THE BAJA 1997

Sandra & Bob Harvey
George & Harumi Ono
Len & Joanne Eden

Vancouver, B.C, Canada

This journey was taken from January 15 to March 15, 1997, and we traveled from Tijuana to Cabo San Lucas and back. We were traveling in large motorhomes and pulling cars, and were not looking to rough it, but to enjoy the area and see the sights in relative comfort. So the places we choose to stay at were campgrounds with full hook ups.

The first thing we had to do before crossing the border was get some pesos and insurance, both for the motorhome and the tow car. The pesos are easy as there are lots of moneychangers in San Ysidro at the border, and there are also lots of insurance agents.

The thing that really bothered us was how much liability insurance we should carry. You can get coverage from $20,000 right up to $150,000 and more, and, although the laws and liability are different in Mexico, no one wants to be caught with their pants down for a few bucks more of insurance. We ended up buying insurance for the full year, as it was cheaper than a daily or monthly rate, and $150,000 liability that was probably excessive. We just didn't feel safely covered with less than $40,000 that a lot of them were offering.

On crossing the border at Tijuana, we had a brief on-board inspection by Mexican Customs, and were told to get our tourist cards at the Ensanada Customs. On clearing the border we proceeded up a very steep hill and on to the Toll Highway that runs between Tijuana and Ensanada. We had to pass through three toll booths, and each one cost us 23 pesos for the motorhome and 12 for the tow car. The scenery was spectacular, the blue Pacific splashing up onto the shore in bright sunshine, and the road was roomy and in good shape. Since we had to get our tourist cards, and wanted to look around Ensanada, we decided to stay at the Estero Beach Hotel and RV resort.

Ensenada

We stayed a few days in the area and explored the blowhole at La Bufadora, the fish market, and the usual tourist traps in the downtown area. We also took a drive to the two large wineries out on the road to Tecate. Estero Beach Park was roomy, clean, and had a nice atmosphere - one of the better campgrounds on the Baja. Down side was 130-volt power - boy where our lights bright and water pressure low.

Ensenada-San Quintin

We only intended to travel about 200 Km and it took us three hours. The first 150 Km is real bad, very narrow, lots of potholes and broken roadway (they seem to be replacing parts of it). We really white knuckled it.

We stopped at the Old Mill RV Park. The park was OK, but lots of sand and the sites had concrete ramps for your rig. They have a restaurant - a little pricy but it looks pretty good. The biggest problem there was the road in, three miles of washboard and blowing sand, and it shook the heck out of the rigs, and it would be even worse on a 5th wheel.

One of our rigs had a minor mechanical problem so we stayed a couple of days. The area is noted for its agriculture, especially tomatos, but if you drive out to the coast, around the False Baja there are numerous Oyster farms - but be aware the roads are really rough.

San Quintin - Guerrero Negro 450 Km

The road is very narrow, but not as intimidating as the first day as we where more confident. Lots of up and down and sharp turns, but all of the really dangerous curves and gullys are well marked.

If you need gas, get it at the north entrance to El Rosario or at Villa Jesus Maria as they are usually less congested and both of these are major gas stations.

We had to go through a couple of military checks and one Agricultural, the one at the Monument and border between Baja Norte and Sur. We lost all of our vegetables and citrus, along with a baseball cap one of the inspectors asked for.

We stayed at the Malarimmo RV Park and all I'll say is: it's some place to park overnight! Narrow (sardine heaven), no water pressure, and 102 volt power (one site had 89 volts and lots of sand).

If they have a Caravan coming through you have to dry camp. On the way back we ran into that problem, but instead of dry camping we drove to a campground beside the Monument called Benito Juarez, and there you at least get a little room of your own on asphalt.

If you want to dry camp, stop at the restaurant just north of the Monument called La Espinita. They have a large parking lot for overnight parking (no charge).

Malarimmo does have Whale Tours but they are really expensive, mostly because they are so far from the whales. It takes about 3 to 4 hours for the tour. We decided to wait until we were on our way back, and we were glad we did.

Guerrero Negro is the midway point of the Baja, and when we went down this was the toughest driving of the whole journey. So if you only go this far, you've had all of the punishment and very few of the rewards.

Guerrero Negro - Santa Rosalia 225 Km

The road is still narrow but wider than previous, and a lot smoother. The hill going down into Santa Rosalia is real steep, with hair pin switch backs. This goes on for about 5 Km, so be cautious - it's not called The Road to Hell for nothing.

We stayed at the Las Palmas RV Park just south of town. This has clean grassy sites with full hookups. Low water pressure and electrical voltage (105 volts), but it does have a good laundry which none of the previous parks had.

Santa Rosalia is a pretty little town, clean, with lots of shade trees and some very interesting stores. It's well worth the time to just walk the streets. There was at one time a lot of French influence in the area because of the mine. The Boleo French bakery is kind of unique to visit. We also dropped into the Hotel Frances for a drink and a general tour of the area.

