Ridiculous off-road excursion

  Guerrero Negro, Mexico
Sunday, January 21, 2007

Today our goal was to drive to El Rosario. On the way we stopped off at San Vincente Ferrer, a mission established in 1780 by the Dominicans whose main focus was to bring Christianity to the indigenous people of the Baja. As you will see from the photographs, the preservation of the site was good, however we wonder how long the remaining structure will be around, when wandering amongst the site without any barriers is permitted. Let's all keep our fingers crossed. While there, we ran into a couple from Oregon who were approached by a little boy to walk their dog. His name was Emmanuel and he was loving the dog. They ran around the ruins for at least half an hour. The little kid was decked out in a cowboy hat, jeans, boots and leather vest but he would not stop running with the dog. The dog was also having a great time as he refused to get back into the sedan when his owners wanted to leave....'twas a match made in heaven.

Emmanuel y el perro

Back on the highway, and speaking of dogs, Mike started a count of how many dead dogs he saw along the side of the road. Within a couple hundred kilometres, he counted nine. It was rather troubling that no-one even cared enough to remove them from the side of the road. We figure that since dogs run rampant around the country it's never hard to replace a 'lost' dog. Also along the highway we passed a row of RV's pulled over to the side. Thinking there was something going on that we should be aware of, we pulled over to enquire. When we were advised that they were a caravan of retiree's that simply stopped for lunch, we felt kinda silly. Oh well, better to look silly than to run into unexpected issues. Like when you roll up to a military checkpoint and when asked whether or not Mike is your noveo (boyfriend) and you reply with no, mi permitido (no, my permitted), when what you really wanted to say was no mi prometido (no, my fiancé). This can lead to the officer telling Mike to get back into the vehicle so he can ask you some questions in private. With your limited Spanish, you believe he is asking you how long the two of you have been together, so you tell him seis anos (six years). The officer is serious the entire time and is somewhat perturbed by your reply. Realizing he is not going to get very far with you, he lets you back into the vehicle so you can both proceed on your way. Once inside the vehicle you brag a little to Mike that you think the officer was hitting on you, but after further consideration, you think it is much more feasible that he was concerned for your safety and was most likely checking to see if they needed to detain the man that was 'permitting' me to be there. Whoops....gotta be more careful when talking to military officials.

We were excited to have reached El Rosario as we had read a lot about a certain 'Mama Espinoza' and all the good deeds she did for the city, so we were curious to see the museum and find out more about this amazing woman.

Mike at Museo Espinoza

Her family travelled across Mexico to the Baja in the early 1900's in the peak time of a Revolution. Later, her family fled to California where they remained for fourteen years before returning to the Baja. At the time, Mama Espinoza was the only English speaking person in the village and whenever a tourist stopped by that only spoke English, they were always directed her way. Then one day in the mid 1900's a small Cessna made an emergency landing near El Rosario. There were no major injuries, however the all-American crew / passengers were shaken up and delivered to Mama Espinoza who took them in and fed them. However due to the drought there was not much food to go around and definitely no medical supplies of any sort. One passenger was in a state of shock and needed to be transported to the next major town for medical attention. Mama Espinoza was rather embarrassed at the fact that she, as well as the town, had not much to offer these travellers and apologized profusely for all they lacked. This heartfelt apology as well as the genuine kindness bestowed upon them, gained the sympathy of the travellers. Several months after returning to the United States, a crew of doctors flew back to El Rosario and offered to treat any and all medical maladies that needed tending to. Since there was no clinic, they took over Mama Espinoza's residence and used the kitchen table as an examination table. This one trip down was not enough to treat all that needed help, so another trip was planned. These trips soon tuned into regular occurrences and it wasn't long before the Doctor's were referred to as the "Flying Samaritans". The museum is incredibly informative and even has the original wagon the family used during the journey across Mexico. There is also a restaurant and small motel across the way that is all family run. We stopped into the restaurant and had a couple of cervecas (beers) to help the cause. That was when we discovered that 'Mama Espinoza's' restaurant is also a checkpoint in the Baja 1000 (a car rally race beginning in Tijuana and ending in La Paz). Mama Espinoza has definitely done a lot in her ninety-nine years on this earth and still lives behind the restaurant.

While enjoying our cervecas, we enquired about camping and were advised that we could camp for free on the beach and it was only a five minute drive. Great, we thought as we headed out with the directions to "always go right". Almost immediately we wondered if something may have been lost in translation as we headed down a sand road that was big enough for only one vehicle and meandered through, up and over a mountain range. Poor 'Nilla got her workout that day. There were points where we would ascend a hill, have enough room at the top to nearly park all four wheels and then it went straight downhill. The scariest part was that unless you stopped at the top....you could not see the road in front of you as it dropped off. To boot, there were ruts and holes all over the road. The van was getting tossed from side to side so much that a pantry door flew open and all the contents landed on the floor....thankfully no glass broke, so the cleanup was minor. Oh yeah, and Mike had left his coffee carafe on the counter and that fell over, spilling coffee everywhere....that was more of a cleanup. At about fifteen minutes into the trek, we came to a fork in the road. Not heeding the advice of "always go right", we headed left through a dried up riverbed. That road spit us out next to a fenced field, which we drove into, only to promptly change our minds and turn around when we happened across a couple of cows out for dinner. It was nearing 5 pm and we decided to err on the side of safety and head back to town. Fortunately we found our way out of the mountainous maze and back to the safety of Mama Espinoza's where we were able to park our rig next to the bathroom for the night. Thanks Mama...especially for the cleanest bathrooms we have seen since entering the Baja. Oh and just to note, we were informed that we were in fact on the correct road to the beach. However something seemed to be lost in translation again; what we though was a five minute trip was actually a five mile trip. We really gotta start getting this Spanish thing down.

Photos of Jan 21:  http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=16xvaj2z.ayscklwf&Uy=ede5ea&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&UV=867334827839_796786410207

We got up early the next day to make the 350 kilometre drive through the mountains. What an interesting drive that was when the mountains gave way to a flat countryside that had nothing more than cacti to offer as a view. Not a bad view though as some of the cacti were at least three times the size of Michael.

Gigantic Cactus

Then all of a sudden we came across a gigantic pile of rocks in the middle of nowhere. Weird. The road itself was another challenge. With literally only enough room between the lines to barely keep all four tires, the task of driving became more daunting when the road itself drops off at the white line. There were many a white knuckle corners for Geraldine and several for Michael as he was forced to steer the van towards, rather than away from, semi-trucks to avoid the back draft pushing us off the road completely. But we made it in one piece to Guerrero Negro, home of Grey Whale watching during the mating season (December - March), where we found a 'campsite' (parking lot) right alongside the lagoon to spend the night. Knowing that the average charge for a guided boat tour is $50 USD per person, we prepared ourselves to haggle with the boatmen in the morning for a better deal. They guarantee you will see some whales as roughly 1500 come here to mate each year before they head back up to Canada and beyond. While bunkering down for the night we actually heard the whales talking amongst themselves, which got us even more in the mood....to see the whales.

Photos of Jan 22:  http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=16xvaj2z.c052g3fj&Uy=i2i6p2&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0