Baja
Our first night camping was at St Thomas. A funny experience. We were at a swimming resort (balneario - pools, bbq and space for camping) but they have a sign that says 'no moto'. Apparently bikers have a bad rep here (grrr to all of the loud drunken dirt bikers). Anyways, the guy from the restaurant across the road started to speak in english to ask if we needed help. Seeing he was thinking of potential customers, we got him to speak nicely to the owners of the pool place, and voila, we had a camping spot. All was good except for dirty looks from the guy who had told us 'no moto' and pointed to the sign.
Second night was in a town called El Roasario. Cute, and we managed a dirt road to the coast to see and smell the ocean for the first time in 3 months. The sea smells so good when you haven't been near it for so long.
From here, we wanted warmth rather than the cold pacific coast winds (we were back to riding in two wool jumpers, jacket liners, and windproof jackets), so we headed to Bahia de los Angeles on the east coast on the sea of cortez. The drive was stunning - finally some real desert; its a truely awesome landscape. And it goes all of the way to the sea on the east coast. Hot it was, 40+ and humid (70%). Perfect for sitting in the shade and learning spanish. The local taquilerras (tacos, tortillas and coke) are like chippies in NZ. They're cheap, tasty and everyone gathers to chat. So we had lots of fun practicing/learning spanish with friendly locals who corrected our grammar, took us to try and find someone who sold tobacco, and just made nice conversation. More than we can say for the campground hosts. It was a nice place with effort put in, but they were about as friendly as rocks. And very rich (4 new cars/trucks, a nice house, several boats). Must be the money. Still, kids are the same everywhere; their kids were on the roof stealing wifi from the neighbouring restaurant, just like we have been doing!
Liking the heat, but disliking the camp hosts, we headed south on the dirt road to Punta Sanfransisquito. A dam bumpy and sandy 100mile road to nice beach, but yucky people at the end. Wanted us to pay $us40 for a shack on the beach. What a joke. Sensing they could take more than our money, we headed back to the ranch we had spotted earlier (and got fuel at) and arranged to camp on their lawn (sand) for $12us (the standard camping fee). We had a great time trying to chat with the gauchos who spoke no english whatsoever. They were lovely guys; they were saying they were bad for not knowing english, and we just kept saying no, its us who can't speak spanish. A great place to practice anyway, but very tiring after a 10 hours in the heat on the bikes (40+ means you also need to carry around 3-4litres water per person per day - that's an extra 9-12kgs for 2 days!).
Next day we took our poor aching arms and butts and sweatty stinky bodies over another 80miles (120km) of the worst corrogations ever, and headed to this little junction town (Vizcaino) part way between Guerrero Negro and the east coast. Great little hotel for $45us (and boy did we need it) and free wifi! Old, colonial style house with rooms put into it with outside doors, window shutters and cute little bathrooms with fresh water. Met an american expat from mexico city last night, who was telling us about the water issues. There are no rivers or dams here, and the peninsula is about 2500km long, and about 200km wide, so all of the water is either from aquaifers, or trucked in. Water is therefore very valuable; which causes problems when miners want to use it in their new operations. Apparently there is a fued boiling at the moment near this town. Vizcaino is close to the west coast, so its a bit cooler which is good, and super friendly. We liked the peace (no yappy dogs at night), cool air and green fruit trees so much we decided on a second night (nosotros gustamos otro noche por favor) before continuing across back to the east on the cris-cross that is mex 1, Baha. Gives us a chance to finally update the site, enjoy being clean, get to the bank, and practice our spanish some more.
Maybe mexico was a little crazy of an idea without spanish. Maybe we are a little crazy. Chris did have a little - a course 7 years ago of 2 hours a week for 12 weeks. Baha was our choice for this reason - a little english is spoken, its the non-peak season (too hot for the poor darling californians) so people are not overly tired from tourists, and it would give us a chance to ease into mexican travel. So we planned (well, as far as we go with planning) a 3-4 week visit to the peninsula, armed with spanish grammar books, and spanish for dummies tapes and book on our computers, oh, and some mexico guide books seeing as we didn't get around to planning this leg of the trip while in the USA (time just ran away from us there). Our limited spanish is enough to read around half of the road signs, ask for directions, introduce ourselves, get a place to stay and get feed. It will be good to eat something other than carne asada con queso (chopped steak with cheese for alan), but we are slowly improving allowing 2-4 hours a day for study.
Mexico is different to asia; few bikes, fast traffic, much more expensive (but not much more developed), but very relaxed and (mostly) very friendly. Pretty easy really. And no, we have no intention of going to Cabo (san lucas), but hopefully some snorkelling (no reef yet), and some more beaches before we catch the ferry from la paz to Matalazan. And a lot more spanish practice!
