Day Nine: Saturday, March 24: Guererro Negro to San Ignacio

Before we left Guerrero Negro, we bought an original painting from the Malarrimo gift shop for only 139 pesos – that’s only $13. The artist lives in town there, and isn’t great, by any means, but has some paintings that were quite appealing because we loved the desert scenery they depicted. I ended up choosing the one Devin told me he liked best – with the highway going through it, cardons and boojums along the sides. We hung it in the bedroom of the RV.

The road south of Guerrero Negro is just as bad as the road north of it, but the scenery is interesting the entire way. Just as we were getting to San Ignacio, there was a checkpoint, and then the huge date palm forest came into view over a rise of the desert, and we descended to the oasis of San Ignacio.

We passed the guidebook-favored Rice and Beans which is right on the highway, pulled over, unhooked and I went on a scouting mission for where we would spend the night in this oasis in the desert. I first checked out Rice and Beans, which had a caravan in, and so only a couple of tightly packed spaces. Full hookups and supposedly internet access and a good restaurant, but it looked kind of like a crowded parking lot and I thought maybe we could do better. Next went into San Ignacio proper, and found a neat place in the date palm forest right on the “river”! A bit too tight for the RV, sadly, because it was pretty! And another place across the “bridge” over the lake/river/lagoon was also nice, but the entry was a bit rough for our house on wheels. I guess it’s fed by springs, which is why all the date palms can grow, and why San Ignacio is a true oasis, so it isn’t a river, and I guess it’s a small lake. It’s confusing to call it a lagoon, though, since San Ignacio Lagoon is down a very rough 40 mile dirt road and is on the Pacific Ocean – where more grey whales come to give birth. Finally cruised through El Padrino, where there were a few Americans “out back” in the dry camping area, one of which was a smart ass and said I should pay him if we come back. That decided it – I like sassy people.

So I went back and reported this to Devin and we moved in. $8 a night, camping in palms at the edge of the oasis with a view of the surrounding desert. Lots of birds here – we got to watch a Kestrel eat a lizard at the top of a dead palm, and the dawn and dusk chorus was White-winged Doves, Cactus Wrens, and Gila Woodpeckers!

The Americans, Caroline, Brian, Paul and Al, were a group of “singles” who had informally caravaned down and been in Baja for a few months. They were on their way back north, like everybody else. We got lots of good tips from them, like where to stay in La Paz, free beaches south of Loreto, Todos Santos, the southern loop, and how to treat water – All four of them did it differently and it worked fine for them all – ha. Brian swore by this stuff he found in stores down here called Microdyn, and he liked it because there was no bad aftertaste like with chlorine. Caroline used only bottled water. Paul chlorinated it the same way we did, and Al just drank water right out of the tap – no problems! His logic was that the country couldn’t function if people were sick from drinking the water all the time, so if they drink it, he could too. Turns out that we’ve read most Mexicans don’t drink the water out of the tap most places. In fact, we later met Bernardo, from Guadalajara, who was born and raised here. He rarely drank out of the tap- except occasionally late at night if he was thirsty and didn’t want to walk all the way to the kitchen. But Bernardo did say that people were being ridiculous by not using ice or brushing their teeth with tap water. We still chlorinate ours in our tank, use it for washing and brushing our teeth, and drink bottled water, and that has worked well for us. “To each his own,” should be the motto!

Of the four singles, two lived in their RVs full time (Brian and Al), and two traveled with their dogs (Caroline had a big yellow lab in a small Isata “Sport Sedan” and Paul had a cute little dog – I forgot what kind of brindle bull terrier – named Mr. Hobbes), and one, Brian, traveled with a cat in his Airstream Trailer. They were a bit of an odd bunch – funny and fun, but probably a little sick of each other after traveling together for months in Baja! They sometimes acted like an old married couple – but there were four of them. Ha. I think I made Brian’s day when I insulted him just right – he’s the smart ass that made me want to stay there in the first place. I said, “oh, I could tell right away that Brian was for entertainment value only, not to be trusted!” But actually, he did seem to have very good advice and I would in fact trust his judgment, when I could tell he wasn’t full of it. Ha. He was an ex-cop from Chicago, to add that to the equation, and a great cook, according to the others, and very picky about food, so he led them to the best restaurants. He told us about the Hotel California and Tequila Sunrise in Todos Santos, which we had read about, and gave us this recipe for “Dr. Margarita’s” famous Damiana Margarita:

2 Shots Tequila
2 Shots Gran Marnier or Cointeau
1 Shot Damiana Liqueur
Juice of 4 limes (limons)

After sharing with us all sorts of advice, some of which I even took notes on, they also fed us dinner, which was nice! As dusk settled in, the bugs came out – first time I’d noticed any in Baja, and I glibly said that “mosquitoes don’t like me.” Oh shut my mouth. I’ve been suffering greatly ever since to the point that I think it’s influenced my desire to stay in Baja!! Oh for a little foresight and bug repellent! I also stop to pet every dog I meet, and at first, all the bites showed up only on my ankles and feet, so it could be fleas… god I hope I didn’t bring them into the RV!! More on my pain and suffering later…

We drove through the lovely colonial style town of San Ignacio, anchored by its Mission and tree filled square, and drove up the road towards San Ignacio Lagoon a ways. We had originally considered going whale watching (whale petting?) in both lagoons, but after our amazing experience at Ojo de Liebre, we didn’t really feel a need to do it again – in fact, we almost didn’t want to do it again to water down that experience in any way, if that makes sense. At any rate, the road was VERY rough and washboarded, which discouraged us only a little, but enough that we decided to head out to the Sea of Cortez the next day.
I suppose the main driving influence in our decision, though, was the impending Semana Santa celebrations. We wanted to experience the solitude of the Bahia Concepcion beaches we’d read about, not in the festival atmosphere of Semana Santa. Turns out that once again our timing, though we thought we were “late” was probably just right in many ways – earlier in the year, the beaches we were headed to would have been packed with RVs, and later with families on vacation, but now was going to be “just right.”

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Go back to Day One of Baja Trip