Santa Rosalia - Mulege 60 Km

We stayed at the Orchard RV Park, dusty but with very large sites. The Mulege area south of town, for about 10-30 miles, is the start of the beaches some describe as the most beautiful in all of Mexico.

We took our car and toured all of the beaches because this is where most of the campers go to dry camp. The beaches are pretty rough to get into with a big rig, but Playa Santispac, which is the best, is readily accessible if you can find a vacant spot.

The following is my brief analysis of the beaches in the area.

Playa Punta Arena: Two miles of rough road to a rocky beach with Cabanas for your RV for rent. Lots of shells on the beach.

Playa Santispac: Access 1/4 mile good road. Sandy beach, excellent salt water swimming, may be hard to get a beach front spot unless you arrive early in morning and are prepared to wait for a spot.

Playa Coyote: Access easy off the highway. Good beach. Some of the area is in deep shade in late afternoon and was fully occupied when we toured.

Playa Buenaventure: Access 1/2 mile. Sandy beaches mostly filled with winter inhabitants that look like they've been there all season.

El Requeson: Tough off highway access - 1/2 mile, Sandy beach with small picturesque tidal sand spit and island - some spots available.

Playa Armenta: Tough off highway access and 1/2 mile of very rough, beach path type road. Sandy beaches with some access (better for small rigs and campers).

Mulege - Loreto 140 Km

Real nice driving down the coast of the Sea of Cortez overlooking all the blue sea and sandy beaches listed above.

In Loreto we stayed at the Villas De Loreto RV Park. This is the best one in town. The Loreto Shores is where the Caravans go and the Elmoro has about six sites in a parking lot.

There are only about 16 sites at the Villas De Loreto, so it's hard to get into.

A Canadian owns the place, and the hostess was from Squamish B.C., which made it interesting for us as we could get a lot of local information and advice in English. Such as, where you can get fresh vegetables out of a local garden, or where the fish and clam mongers where located. If you're into golf they have a terrific 18-hole course just down the road at Nopolo.

Loreto - La Paz 375 Km

The road coming off the coast and going across to Ciudad Insurgentes is narrow and twisty, and it also has the same climb off the coast as you had going into Santa Rosalia, but not quite as steep. Once you get through the mountains, which are very picturesque, you get into the high plains right through Ciudad Constitucion and on down to La Paz.

There are some very large gas stations with easy access in Insurgentes and Constitucion

A word of warning, when you are coming into La Paz from the north you can get turned around very easily. But take note if you are stopping in La Paz: the road splits at the Whales Tail or Dove of Peace Monument, and all of the camping is on the road to the left.

We stayed at the Casa Blanca Trailer Park the first night, and we were told we could only stay one night because a caravan was coming in, and that was a good thing because we found one of the best campgrounds on the Baja at the Aquamarina RV Park. It's a little hard to get into, but well worth the trouble.

La Paz: This is a large city, and totally Mexican with most of their tourist trade coming from the Mainland. They have not had as much of the North American influence as the rest of Baja.

There are lots of things to see and do in La Paz. They have an excellent downtown area for shopping and dining, and they have a real nice Boardwalk with lots of bars and restaurants.

There is also a nice drive out Highway 11 past the ferry landing to the beach at Puerto Balandera, where the bay has about 2 to 3 feet of water with fish swimming everywhere when the tide is in, or a trip to Tecolote, the other beach in the area.

This is another area where you will find dry camping, and where you can look for shells and get a little snorkeling.

When we were in La Paz, they had a carnival celebrating February 5th. The festival was held on the weekend of Feb.7, 8, and 9, with a large parade and fireworks on the 9th. That was real interesting to see and hear the way they celebrate the holiday - lots of very load music and boy, they can sure get wound up at night. The parade was a real sight to see, lots of very decorative costumes and floats.

La Paz - Los Barriles 120 Km

We decided to take the full loop via Highway 1 and then back on Highway 19. The road to Los Barriles is very hilly, twisty and picturesque. We stayed at Martin Motel & RV resort, a real nice beach but the camping is a little close. The area is noted for the Wind Surfing and fishing, which most of the winter habitants do quite well. They have a couple of small shopping centers with restaurants

Los Barriles - San Jose Del Cabo 80 Km

The road to San Jose is quite good, and on the way down, just past the turn off to Santiago, they have a large green ball with a sun painted on it. This marks the Topic of Cancer.

There is only one RV park in San Jose, the Brisa del Mar RV Park and Motel. It is on the west side of town and can be tough to get into. The campground is right on the beach and you can walk for miles looking for shells, or just watching the surf.

