Mex 05'-3: Update 3/1/05 The entire journal starts at -> Mexico 05’ <-
Carnival:
It’s carnival time and La Paz is said to be one of the best in Mexico. The bloody marys are going and we’re preparing for the bus ride, I think it leaves around 1:00PM but I’m not sure. We get there at 12:30, a jug of bloodys in hand for the ride. Hanging out on the street where the bus stops is not great, a white stone wall about 8 feet high and Baja dirt. We’re waiting and waiting. Across the street is the parque central, people hang out there...3:00PM came, bloodys gone and still no bus? Hey, part of adventure travel is “The unknown” and the art is to make the best of it. A local bar, ‘Shut Up Franks’ has a 2 for 1 happy hour starting at 3:00PM, No Problem.
Bus stop:
Still one more day of carnival to go so we’re at the bus stop before 8:00AM. Mexico has the best grenadine in the world, that with fresh squeezed OJ is what a sunrise is meant to taste like. A jug in hand we have the full adventure traveler spirit in us. 9:00AM, 10:00AM, 11, 12. 12:30 the bus shows up and we…are…. primed! We get to La Paz just when things started opening up. Fun time, too much fun.
See this woman in the middle, after this shot she cracked a confetti egg ever Heidi’s head then later over mine. The mood here is wild.
Broken down in Mexico: A week ago we lost clutch fluid and hardly made it back to the hotel. No problem, I’ll add fluid and bleed it tomorrow. The next day I find the clutch fluid bleed valve rusted shut. Not good, I don’t want to break the thing in Mexico!
I’ve had to add fluid every day now for the last week but today we had to cancel the trip to the beach. Clutch fluid may be cheap but now I can’t even make it out to the street without loosing the clutch, no fun. While traveling long term in Mexico or any foreign country it’s sometimes good to get to know the local people around you. Mari, the day person at the hotel has a cousin that brings her kids to the pool some days. Her husband Christian pulls up in a jeep wrangler and I find out he’s a mechanic. There are a lot of auto mechanics here in the Baja, I’m sure partly out of pure need. Just an hour ago Christian drives our jeep to a shop at his house, not easy without a clutch, I followed in his truck. He jacks it up and we both crawl under, same conclusion, blown slave cylinder. You can tell even when you don’t 100% understand the language when someone is absolutely confident in a task. Christian is replacing the slave cylinder and the hydraulic lines. He drives me home. With fingers crossed we’re back at the hotel, cocktails in hand and likin life. We keep saying to our self’s “ What if this happened in the middle of BFE?” then we toast! ?
Update 3/5/05:
Jeep:
Another normal day starting off in Todos Santos except our jeep still isn’t in its stall just outside our door. Cristian our mechanic said it would be 3 or 4 days but now its day 5 and we’re getting anxious. First thing when Mari gets to work that day she says to me (this is what I pick up) “Cristian …yeep … listo …mas tarde …oye …. ” “Cristian Jeep ready later today” Fire Up, minutes later he pulls up in the jeep. He’s just out testing it and wants me to check it out. Sweeet, it felt like a new clutch. He tells me that after he got it all back together the first time he finds there’s no clutch so he did another road trip to La Paz to get a total clutch kit. It’s all done, he just needs to torque everything and do a last check, smiling. 
Hidden Sand Beach:
Heidi and I head out on another hike in an attempt to find some hidden bay that has a sand beach and the only way to get to it is along some animal trails along the cliffs near shore. No one here has ever heard of it or seen it but I’ve read about it somewhere. This sounds scary to Heidi but we have been checking out the possible paths to get to this place when we do our local beach walk. We think we see a path start in the crotch of this hill. 
Looks pretty steep. I decide to attempt it another day alone. 
Francisco our grounds keeper brought a homemade pizza for Mari and Us to share, how nice! 
What kind of world do I live in? :
We’re hanging out at the hotel and I’m getting ready to walk over to pick up the jeep when I heard someone say to Francisco “Heidi Tom”. I pop up and see an adventure type motorcycle. Instantly I suspect this could be an AdvRider dude. John from Oregon read my report and decided to jump on down with some other AdvRiders and do the Baja, How Cool! 
