Three Years Ago: Met a Blonde with a Tain

Three years ago I painfully steered the blue truck through some salty water when passing the road at low tide to reach...

...a fantastic camp spot, directly at the Sea of Cortez' warm waters.

Beautiful kayaking in the early morning hours...

...and as I paddled to a deserted island...

...I've met a topless blue eyed blonde with a severe sun tain.

Topless Blondes - One of your favorite blog posts

Exactly two years ago I posted "Topless Blondes" which has become one of your favorite, most clicked blog posts on the blue truck blog.

I wonder how many disappointed goolge search guys I have created...

Two Years Ago @ Playa Coyote

Beautiful Beach Camping and Kayaking on the Baja at the Sea of Cortez, south of Mulege.

Playa Coyote, Coordinates: N26°42.835', W111°54.248'

Two Years Ago

Sunday night flashback. 22. September 2011, Baja California. 

USA standing strong in Mexico

The USA are standing united - even in a supermarket in Mexico.

More pictures of beautiful Camping on Baja

Check out my German blog for some more pictures of beautiful campsites on Baja:

Camping pictures on Baja

Pemex Santa Rosalia

Don't fuel your car, truck or bike at the fuel station in Santa Rosalia, I have not met any one that has not been cheeted there. Wrong change, wrongly calibrated pump, the full program. Mulegé, I heard has pumps out of calibration, you pay for about 10% more than what you really have in your tank. All of a sudden your 20 liter canister will have 22 liter capacity.

Loreto, use the stations in town rather than the ones at Mex 1. I filled up there, agreed for a fix amount of liters and price and all worked smooth and painless.

Playa Coyote

A fantastic place to stay. Drive south on Mex 1 after leaving Mulege, you will pass a couple of beaches, after a while the road is winding down and you'll see an old beaten up and closed gate of Playa Coyote Beach Resort & RV park, slow down, a little after that a gravel turn off to the left will take you to a sign, difficult to see in the bushes "Playa Coyote" take a right turn in the trees follow the path. If it is high tide there is a little bit of sea that covers the road but drivable even in an RV or with a motorbike.

Pick a place at the beach. There are pit toilets no other amenities though. ME$ 80 per nite, will be collected. Only if you get a receipt you are paying to the right person.

the last 500 meters road to the beach

dining room view

please close the door after you

:-)

my camp, beautiful place to kayak

sunrise kayak trip

very clear water, bring your mask and snorchel

totally alone, on a beach a couple of miles down south along the shore

breakfast

Some times dinner is not take out but rather walk in

Had about everything ready to cook chinese sweet & sour for dinner, but than decided to go and eat out anyway.

Topless Blondes

Barbie just wanted to get tained, topless nontheless. She did not wanna use any sun-blocker. "Blondes get tained faster..." she said. Now, mmh, now Barbie is - Toast.

But she keeps on smiling.

Way to Bahia de Los Angeles and on

some times you're better off taking the Baja race track than staying on the rough  main road

The road south from San Felipe is good, not always paved but in very good condition. Easily doable with any passenger vehicle or a motorbike. Wouldn't maybe bring a Porsche but otherwhise pretty easy. There is one military check-point on the way and you might have guys with automatic guns searching your vehicle. I crossed a couple of military Hummers full of soldiars with guns and everything. I kept waving and smiling at them friendly, they did too. Once I crossed a white pick-up van with guys on the back with guns, they looked like military too and I waved and smiled and they all waved back.

Left over's from the race form little shrines

Coco's Corner: You will almost have to stop at Coco's. Since he has the road kind of barricaded off and guids the rare trafic through his yard. He will sell you a Coke or a Modelo and share some of his stories with you. Coco has no legs from the knees down but will move around like that rather quickly. He is running his "Coco's Corner" since over 21 years and had the world visiting him. His shelter is full of signed ladies underwear and bras of all types and sizes and he has pictures and parts and pieces of many Baja race cars or bikes. When I was there one Hummer after the other pulled up, the machine-gun guys where super nice and friendly. Soon Coco run out of cold drinks. Coco's corner is even on the maps. As John told me, that's a have to. The road back to Mex 1 is easy and uneventful.

In the middle of the desert I found a boat...

