Around The World In 80 Waves

After the whale watching it is already 1pm but I decide to drive south as far as I can to make up some time. There is a super point break called Scorpion Bay further down the west coast which I was really looking forward to surfing, but the lovely people at Mario’s tours told me I should give the road a miss with the little green surf machine. Finally some common sense is sinking in so I do so, missing its inhabitants too so not all bad.

I am keeping an eye on the oil level for obvious reasons but the bug and I are flying today carving up endless desert roads and mountain passes. Other than that there is not much to report here because I have to cross the 500 miles of the Desierto Vizcaino in order to get towards La Paz, so I just put the hammer down. I fall back in love with my troublesome car though, as the two of us eat up the miles together.

The road south was awesome and managed to get all the way south to Ciudad Constitucion despite not leaving Guerrero Negro until 1pm. The scenery was simply breath taking and if I had more time would have stayed longer, but I was keen to move as far south as I could while on the Sea of Cortes side of the peninsular. Also think I will be giving the Cabo end a miss to catch a ferry across to the mainland from La Paz and then get ahead of the game for the rest of my Mexican leg of the travels. A baja surf will have to wait for a 4X4 on another trip.

Here are the highlight snaps from the bay of Conception, the desert and the Sea of Cortes coast now that I am on the East side of the peninsular:

I am not risking the car on any more wild roads for now so need to experience some other options to keep myself amused if I can’t surf as much as I would like to.

Guerrero Negro is one of the best places in the world to see the migration of thousands of Grey Whales who travel south from the Baring Sea to give birth in the warm waters of Baja’s Laguna Oja de Liebre. The dark patches in this picture are the areas the females and young travel through, which they do safely because the older whales guard the entrance to the lagoon keeping the orcas or killer whales at bay, who are waiting outside to attack the young as they emmerge.

Being from Wales and having worn a whale tail shaped pendant around my neck for years it seemed appropriate that I should investigate further.

Even though I have already seen a few whales from the road and beaches on my way down, I was told this experience is pretty special so having stayed an extra night I decide to check it out and am up at 7am to go out to sea in a small boat organised by Mario’s Tours(www.mariostours.com) It is actually an hour earlier than I thought having travelled forward through a time zone, without realising for a day.

The pictures speak from this three hour trip speak for themselves, but having gone to sea in a fibreglass vessel little bigger than a rowing boat I’m immediately thinking the immortal line from Jaws “We’re going to need a bigger boat!” when the first of the 17 metre long 45 ton adult leviathans pops up next to us.

Despite Grey Whales almost being hunted to extinction, (Somebody actually claimed to have caught the last one in 1933, and was the reason for the establishment of the international whaling commission) the whales are not threatened by our boats. I have the GoPro which is straight over the side as soon as they come close. I would have got better shots if I could but wasn’t allowed to jump in with them.

They stay even longer when women and children are on board because they are as curious about us as we are about them. Something else I noticed is that they actually have nostrils as opposed to  blowhole like a dolphin, which I never knew. They also have whiskers like a sea lion.

The one you see poking out the water here is a newborn who was so curious that while it’s mother looked on it stuck its head up alongside the litle boat and actually allowed me and everybody else on the boat to stroke his nose.

How cool was that! Amazing morning which lifted my spirits after a trying few days

The hotel I find has wi-fi but more importantly a bar where I enjoy some food, beer and margaritas. I get chatting to a retired couple from Austria who are on their third visit to Baja and enjoying the whale watching. The whales had come so close to their boat that they actually touched one earlier in the day.

I am also chatting to an American fisherman called Dave, who reminds me so much of my own friend Paul Matthews in North Wales. If I have the wave crave he is totally hooked on fishing, and is currently driving south for the winter to do some surf casting at a break he has heard of where 50lb Bass are frequently caught. It is an annual pilgrimage for him and he has brought his dog Zorra along with him, who entertains me by following her nose and running into somebody else’s room and creating an issue, when a waiter carries in some room service that the guest staying in the room had ordered. By the time I turn in, my legs have practically seized up and I am aching all over from the day’s events, which had only just started with digging a car out of a beach with a plate!

I sleep the sleep of the righteous though and am slow out of bed in the morning. As I am loading up one side of the car which is parked outside the hotel by the army barracks I close the door where upon the car decides to lock itself with the keys still inside! I can not F-ing believe my luck. I am really on a bad roll!!! I think the little green surf machine was just letting me know that I needed to treat it better, but it can think itself lucky there was nothing heavy to hand because I was about to go supernova on it!

I have to wait for the locksmith, but while I do I make a new friend who comes along to cheer me up.

Also just as the locksmith has finished, who should turn up but the two German cyclists I had met the day before. They aren’t stopping here but are headed my way so there is every chance I will see them again, possibly further south in Mexico or Guatemala so we hope to see one and other further down the road.

I take so long catching up on blog updates and sorting the latest car drama that it is already 4pm. I decide this is a holiday after all and after the last couple of days I need some rest so stay another night rather than just rushing off towards the horizon once more with only an hour of daylight to make headway. A big group of motorcyclists from Holland arrive and I have great night talking with them in the bar about road trips and motorbikes in general.