You can swim in the surf, but you have to watch the undertow. The sites are a reasonable size, with all the hookups and it's close to shopping and golf. The area has a lot of Mexican character, and a stroll around the public market is unique.

We were going to camp in Cabo San Lucas, but looking at the campgrounds there we found them to be about a 1/2 mile off the beach, and away from everything, and we favored camping beside the ocean. So we commuted there instead (it's only 20 Km away) to look around. If you're looking for night life you're better off in San Lucas in a hotel or condo. We spent two days looking around and junk shopping, and that was enough.

There is lot to do in the Cabo area: golfing, tennis and lots of different beaches that you can drive to. It's still close enough to tour other small towns. For example, we drove back to Santiago to see the Zoo, and stopped at Miraflores to visit their leather factory (it's not much). The glass factory in San Lucas is worth while, as are a walk on playa El Medano and Pedregal beach, but the cost to go over to Lover's Beach turned me off.

I guess the most scenic site in the whole area has got to be the rock arch at landsend near Lover's Beach, and the view of the ocean from the Westin Regina Hotel on the road between San Jose and San Lucas. These just have to be photographed.

There's lots of good eating in the area. San Lucas naturally is more expensive and caters to the North American clientele. But I'll tell you, we had fish tacos for lunch many a day in San Jose at numerous small outdoor restaurants, like Rosy's, and they have got to be the best on the whole peninsula.

We also took a liking to the sweet breads the Mexican bake, like blayas, and we had a great time going around to the many panaderias (bakeries) in the area sampling their wares. We also bought a lot of our shrimp, oysters, fish and scallops off of the fish mongers who frequented the campground and usually got a good deal.

San Jose Cabo - Todos Santos 106 Km

The road north, on Highway 19 is a lot better than Highway 1, not nearly as many twists and turns nor as many hills. We stopped at the San Pedrito RV Park just south of Todos Santos. The park is about 1-1/2 miles off the main highway, on a sandy access road with lots of brush hanging onto the roadway.

You have to watch it or it will tear hell out of your rig. The campground is just off the beach and, when we were there, they were having sewer problems. Also, it can get pretty windy.

A lot of the caravans stop here and a few people we talked to on the way down also spent a lot of time there, but I guess we got spoiled in San Jose. We left after one night.

We took our cars and drove into Todos Santos and walked this pretty little town and naturally we had to go into "The Hotel California," made famous by the Eagles.

Todos Santos - La Paz 100 Km

The road to La Paz is quite flat from Todos Santos to La Paz, so we made pretty good time. We tried for Aquamarina again, but they were full, so we stayed at the La Paz RV Park, about two blocks away. This is a good park, not as nice as the Aquamarina, but I would rate it No. 2 in the area.

La Paz - Ciudad Constitucion 215 Km

The Agricultural inspection station just north of La Paz took all of our citrus again as we proceeded north. We stopped at Manfred's RV Trailer Park because we had heard from other campers that this was a good spot to home base in order to see the whales, and some of the areas along the Pacific Coast.

The campground is a well laid-out affair with lots of turn-around space, but like the entire region is on sand, and when the wind gets up it's everywhere. We talked to the owner Manfred about whale watching, and he made a phone call and set it all up. We would drive to Puerto Lopez Mateos and they would have boats available to take us out.

When we got there you could look across the bay and see the whales out there. We negotiated a price with the operator for 1 1/2 hour on the water with a guide, and believe me it was well worth it. Within 5 minutes of shore we were cruising around huge whales.

We had one of the babies coming over to investigate us in the boat, and it got so close the guide actually was able to pet it. Over the next hour or so we saw at least 20 more cruising around the boats. We got some excellent pictures of whales breaching, standing on their tails and, in general, just playing in the bay. As far as we were concerned 1 1/2 hours was plenty of time on the boat, especially when the whales where so close.

We also took a drive out to San Carlos. This is another area there they do a lot of whale watching, fishing and dry camping.

Ciudad Constitucion - Loreto 150 Km

Back to Loreto, we still like the town. Took our car on a side trip to San Javier to see the mission of San Francisco Javier, a remarkably preserved mission founded in 1699, but not completed until 1758. Beware that the road is extremely steep with lots of single-lane wash board, hairpin turns. If you go there use a high clearance tough vehicle. I lost a muffler on my Honda.

Loreto - Santa Rosalia 200 Km

Back to Las Palmas RV Park. On the way through the Mulege beach area we did notice some vacate spots on the beach

Santa Rosalia - Guerrero Negro 240 Km

I never realized how steep the hill was going into Santa Rosalia until we had to climb it coming out. It's a tough climb!

We stopped at San Ignacio on the way through and toured the mission. It's a nice place to stop and, on talking to others, is also a nice place to camp. We stayed at the Benito Juarez RV Park in Guerrero Negro, and we did not have to stop at the agricultural inspection station

Guerrero Negro - Colonia Vicente Guerrero 458 Km

It was the same road but it seemed a lot wider going north. I guess we were getting accustomed to it. The desert was all coming out in bloom and it was a very scenic drive north, except for the potholes.

