Day Nineteen, Tuesday, April 3: San Ignacio to Guerrero Negro

We must have North Fever, since we decided to just head out to Guerrero Negro instead of going on any side trips in San Ignacio.

Soon after leaving town, we came to another inspection station (puesto de control militar) and had a nice young soldier “board” the RV and do a thorough inspection of the refrigerator!! Ha. He didn’t look anywhere else, went straight to the fridge, commented on the tequila and beer, asked what was in the can (club soda – not so interesting) – finally, I asked him if he would like something to drink – perhaps a soda? Or perhaps a beer? He just happened to have a large roomy pocket on the side of his uniform pants that was a perfect fit for the Modelo bottle. I just laughed and laughed. He was more than welcome to the Modelo – we didn’t like it. We had bought 2 of each kind of beer at the market in Loreto to try, and liked the Pacifico and Sol quite well, and I know I like Negro Modelo, but the Modelo tasted like Budweiser and wasn’t very good.

Returning to the Vizcaino desert from the Desierto Central showed us what the Vizcaino is famous for – it is a fog desert. It definitely did not feel as scenic as on the way down with the dramatic clouds and visibility of mountains all around, including the mountains of the Vizcaino Peninsula, which are very dramatic. We were treated to closer beauty this time, as new wildflowers graced the sides of the highway, in purple and yellow as well as the pink and white flowers that had been there on the way down. We also saw a beautiful pair of Harris’ Hawks – beautiful black hawks with wide white bands at the bases of their tails – very striking.

At the turnoff for Vizcaino, I found new combinations of swear words when a scary truck crossed the line on the narrow road at the intersection! Then we came back to the lovely 17 km of good road! – Devin’s heart rate only raised a little by passing trucks on that section. The end of the 17 km was announced by the loud banging when we hit the potholes and rough road again after relaxing to the quiet of a well-paved road

Passed through and near little Ejidos: Emiliano Zapata, Benito Juarez, Vicente Guerrero, Jose Morelos – there must be dozens of each! Mexicans like their heroes. Of course, how many Lincolns and Washingtons do we have in the US, not to mention Jeffersons, and even McKinleys! But it does seem noticeable in a small region with so few people to have several small towns with the same names.

We pulled over for a moment in one of these towns and I spied a group of kids selling helados (ice cream) out of their little carts – they were pushing the carts up a dusty hill, and when they saw me lean out to take a photo, they raced each other to see who could get here first, all competing for my few pesos to buy their helados – coco, pina, yum! Turns out, I couldn’t scrape up enough small change to buy any – I didn’t want any ice cream anyway, but just wanted to see these cute little businesspeople make some money, so I offered them what I had for some photos, and they posed and laughed and grinned for the camera, then raced off to find more customers.

At Guerrero Negro, we pulled into the Malarrimo, where we had stayed on the way down. There were mother and pup street dogs that had been there (all wet in the rain) on the way down that just made themselves at home and laid down in our “yard” – we were the only ones camping there. I enjoyed petting and looking at how relaxed “our” dogs were, until a mean lady came and chased them off with rocks. I guess they probably get into the garbage or such, but I was beginning to have fantasies of adopting them and taking them back with us, they were so cute.

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Go back to Day One of Baja Trip