The following morning we had another 100 km on a new road before we entered the dirt road. We quickly discovered that our so-called 4-wheel-drive was more like one of these town 4x4 vehicles and our average speed slowed down to 20 kmh. It was a beatiful drive but we (or better I) were constantly wondering when the first part would be rattled off the car or one of the cupboards would fall off. It was really bad. After 4 hours the sun started to go down and we had to find something for the night.
Finally, it looked like the camper was operational again. In fact it would have been anyway, just loosing a bit of oil from the gear transmission housing. I was just too paranoid to wait and see what would happen traveling into Central America.
We actually had had quite some relaxing days while we were waiting for the car to be repaired in a motel in Phoenix with a pool just 10 steps from our room and in walking distance of a shopping mal and a number of nice little restaurants. However, we were quite relieved when everything was ready and we were able to leave the US (two weeks after our visa had run out!).
We headed off towards the border to go to Porto Benasque, which is in fact an ‘American town’ located at the Gulf of California in Mexico because one does not need a Mexican tourist visa to enter. It is a sort of weekend destination for Americans. Before crossing the border we stopped in the Organ Pipe Nature Reserve just at the border and some wonderful views of the cactus forest.
We actually had had quite some relaxing days while we were waiting for the car to be repaired in a motel in Phoenix with a pool just 10 steps from our room and in walking distance of a shopping mal and a number of nice little restaurants. However, we were quite relieved when everything was ready and we were able to leave the US (two weeks after our visa had run out!).
We headed off towards the border to go to Porto Benasque, which is in fact an ‘American town’ located at the Gulf of California in Mexico because one does not need a Mexican tourist visa to enter. It is a sort of weekend destination for Americans. Before crossing the border we stopped in the Organ Pipe Nature Reserve just at the border and some wonderful views of the cactus forest.
At the campsite we met a nice German couple who had been spending the last 15 winters in Mexico traveling in a motorhome. They gave us the idea to rather than just going South towards Mexico City to try out Baja California, the peninsula South of California. As it turned out a rather adventurous trip awaited us.
The following day the next phase of our trip started: entering the Spanish speaking world and leaving the comfort of the US behind. We spend a day at the beach in Porto Benasquo to get used to the environment.
But first we had to get across Mexico to Mexicali, a big border town (to which I had actually already paid a number of visits since one of my clients has a big factory there), to get our tourist visas and the car importation documents. We had to spend a night in a hotel since no campsite existed.
Then after having filled up in a Walmart we decided to go South and to take a road along the coast that was not the only major road going down but a mix of tarmaced road and quite a bit of dirt road driving. We managed fine along the good part of the road and decided to stay for the night in San Felipe in a campsite before trying to find our private dream beach to stay for a week.
