Baja: Round One
February 2005
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Hola everyone! We are currently back in the states so we thought we would take the opportunity to share some pictures and update everyone with the latest news from the road. We headed out from Dana Point on January 7th to Anza-Borrego State Park for two nights before heading south of the border. Anza-Borrego was crazy, we did a 4 mile round trip hike to the Borrego Palm Canyon oasis which ended up being good bog. The rain that fell in SoCal around Halloween and Thanksgiving flooded the heck out of the canyon and basically erased the trail and turned what used to be a cruiser hike into a full on trail finding, rock hopping and river crossing test piece. When we finally arrived at the oasis we found that most of the palm trees had fallen during the floods. It was still spectacular as there were about 30 or 40 remaining palm trees. After our second night we packed up and headed to Calexico for supplies and Mexican insurance and before crossing the border into Mexicali. The border crossing was mellow so we drove the smooth paved road from the border to San Felipe arriving by dusk. We continued a few miles south to where the road turned to dirt and then pulled off on a dirt road for our first night of Mexican camping.
When we woke the next morning we were greeted by a beautiful sunrise over the Sea of Cortez. We were excited to meet up with our friends Ryan and Lisa so we hit the road and headed south. The day turned into our first significant off road session as the road from Puertocitos to highway 1 totaled out to be 100 miles of dirt road bogging. The cool thing was that we drove all 100 miles to highway 1 and had enough daylight to continue south and then west arriving at Santa Rosalillita late in the afternoon. It was an amazing feeling pulling into such a remote place to see our friends Ryan and Lisa out surfing the perfect point break in front of camp. Eric pulled the boards off the roof and was out catching some waves before it got too dark to surf. The next morning, we all went and surfed this little cove about a half mile from camp since the point break needs a low tide to work. It was so amazing to have the entire cove to ourselves for the day. Sarah progressed significantly with each wave and Lisa, who was just learning to surf, was standing up and catching rides by the end of the session.
We spent a couple of nights at Punta Santa Rosalillita and then decided to head over to Bahia De Concepcion since the surf had gone pretty flat. Bahia De Concepcion was very relaxing and also pretty windy in the afternoons. Ryan and his friend Billy from Colorado had white water kayaks so Eric decided to seize the day and learn how to Eskimo roll with Ryan’s help, now he is ready to try it out in an actual river. There was this cool little island about a mile off the beach from camp so all four of us decided to take two longboards and two kayaks and head for the island. Ryan and Eric were paddling the longboards while Lisa and Sarah were in the kayaks. We were all surprised at how much effort it took to paddle all the way to the island especially since the wind picked up about half way through the journey and paddling a white water kayak in a straight line was a challenge. The paddle back to camp was not as bad since we had the wind at our backs which was good news for us since we were all pretty worked from the journey to the island.
The longer we went without surfing the more we all wanted to get back to the waves so we decided to pack it up and head for the Punta Conejos area of the pacific coast. We found a great little camp spot north of Punta Conejos and camped for the night. The next couple of days we drove almost 200 miles of dirt roads searching for the best surf. Ryan and Eric found some waves to test their shortboarding skills but the surf was just a bit too big and heavy for longboarding. The big story of the next couple days was when we found ourselves near Los Innocentes on a VERY primitive sandy “road” looking for camping and got into some trouble. About two miles into it we decided it was a bit too primitive for us and that we needed to turn around. The road had a large sandy bank on one side and a large tidal flat on the other side. Ryan and Lisa tested the waters and tried to make a U turn by way of the tidal flat, about halfway through the turn, their 4x4 Toyota Tacoma bogged down in the hidden mud of the tidal flat. We all put our heads together and tried to use our resources to dig out but quickly learned that the mud was too wet and deep for digging out. Eventually, we decided to try the van’s winch to see if it could help. Did it ever! We literally yanked the truck out of the mud and celebrated by taking some pictures and cracking open some beers back at camp. That night we were greeted by the only resident for miles, Jesus (pronounced Hey Soos). We shared a meal and tried to get to know our new friend by speaking Spanish and teaching him some English. When we woke up the next morning Eric discovered that something was wrong with our van’s pop-top. Not knowing what had happened we spent the day driving the remaining miles of dirt roads to the town of Todos Santos to get in touch with Sportsmobile. We were able to use our cell phone to reach Sportsmobile and made a plan to head back to Fresno, CA to have the top repaired. Luckily, they couldn’t get us in for a week so we decided to continue traveling with Ryan and Lisa for the remainder of their time in Baja. Over the next couple days we surfed a fun little reef break on the beach where we camped east of Cabo San Lucas. We then decided to head back to Santa Rosalillita for the rest of our time in Baja. Santa Rosalillita greeted us with an empty camp at the point and much bigger swell then when we left. The next 3 days we surfed until we couldn’t surf anymore and watched the girls really catch the surfing bug. Ryan and Lisa had to leave a day before us so we had one final day of surfing the point completely by ourselves. On that final day Sarah started getting some really good rides and found herself on her first glassy face -- you go girl!!! The surf and camping were so good that we agreed to return to our spot as soon as we got the van fixed.
While in Baja we were so lucky to spot grey whales playing as they traveled toward the sea of Cortez on numerous occasions and dolphins surfing the same waves we were surfing as they jumped for joy while gliding down the face of the wave. The days and nights brought us many amazing sunsets, sunrises and even moon rises.
Crossing the border back into the U.S. presented us with the stark socioeconomic differences between the two countries. The amount of U.S. consumerism of tacky tourist items at the border next to so many poor young mothers asking for, and grateful for receiving, something as simple as saltines for their children really drove home how fortunate we are in this country to have so many opportunities. When we rolled across the border, we checked messages and found that our little van problem was a blessing in disguise. Sarah’s mom had been trying desperately to get in touch with us by phone. Apparently Microsoft had continued to pay Sarah for several paychecks after her end date. While they reversed two of the payments (Microsofties will get a kick out of this one), one of three payroll departments somehow decided to turn the third erroneous payment over to a collections agency rather than calling our cell phone to arrange repayment or simply reversing the third payment as they had the first two. We had exactly one day after returning to the states to resolve the problem or we would have had a nice fat ding on our credit report. We got the repayment arranged just in time and then called back Sarah’s mom to let her know we had taken care of the problem. Mary Jo then said, “There is just one other thing . . . .” We had received a parking ticket in Redmond, Oregon – a town we hadn’t even visited or passed through. After all that, Sarah’s mom, who has been taking care of our mail while we are on the road, said she was scared to check her mail for fear of what random thing might show up for us next! After a fiesta of phone calls we figured out that the ticket was issued to a red Ford Ranger with Oregon plates bearing the same number as our license plate. Another paperwork mixup. Lucky us! Seriously, we feel fortunate to have come back in time to deal with these random events. Besides, if things happen in threes we should be good to go for a while now!
After a brief stop at our friends’ place outside of Monrovia (thanks for hosting us with such little notice Camp Boghossian!) we charged straight to Fresno and settled into a hotel room so that the van could be worked on. The folks at Sportsmobile took care of our pop top problem and we decided to make the most of the time in Fresno by getting in touch with family, taking long showers, watching the Winter X Games on TV, getting Bruce groomed, re-supplying and making some modifications to the van. Now we are all ready for Baja Round 2 so stay tuned and wish us luck!
Safe travels, Eric, Sarah & Bruce