We stayed at Posado Don Diego. It was real hard to find as the sign showing where to turn off the main road was demolished the week before in a car crash. There is a large Propane plant on the south side of town and, just before you get to the north end of the plants property line, there is a lane. If you go down this lane about 300 yards (there is another small campground on your right at about 100 yards) and stay on the left fork for about another 300 yards, you will be there.

They have a nice little bar and restaurant right in the office, I think a lot of the Caravans use this place for their wind-up party.

Colonia Vicente Guerrero - Ensenada 167 Km

The road was still pretty bad, and we did run into a 20-minute road closure due to road building, but we had about 10 Km's of better road then when we went down.

We stayed in Estero Beach again, and this time we went right into the tourist part of town to do our final shopping, and we found the goods were of a lot better quality than elsewhere. If you bargained hard you got good pricing. (As long as there were no cruise ships in port!)

Ensenada - Tecate & US Border 70 Km

We took Highway 3 out of Mexico because we where going to Yuma, and we found the road OK as it cut out some of the long hills you encounter coming over from San Diego, and it was shorter. American customs was short and to the point without any real line ups or delays to speak of.

SUMMARY AND SUGGESTIONS

On the whole we found the two-month trip very pleasurable, and to really see and experience everything we wanted we would not have shortened our trip in any way. On going down and listening to some of the campers' coming back in early January, we were a little leery about the road. But after driving it I think the best advise I could give anyone is that if you can handle your rig with confidence you can handle the Baja. The only time I got a little leery was when I was coming head on to another RV.

Campgrounds:

The Baja as we all know is just one big desert hence, nearly all the campgrounds are prone to have blowing sand - you will get it throughout your rig.

Electricity:

The state of the electrical power varied from 100 volts to 130 volts (mostly on the lower end). Very few had 30 amp services, most of them having only 15 amp service, and lots of live ground wires. Check the power sources before you use your electrical appliances, e.g., microwaves, etc.. We lost one going down.

Water:

We used their water full time for washing only. We bought bottle water (real cheap) for drinking, ice cubes and washing vegetables, etc.. The water pressure is real bad in most places, so we filled our tanks and used the pump when the pressure was too low.

Money:

We started out using traveler's cheques, but we switched over to using the ATM's . All of the campgrounds want their fees in US Dollars. They do take pesos, but they convert their fees from US dollars to pesos at a very poor rate of exchange. They also give you pesos back as change from your traveler's cheques, again at a poor rate of exchange.

The best way we found was to have small denomination traveler's cheques for camping and to use pesos for everything else (we got them from the ATM's). We found a lot of the Banks didn't like to cash traveler's cheques unless you had your passport and lots of other ID, and even then only $100 or $200 at a time, and only at certain times of the day

You do get a good rate of exchange from your American or Canadian accounts via their ATM's, but they also have their problems. We ran into a couple of tourists who put their card into a ATM and got nothing out, and on checking with their home bank found that their accounts where debited. If you keep close records of your transactions I understand your bank can trace them and you can recover the transaction. In any case if the machine doesn't seem to be working properly, phone your bank. Only use machines in a bank so if you are having problems someone there may be able to help.

Like most people now, the Mexicans also use their ATM's to a great extent, but the banks seem to be reluctant to put a lot of money in them. So they usually run out of money around 3 or 4 o'clock, just after the banks close. So go early, especially on a Friday, and forget Sunday.

If you intend on using your card make sure you verify with your bank before you leave that you can use it in the country you are going to. One of the couples we went with were having trouble getting access, so they phoned their bank to get their account number adjusted so they could get access. You should note that even if your card says you can get access (such as if you are on the PLUS system) it may not work. There are 4 or 5 different banks in Mexico and though they all have the right symbols on their machines, we found they don't all seem to have the same computer access to the banks in Canada and the US. We also had to try different banks until we found which banking company would accept our cards.

Cellular Phones:

We acquired a cellular phone on the B network just prior to leaving home, and being advised we would have access to the international network. We assumed our families would be able to get in touch with us in Mexico whenever we where within cell coverage. Wrong! As soon as we left the border area we lost all use of our phone until we arrived back two months later. We could get a strong signal in the major centers, but we were unable to even call the local roam number for activation.

We went to the Cell Companies in the area and they could not activate the phone, unless of course we signed up with them, got a Mexican number (which would defeat our purpose), and have it deactivated on leaving the country. On arriving home we found out that maybe our server should have registered our phone with the International roamer service and maybe, after registering it, it may work. (This is still on going with no clear outcome, but we did see a lot of campers using their cellular phones.)

Len Eden (reden@axionet.com)