John is electric! He said his only riding mode is from sun up to sun down, he knows no other way. He talked about the great ride he had coming down hwy 1 on the west cost all the way and how his bike loves to go fast. He hit the LA freeways at about 5:00AM on a Sunday and talked about all the hot rods, sport cars and everything fast cruising along, he said for sure they all came out just to go fast on the empty freeways. John just wanted to stop and meet us and say thanks for posting the inspirational trip reports. How nice is that! Then he asks me what kind of beer I like and goes buys us a 6 pack! What kind of world do I live in? 
We hang around by the pool talking. John and his wife did an around the word trip some time ago and have some amazing adventure stories that got Heidi and I super fired up. We could have listened for hours but John had to go to meet back up with the other AdvRiders back in La Paz. Thanks again John for the visit, hope to see you at Creel this fall. 
Mexican Mechanic:
I’m off on the two mile hike to Cristian’s house where my jeep will be ready. His sister has a house just like this behind his with a court yard in between. Mari’s house is just up the hill. Cristian does all his work along side his house. He recently bought a lot up the road on a hill for $1,800 and is going to have a new house with several car stalls for his business.
Cristian is not there so they invite me to wait and offer me coffee, sweet. No English spoken here. My mind kicks into some kind of super heightened state and I pull out Spanish words left and right and manage to pick out some words of theirs. We all had fun looking at the photo’s in the digital camera. 
Cristian pulls up and shows me all the stuff he did, the jeep was spotless inside and out. We drive the jeep over to look at his new lot, he yells out the window at his girlfriend along the way. I love Mexico.
Cute!
No 4WD:
The next day we drive out to the beach to watch the sunset. Driving toward the beach I pull off and onto a trail and stick it into 4WD. Nothing, no 4 wheel drive. We park it and walk to the shore, awesome waves but not much of a sunset.
Ok, I know about my jeeps 4WD system and it doesn’t have anything to do with the clutch but I’m still bumming. I just got a new 4WD vacuum motor put in before we left for this trip so figured it had to be a vacuum leak. I heard a hissing sound, even Heidi said she could hear it. The next day I open the hood and crawl under and follow all the vacuum lines and connections. After at least an hour of following all the lines and connections I try pulling a vacuum tube out of its coupler and blowing into it. Zero resistance and I could hear it blowing out somewhere. I blew, I felt, I blew, I listened. The blowing sound was coming from a foot or so from my face but I couldn’t feel it. I started grabbing tubes and pulling, a vacuum tube crammed behind the rocker cover and the firewall pulled right apart! I Am Likin Life! No kidding, I take off jogging to the nearest auto parts store about six blocks away and show the guy the broken vacuum tube and say ‘?Tiene?’, he cuts me a piece of tube about three times longer of much stronger tube material, $1.80 and I got 4WD again. !!!
There is something special about repairing and modifying your own wheels and taking a long trip with it. You can form a bond, a kind of love affair. I knew it could happen with a person and a motorcycle but I never thought it could happen with a cage.
Solo hike:
I’m off to see if I can find this hidden bay with a sand beach, that just sounds good to me and I want to get Heidi there. The first assent was steep but the trail was good. Great view, fishing boats and the light house in the middle.
Heidi had a dream the night before of me falling off on the other side of this unknown cliff and to the rocks below. She says the photo looks just like her dream. Big eyes, Wow! This was not the bay, no sand so onward around the next headland.
We’ve had a ton of rain here, it lasted for about two weeks. OK National Geographic here we go, I remember seeing an episode about desert blooming and now I’m in it.
A little too artistico, I better goof off. .
The final leg down. Heidi and I are going to do this section tomorrow but not beyond. I never got over the final ridge to find this hidden sand beach but did try really hard. Three times I had to turn around and go way back and start over because the trail disappeared and I was doing rock hopping stunts I should not be doing. It was fun and I will try it again, different approach.
Updated 3/14/05
Shy girl turns vicious killer:
Heidi and I walked to Puente Lobos to climb the bluff overlooking the Pacific. On the way out of town we hook up with our four friends again and they are all fired up to do the hike. We didn’t want to climb the bluff with the dogs because it is real steep at first and Heidi was worried for their safety. We decide to just walk the beach thinking it may be a first for the city dogs.
They loved the beach.
