After a few days we got restless again and decided to go on. We actually had our dose of dirt road driving and were keen to get back on Tarmac. However, we had another 60 km of dirt in front of us before rejoining Mex 1 which is the only road that goes from North to South of Baja California. These 60 km again in snail speed should not be without another forced stop. Just as I was getting a bit more confident again and started to push our vehicle to racing speeds of about 30 kmph we heard a big bang and discovered a flat tyre. Looking at the tyre not only was it flat and seemed to have a big cut the wheel also had a major dent.
While we were changing the wheel in the blazing sun at noon in the desert I could obviously only think of how we would get a new wheel. Knowing that we seem to have the special special car with wheels so small that nobody had the same I was already imagining asking our parents who come out to visit us to carry a new wheel in their bagagge. In the end we managed to change the wheel and get back to the main road where we had a rather poor lunch at a road side trucker stop.
The drive to Guerrero Negro was beatiful in the late afternoon sun and managed to get to the campsite in town before sunset. Kate had obviously screened our 4 different guide books (’The rough guide’ of Mexico, ‘Le guide du routard’ of Mexico, ‘The central American handbook’ and other various pieces of tourist guides that she was able to pick up) already several times to have figured out that it was unfortunately too early for the whale spotting in the bay. The whales seem to come all the way down from Alaska to give birth to their babies because of the warm and very salty water of the bay that helps to push the young ones up. However, there was a salt factory in town and Kate had already convinced the people at the factory entrance reception that they should provide us with a free tour! We had to wait a little but then we were picked up by a company employee who showed us and another small group of business men round.
Since we had to wait a few hours we got our shopping done, the clothes washed and we went to a tyre place to see whether they could do anything with our flat tyre and broken wheel. My hopes were pretty low as already mentioned and I was stressed by the prospect of a difficult renewal of the wheel. But I had not counted on the Mexican bodging ability: It took a young boy of 16 a heavy sledge hammer and about 5 minutes to whack the wheel back into shape! I don’t know yet whether it will actually work again but it looked fine. Hence, 30 Pesos later we were off to our salt factory visit.
The drive to Guerrero Negro was beatiful in the late afternoon sun and managed to get to the campsite in town before sunset. Kate had obviously screened our 4 different guide books (’The rough guide’ of Mexico, ‘Le guide du routard’ of Mexico, ‘The central American handbook’ and other various pieces of tourist guides that she was able to pick up) already several times to have figured out that it was unfortunately too early for the whale spotting in the bay. The whales seem to come all the way down from Alaska to give birth to their babies because of the warm and very salty water of the bay that helps to push the young ones up. However, there was a salt factory in town and Kate had already convinced the people at the factory entrance reception that they should provide us with a free tour! We had to wait a little but then we were picked up by a company employee who showed us and another small group of business men round.
Since we had to wait a few hours we got our shopping done, the clothes washed and we went to a tyre place to see whether they could do anything with our flat tyre and broken wheel. My hopes were pretty low as already mentioned and I was stressed by the prospect of a difficult renewal of the wheel. But I had not counted on the Mexican bodging ability: It took a young boy of 16 a heavy sledge hammer and about 5 minutes to whack the wheel back into shape! I don’t know yet whether it will actually work again but it looked fine. Hence, 30 Pesos later we were off to our salt factory visit.
This was clearly a factory visit of a different kind and I know what I am talking about. It seemed to big the biggest salt factory in the world. We had to drive for 30 minutes to get across the factory. Visiting the machines walking the slippery walkways between the huge converyor belts in sandals with three squabbling children in tow was a different dimension of safety measures.
The following day we drove on to Santa Rosalia which was build by French to mine the area and boasts a church build by Gustav Eiffel, designed and constructed in France, shipped over and erected sur place. There we met again a German couple that we had already met in Joshua Tree National Park. Sharing our war stories I have to admit with grinding teeths that we had encountered a true specimen of German culture (They are from Swabia which might explain everything). I have omitted so far that in Mexico one is regularly stopped by military check points where eager soldiers are very interested in what a camper looks like from inside. We had not encountered any trouble so far always having a laugh with the soldiers and telling our story and showing off with our (blond) children. The Germans seemed to have been less lucky and after listening to their story we understood why: They had told the soldiers that they would only be allowed to come in their camper if they took their boots off!!!! One can imagine how this goes down with some 20 year old Macho soldiers. So they seemed to have been made to wait for an hour before they could drive on.
For the night we stopped at a nice campside in Mulegé to prepare for finding another dream beach. After having shopped we made our way to Bahia Conception, a 50 km long bay with a multitude of sheltered bays and beaches, some of them only to be reached by off road vehicles. Yes, we obviously wanted to have a place to ourselves and so we went off to one those beaches. It was only a one kilometer track to get there, but it was bumpy. Stones scraping along the bottom of the car and every piece of kit flying around in the cupboard we made it down only to discover that the hot and sunny beach was quite dirty and filled with several campers already.
It was clear we had to drive off again. Not having had our dose of car problems for several days we managed to drive off without the camper door not properly shut. In the heavy swaying over the super bumpy track the door swang open and the special safety mecanism (god knows why) made the automatic luxury stairs come out. There were obviously immediately a victim of the rocks on the road and half ripped off. With a lot of swearing by the only Bavarian in the team we jacked the camper up, drove back and forth to try to get them back in place, hammering with stones. It did not help the stairs were dead! We managed to make them stay up with a belt and drove off.
For the night we stopped at a nice campside in Mulegé to prepare for finding another dream beach. After having shopped we made our way to Bahia Conception, a 50 km long bay with a multitude of sheltered bays and beaches, some of them only to be reached by off road vehicles. Yes, we obviously wanted to have a place to ourselves and so we went off to one those beaches. It was only a one kilometer track to get there, but it was bumpy. Stones scraping along the bottom of the car and every piece of kit flying around in the cupboard we made it down only to discover that the hot and sunny beach was quite dirty and filled with several campers already.
It was clear we had to drive off again. Not having had our dose of car problems for several days we managed to drive off without the camper door not properly shut. In the heavy swaying over the super bumpy track the door swang open and the special safety mecanism (god knows why) made the automatic luxury stairs come out. There were obviously immediately a victim of the rocks on the road and half ripped off. With a lot of swearing by the only Bavarian in the team we jacked the camper up, drove back and forth to try to get them back in place, hammering with stones. It did not help the stairs were dead! We managed to make them stay up with a belt and drove off.
In the afternoon we drove on through a complete desert for several hours seing nothing else but sand, cactus and stones. Suddenly in the middle of this hostile environment we found ourselves in an oasis with wonderful palm trees where we stayed for the night (admittetly another of Kate’s guide book discoveries).
