about 100 pelicans on the breakwater who were passing judgement on my technique, and I saw my by now usual dolphins in the water, loads of fish (no angry ones), but also a foot long green lizard which I am later told was probably an iguana.

Back to the shack (mine is the small one with the blue drum in front of it) to get changed and will head south again.

There is no point sticking around if there is no waves.

As soon as I leave Mazatlan in the midday sun, the bug is not happy with me. I think I may have ragged it too hard in the morning. I pull in and check all the levels for oil, water, etc and all are good it is just f-ing hot.

A trick I learned in the Sahara desert is to leave your internal heaters on full as you drive, because this takes heat away from the engine. However the downside is that the bug is now a mobile sauna, in which the milk I bought at the start of the day is practically cheee by the end of it! I also cannot go fast because any strain on the engine and I have to pull in again to some shade to let it calm down for half an hour.

All the ground I made up in the morning is lost but I do roll into the small fishing village of San Blas just as the sun is going down. A quick check in my rough guide to Mexico and I spot Stoner’s Surf Camp,  which is named after Ray Stoner who founded it rather than because of the obvious drug taking conclusion I am sure many will have already jumped to. I get this most basic bed in a shack right on the sand for 200 pesos and then have a great night drinking with Pompis who runs the place and is a former champion surfer in Mexico, and Joe who is a surfer from Newport Beach in California who spends half his life in the warm water here.

Again I put the hammer down on the extremely expensive toll road, because I am playing catch up on where I was hoping to be again. A long day of driving will get me back in the water so I am willing to just drive all from dawn to dusk and then enjoy the spoils of my labour.

On the way south I try not to even stop at the lights in Culiacan which is known as ‘Narco City’ because of its heavy involvement in the drug trade. Perhaps next time I will call in…

I was told it would take five hours to get to Mazatlan but burned there in just three and a half, really pleased to be back on track and passing into the Tropical region of the world on my way south.

Immediately I arrived there I got chatting with a lovely family from the Great Lakes area of Canada who buy me an ice cold beer which I practically inhale because it is so hot.

I have just missed the big Mardi Gras festival which is one of the world’s largest but there must be some sort of film festival on now because there are these giant statues all along the sea front. Sadly there are no waves to greet me, because the sea is virtually flat. Never mind I will push further on because I always have miles to cover in Mexico

Not far from Los Mochis is the area known as the Copper Canyon which is a network of river gorges that is so big it actually dwarfes the Grand Canyon in scale.

The train ride through here begins at Los Mochis is supposed to be one of the great railway journeys of the world but I dont have time to take it and wouldn’t want to leave my car unattended for that long either.

The Grand Canyon helicopter ride will be hard to top anyway, and like Niagara falls I am seeing enough water on this trip so dont mind too much.

The ferry took considerably longer than I expected and it is very late when I arrive in Topolobampo. I don’t want to drive after dark, because there is a risk of banditry and the roads are not the safest anyway during the day! As a consequence I will have to find somewhere as quickly as possible.

When I go through the security checkpoint on the way out of the port the policeman just wants to know which football team I support when I explain I am from the UK. When I tell him Liverpool he gets quite excited and starts raving about Steven Gerrard for a couple of minutes all the while holding up the queue of traffic from the boat. It is an amusing welcome to the mainland and he wishes me well on my way.

There isn’t much at the port town and the next one along is called Los Mochis where I find a motel as soon as I can. At least I think it is a motel, the guy at the entrance was talking very fast and I only caught some of what he said.

When I pull up in the parking space next to my room a curtain is drawn to obscure my car from view. He then wanted to know how many hours I wanted the room for and when I get inside my room has a mirrored ceiling so I am not entirely convinced that I am not staying in a house of ill repute!

No indecent proposals yet though.

I was hoping to catch a ferry from La Paz to Mazatlan, which is Mexico’s largest commercial port. However there was no room on a boat until Sunday and I want to make more ground in that time so reluctantly am on the way to Tompolobampo which is five hours north of Mazatlan.

With lots of furrowed brows, a little bit of pictionary-esque drawing and un poco Espanyol I have have bought a ticket, got past an emptying the car customs check even though I am already in Mexico, and navigated the misunderstanding where I thought they wanted to tax me for my surfboard. (There was a tax to go on board!)

Not much else to do for the next couple of hours while we wait to board other than sit around in the sun and actually read my guide book before arriving somewhere.

Eventually I get on to the boat to the now familiar sound of Mariachi music, and we leave port an hour late.

So long Baja, it has definitely been emotional, but I think I will definitely be back. Those waves I failed to bag are an itch I will always have to scratch.

It is good to be on the sea again. Here comes the mainland and I will be heading south again before long. The sea is getting warmer all the time now and I will be back in boardshorts before I know it. Wooo-hooo!!!!

Baja is split into two states. Baja California in the north and Baja California Sur in the south, of which La Paz is the state capital. The movement from one to the other is the reason for the time zone change too because you also move a great deal east as you head south down the peninsular.

There is a rally held throughout Baja every year and to be honest I am beginning to feel like I have entered it. I have driven about a thousand miles without the chance of a wave and Baja has been a blur on either side of me. However my car choice is limiting my access to the beaches, but the beach roads will be better on the mainland, so I am stopping here to catch a ferry across to Mazatlan.

I have picked up a replacement sump for the bug here (buying a reinforced one to boot) but have not had it replaced yet, because the bodged one is holding firm and catching the ferry is my first priority. I have two weeks left in Mexico and will be stopping in a couple of places for a few days so can get the work done then. I could probably do this myself but am not going to risk that if not entirely necessary. I have a habit of not knowing my own strength and making situations worse by breaking things whenever I open my tool box.

I have also sorted a 3G dongle for my laptop so I should now be able to keep you abreast of developments more easily too. The hotel wifi connections are so slow I have been wasting my holiday sitting inside waiting for pictures to upload, etc. so I am sure it is a worthwhile investment.

I really like La Paz. It is a small town alongside the Bay lined with a narrow sandy beach, but get here too late in the day for decent pictures. Once settled into my room, I go out for a few beers and discover it is Valentines Day. I have always loathed the day and the contrived sentiment so am glad to have unwittingly missed it. I am getting more confident with my Spanish (or perhaps just better with my phrasebook!) so go out with the locals to have a few beers in a bar decked with hearts and balloons and bump into the euro bikers again. The young lads are driving past with their music blaring far too loud, nicking ballons from the bar’s patio to give to their girlfriends. Ah the sweet taste of romance!

I roll into this city about an hour after it has got dark. I had hoped to find somewhere north of here but there simply wasn’t anything so Hobson’s choice meant this town was where I pushed on to.

The flip side of all my car woes is that I have been somewhat pushed into talking Spanish with the locals. I am still offering little more than Gringo Lingo but after driving down south listening to more of my educational CDs I at least have enough words and the confidence to go out into town on my own.

Admittedly I only wander around buying some milk for some breakfast cereal and then go for a pizza with some beer but my tache and tan are now so defined that they are not entirely sure that I am a gringo until I open my mouth.

Opportunities to chivvy a few extra Pesos out of me are still occasionally taken though. I bought a coffee this morning which was quoted as 10 Pesos. When I asked about the coins, first handing a 5 over to see if that was enough, I was told corretly that another was needed so handed a 10 coin. All of a sudden the coffee is 15 pesos, which makes me laugh.