The dog we call ‘Shy Girl’ because she always walks just behind us and will never (except once) let us get close enough to pet her was eyeing up all the birds. There are tons of birds hanging on the beach at Puente Lobos waiting for the fisherman to start cleaning fish. Shy girl takes off on a sprint straight at a huge pelican, tackles it and wrestles it down. I felt like I was watching a ‘
On the way home everything is back to normal.
Puente Lobos Bluffs:
The next day we drive down to the beach to get around having our dog friends come with us. I found an assent up the bluff that wasn’t as steep, but we have to time the swell and climb the rocks next to the water.
Heidi can’t believe I’m leading her here.
I calm her down.
The desert is still in bloom
Steep climb.
Scary walking.
But beautiful.
Scramble down.
Mexican fishing boat, anchor and buoy.
Sierra La
OK, the Moon Baja handbook talks about some great mountain hiking that takes the hiker through 7 different ecological zones and the trail head is less then 15 miles away. I’ve tried to look for the trail several times but never found it. I knew it had to be up this road with the “No entrance, private land, you need permission from the authorities” sign posted at the entrance. I went to look for the trail again and noticed this time the sign had the “No entrance, private land” section scratched off. That’s all I needed, off I go.
Good trail
Maybe it is a poacher problem?
Going through the eco zones, cactus and trees.
Rancho along the way.
I took a wrong turn and ended at the wrong ranch. This is a trail head but not the one I wanted. All good though, I know I will find the trail head I want tomorrow.
Next day I find it, La laguna trail head. I drive right to it.
I park to check out the trail and out pops a hiker, Shelly. She has been out hiking for 5 days and asks if she could have a ride to town. Without a ride it would have added five more hours to her hike. Shelly knows a ton about backpacking and she also knows a lot about the trails and terrain around the area. She gives me a lot of good info. Heidi and I see her a couple days later and she draws us a map of some great trails with water falls and swimming holes.
The next day we’re off early to the trail head, it’s over an hour drive, about 10 miles. We would like to make it up to the summit and back in one day. Yesterday I drove past this gate about another two miles but today we have to hike.
It was over a 40 minute hike to get to the point where I drove yesterday, this will impact our schedule.
Steep trail for three hours.
We’re sucking air, burning calories and sweating big time, I’m in heaven. We need to constantly re-hydrate and re-supply our electrolytes.
We turn around at the 3 hour mark, the extra 40 minute hike in cost us the summit, no biggie, still a great hike.
Goofing off:
Playing out in the desert with 4-wheel drive.
While driving around the Baja you often see big wash outs that must get formed during big monsoons. It’s not always obvious but with persistence I usually could find a way to get on to them. I found a great one near Todos Santos. I seemed like I was the only vehicle down this one in years.
I park it in nice sand to take an overall look at the jeep. This would be a great spot to camp just outside of Todos Santos, perfect sand and no one would ever know you were there. I will camp here some time in the future on my way through.
I find another bad vacuum tube, sweet, better now then on the road.
I’m about a half mile from Puente Lobos so I decide to check out the scene. These guys were catching bait fish in the Laguna. They offered me some, how nice.
Later I see one of the guys with some others near some cars starting a grill.
I go have a rap with them and tell them this is just like in the
They offer me a beer and I feel so welcome.
He caught this shrimp right in the Laguna. He asked someone for a lime, tore the head off, squeezed some lime on it and ate it.
Just some more photos.
At Puente Lobos some fishing boats were coming in.
Cool!
Latest Update 3/20/05: The entire journal starts at ‘Journal 1’.
Two nights to go in Todos Santos, we have been trying to do everything we love to do here for the past week or so. Catching sunsets,
This has been great here but we are anxious to hit the road again. We’ve used up over a third of our 6 month Mexican Visa here in the Baja but have barely begun our adventure. The excitement has been increasing every day. We’re looking at guide books and discussing routes and scenarios. This is so great having my best friend along with me on this open-ended adventure and planning the route together.
I do one last trip to the ATM then hit the taqueria on the way back and get tacos to go (para llevar).
I look across the street and see a bunch of adventure looking motorcycles pulling in. I go have a chat and ask if they're adventure riders. I get a thumbs up, then I say “I’m cavebiker’. Wow, we all explode in conversation. The internet can be so great. This is Brad, Tim, Mark, Burt and Lee from NM. Some of them did the