The mystery man, whose name I never got, takes me in his car all over town until we find Angel the son of the mechanic, and he eventually leads us both to Chico who is sure he can sort out my car. I then jump in his truck with his son in the back and we bounce all the way back to Punta Rosalito when a quick check of my car and they tell me I have split the sump wide open and there is a three inch gash in it. Now if I thought I was Terry F##kwit getting stuck on the sand last night, I know I am he today.

They tow me all the way out through the various desert ravines, dirt tracks, etc I had traversed on the way in without further incident, and drag my sorry self and the motor all the way to his ‘workshop’. I use the term loosely because it was a patch of ground next to Chico’s old caravan.

While they set to work on my car I play with Chico’s dogs wondering if I am going to get handed a huge bill for their efforts, which I have to say would be justified. They get the sump pan off, hammer the dents as flat as they can and then fill the tiny gap remaining with some sort of polymer bond that myself and Angel take a trip to the shop to buy. There is a police car outside the shop and on the way back to Chico’s place Angel and I muddle through a conversation in which he tells me to watch out for them because they are ‘corrupto’ and in on the drug trade in town. He even points out where it is going on, so everybody in town must know about it.

Angel and Chico spend all afternoon and into the early evening working on the car but just as the sun goes down I am good to go and frankly amazed that I have got off so lightly. Things could easily have been so much worse. When I ask what the bill is. Chico only wants 300 pesos which is about £15. I gave him £20 say ‘Adios’ and am wished well for the journey, but also told to watch out for rocks, before being on my way again.

I have to break my rule about not driving at night because there is nowhere to stay in town and the next hotel is 80km away. It passes without any real incident but there is an annoying habit of placing speed bumps without warning on the edge of towns in Baja, and I take air off on one, petrified that I might damage the sump on either take-off or landing! The car and I get to Guerrero Negro in one piece though I’m glad to say

Margaritta and Berneditto told me there is a much better road down to Punta Rosarito so I head back to Highway 1 and stop for fuel, where I am told the turning is 8km down the road. Sure enough the dirt track appears on queue and I bounce down it going really slowly to try and avoid the rocks.

Halfway down I am wondering if I am pushing my luck because it is ridiculously undulating at times, but barring a couple of loose stones I make it all 13km to the end. I race to the shore to see what the surf at ‘The Wall’ is like and am distinctly underwhelmed. It really doesn’t look anything special, but I go back to the car to get suited up and go in anyway, but am horrified to see a lake of oil forming under the car! I look underneath and see it pouring out of a hole in the sump, so I can’t use the car because I will probably seize the engine.

I can’t see anybody and am 20km from help so am thinking things are not really going well today. (Remember that I had only just been dragged out of the sand just under two hours ago!) I back track along the oil slick I have left on the path to see if anything has broken off, and cannot believe my luck when a white transit sized van bounces out of a side road, and all the more so when it has a young Australian couple in it. He had been surfing the Wall yesterday and they had stayed on a different part of the beach but are now heading to a different bit of the coast. I ask if they can give me a lift to the next town, which they say is no problem. I run back to the car to get my important stuff like passport, etc but when I have run back around the corner with my daysack the absolute w##kers have just buggered off fully knowing that means I am 20km from anybody or anything.

There is no choice but to suck it up and start walking, so I do so for three hours in the midday sun. I am struggling to get my head around the behaviour of the Aussie couple, and am dreaming up things to say, bones to break, curses to cast, etc in the event that I see them again as I stagger down the dirt road armed with my bottle of water. I would have taken pictures here but in my haste to get back to their truck I left my phone in the car. 10km in I already have several blisters and am actually being circled by the same sort of turkey vultures I had seen tucking into a donkey’s carcass the day before, and thinking this may end badly if I’m not careful.

After the full 20km stagger I stumble into the first building I find, which is a roadside restaurant whose only customers are a couple of cyclists called Fabi and Daniel from Germany. They are doing a trip similar to mine (www.tapinambur.de ) but can’t help me. Having cycled to Paris myself I know how hard their own trek is and I promise to make them a cup of tea if I see them again. The owner of the restaurant can’t help either so I have to stagger on two more miles until I get back to the fuel stop where I had asked for directions. A a bloke in the shop says he knows a mechanic. He offers to give me a lift so just maybe I might be ok…

I have a simply appalling night’s sleep waking every couple of hours in pain, cold or both at once, so it is no surprise that I am awake before dawn. It is too early to bother anybody else with my troubles so I spend an hour using a plastic plate to at least dig my car out of most of the sand it is bogged down in and lay a path of stones towards the harder sand. By 7am the sun has come up and I think I will have done enough that a tow out should be easy enough, (of course assuming I can find one) so decide to put the kettle on and have some breakfast.

I bought some camping gear in the US and it is the first time I have utilised it, but it works well and I have a great cup of tea with a couple of hob-nobs. Whilst noticing the fishing boats are heading out to sea from Santa Rosalito I spot dolphins fishing in the waist deep water of the shoreline, which is just about the most unique breakfast experience of my life.