In Bahia de Los Angeles I camped at "Daggett's Campground & Sport Fishing" cool and easy place, directly at the beach. Turn right when you get to the roundabout and head North, just less than a kilometer and you'll see the sign to the right. There are several rigs that seem to be parked there permanently but they are all parked in the back, so you get the front row beach sites. There is no power or water at the sites but they have toilets and showers and a "drink water" fosset with non-salty water. The water in the sea of Cortes is beautifully clear. I did some Kayaking down into the bay and back. Strong winds from the West make it very hard to paddle back should you decide to head for one of the 5 islands in front of you when you are at the Daggett's. Therefore I did not... There must be good fishing there, I met a couple of guys from Santa Barbara and they said they would come here every year to fish.

bedroom view

Camping at Daggett's Campground

While I was Kayaking near the shore I could see many beautiful colored fishes, just the kind of type that used to be on my doctors assistance desk in a big fish bowl when I was a tiny little kid and got my flue shots. Just before I was about to turn around to head back North a group of dophins where passing by about 50 meters in front of me. It was beautiful, they were jumping like they would have gone to school at sea world.

The road further down is easy, some sandy spots but doable with a passenger car up until the cross road where it goes east to San Francisquito and South-West to El Arco. For a short while it gets a little challanging, not really four wheel drive territory but you want a car with high ground clearance. Four wheel drive does not hurt either. More important though, I would say are good tires and a full size spare. I also drove up to the Mission Santa Gertrudis, surprisingly well marked everywhere and down from there on a Baja 500 style sand piste, all staight with some wash boards but if you speed it up high enough you'll kind of fly over them and your car will stop rattleing. Soon you'll be back on Mex 1. 

The road to El Arco...

...can be a little rough

But the finale is Baja 500 alike

Mexico first day

The border crossing was rather painless. Actually after all I heard and read about it I must say it was fairly straight forward. The only thing; one really has to know what to do, because if you happen to get a green light in the nothing to declare line, you’re good to go – so you think – no one will stop you or tell you that you have to get your tarjeta de turistico at the Migracion, neither to go to the banjercito to get your car temporarily imported. Luckily for me, my friends John & Silvia in Redondo Beach, where I was happily staying for the last couple of days have prepared me well. John has extensive knowledge of Mexico, many trips that he led as tour guide as well as motorcycle and car trips. He spent a lot of time with me, figuring out a red line for me through the country.

And also as John predicted, I could not even stop at the US border to get rid of my green three months slip stapled into my passport. While heading south across the border in Calexico passing the US immigration building everything is fenced off, two lanes become one and there is no place to park neither a way to walk across to the other, the US side. So I went on, without stopping and still have the card in my passport. I am sure the immigration officer up at the top of the world highway in Alaska who got so excited about me re-entering the USA after my time in northern Canada went into the immigration system this morning to check whether that crazy Swiss guy with his blue truck was doing as he told him to. And he’ll be even more upset with me now thinking I was still in the land of the free. So next time I’ll enter the USA I will probably get the supermega “Taliban treatment” at the border. All that said, I will check the immigration homepage, maybe there is a place I could send the little green paper in with a copy of my entry stamp into Mexico, might be the way to get rid of my “red flag” in the US immigration system and at the same time of the green slip.

I love the US; a wonderful, very beautiful country with a lot of open minded, tolerant people, however if you are a tourist wanting to spend your savings in the US rather than in your own country or somewhere else, the process at the entry points into the country is a rather intimidating one. The style of these guys working there must be something they get specifically trained on, sometimes this pseudo authority comes across almost a little comical for an official dealing with, even though not another official or an authority, but still with an adult.

Currently I am camping at the Villa Marina Campo Touristico (N30°54.945’ W114°42.863’), a fairly nice campground directly at the beach about 18 km South of San Felipe. The front row is all taken up by RV’s that seem to have found their final resting place here and except for two none of the snowbirds have arrived yet. But the second and third row are sheltered for shade and offer a roof terrace with fantastic views over the ocean, the empty beach and on the other side into the hills. The facilities are a little beaten up but everything works and is clean. There are showers (without shower heads but a pipe coming out of the wall and the water runs with sufficient pressure); clean flushing toilets and everything seems very quiet, clean and safe. To get here take a right turn at the roundabout in San Felipe towards the airport, which is signed. About 8 km down the road the paved road to the airport makes a sharp right turn shortly after that turn left, there is a bunch of “property & land for sale” signs pointing in that direction and the road is still paved and in fair conditions. About 7km down that road you will see a large sign and a short gravel road leads you to the beach and the campground.

Shaded Campsite

Sunrise from the roof terrace

As you may have noticed I have changed my blogging a little, inspired by John and looking at several blogs with him I will turn my English blog a bit more into something hopefully useful for those of you travelling too, or planning a trip to those countries I am visiting. My German blog will remain more a story book of what I experience, who I run into on my trip and how I am digesting all the impressions I get while being on the road. Hope that keeps it nice and interesting for those of you speaking both languages and give you a little more useful stuff to read should you be on the road yourselves.

Feedback is always welcome, looking forward to your comments.