After the brew I wander the 2km around the headland looking for help. It is still only 8am so the first people I meet are two yummy mummies called Margaritta and Berneditto, who are still in the pyjamas talking over the garden fence. I can’t say what they made of Stig of the Dump who has appeared from around the corner, armed only with the Spanish words for car, sand and beach which he has read in his phrasebook. With mime, some guess work and lots of furrowed brows all round we establish that all the men of the town have gone out fishing, however these two game birds decide they can help me themselves because my car is only a little ‘Vocho’.

Still in her PJs Margaritta goes and gets their pick-up truck, they both grab their kids and I am told to climb in the back. We drive back around the headland where my prep work pays off and we have the car out and off the beach in under 5 minutes. They don’t want anything for their help which is so kind, but I insist that they take some of the fruit pastilles from my stash for their kids. No pictures I’m afraid because I didn’t want to weird them out at any point by asking for a photo of them in their pyjamas, when they were only interested in helping me.

Note to Self – your car is a road car, not a Baja Buggy and should not be attempting beach crossings.

I pull off highway 1 towards Santa Rosalito which is a small fishing village just north of Punta Rosarito and ‘The Wall’ I was told the track to the break was bumpy so follow it south of the town until I get to a beautiful beach with a section of sand I have to cross. With my Sahara Surf experience I know to cross it you have to go as fast as possible, so thinking I’m Ari Vaatenan I take a long run up and gun it. I fly across the sand at first but 150m metres later I ease off at the wrong moment and I am now thinking I am Terry F##kwit because the bug is up to the door sills in sand and I am going nowhere.

The sun is going down and a quick check of the shore suggests I am almost certainly above the high water mark, and there seems little that I can do until the next day. There are worse places to spend the night too and once the sun disappears I am treated to a night sky which is simply breath taking, and the sort of thing the Griffith Observatory can only dream of. I take it all in with a few beef and pickle sandwiches washed down with a couple of bottles of beer, before turning in.

My Mexico rigging for the car entails the back seats being folded down like an estate car, which means I can no longer recline the front seats for sleeping purposes, so I contort myself into a position which feels like it would have made a good medieval torture before nodding off to the sound of the gentle waves breaking 20 metres away..

Whilst having a coffee and taking in the view from my beachfront balcony at the Estero Beach Resort I am pounced on by a young dog, who it turns out is owned by an American surfer called David who has treated his family to a few days there. We are having a chat about the local breaks and my plans, when he tells me that the jewel in the crown of the next section of coastline is the break known as ‘The Wall’ at Punta Rosarito. They think it will take me to days driving to get there and even though I am itching to get in the water I decide it can do my plans no harm for me to put some miles under the wheels of the little green surf machine.

I am driving all day and apart from a venue of Turkey Vultures picking the flesh of a dead donkey at the side of the road, there really wasn’t much to report other than the different types of desert that I cross in the bug, barely seeing a soul all day.

There was:

Curved desert

Cacti desert

Bushy desert

Dusty desert

Dark desert

Rocky desert

Fairground desert

Mountain desert 

A bit of everything desert

And finally dazzling desert

You may think that I have made a few moderations to my VW Beetle, but would be wrong.

The term Baja Beetle or Baja Bug refers to old VWs that people have heavily modified so that they can take them off road sometimes to race them across deserts, beaches, etc.

Some people really go to town on it and god knows how fast they rag these motors.

I’m happy just having added the roof rack to mine to for the Baja leg of this trip.

However having lost another day on what already a tight schedule acrodd Mexico I will probably be driving like a rally driver today to make up some ground.

Note To Self

If you are going to carry a hundred weight of guide books across the world it is probably a good idea to at least flick through them before you enter the relevant country.

To drive a US car through Mexico you need 3 things:

• A Tourist card, which is your ID whilst here
• A Temporary Importation Permit.
• A Bond to stop you selling the car

Driving south today I get to a major checkpoint and am asked for papers. I dont have them so am sent all the way back to the border to sort these. That was a full tank of fuel wasted, three hours queueing to get back into the US doing a u-turn at the first junction in California then joining the back of a two hour queue to get back in. At customs I am told I didn’t have to come over the border at all, but have to go to a small office in the back of beyond in Tijuana. (There would have no way of knowing this without having crossed the border though.)

It takes me an hour to find it and then another one to sort the paperwork out. Huge dose of Deja Vu driving all the way back to Ensenada. To rub the salt in it is a gloriously sunny day and the surf looks fantastic both times I drive past before  arriving again just as it is getting dark. However I make a better job of finding a place to stay as you can see, even if it was a bit more expensive.

Wifi allows the blog updates and for me to catch up on the BBC website.

Seeing that the Welsh rugby team has finally won a match, and away in Paris to boot is the silver lining I am clinging to on this very cloudy day!

I might actually get to go surfing tomorrow.

There is a hotel bar here which takes the edge of the day, and allows me to mingle with other people and have a few chats at the bar.

On the way back to my room after a few beers I enjoy a little chuckle that somebody has rock and roll’d the pool, which is right outside my bedroom.