Road Trip – SHE (17 April 17)

Driving north from San Quintin to Tijuana. Woke up by Cory before 5:30am in order to leave before Mexico awoke on Easter Monday. The drive was pretty smooth and we reached Tijuana is about 4 hours with our own entertainment!

https://youtu.be/8Z-t5Ckf5_0

Dropped off the hire car and Thrifty car hire kindly offered to drop us off at the Frontera. We walked to the border expecting hour long queues. Nope it took all of 5 minutes for US immigration!!!!

Cory had even shaved for the event!!

Bus 905 to the Trolley bus and blue line. Blue line to Barrio Logan where we have booked another ‘bed big enough for four’ at the Travellodge! (Just as well with our current diet plan!!)

Where can we eat? (We hadn’t had beans since of tortilla bean breakfast).  People come from all over to eat Mexican food at a place just down the street you’ll know your in ther right place from the queue out of the door!

(Las Cuatro Milpas if you are ever in San Diego!)

Sure enough queue out the door and for $15 our feast was secured. More burpy bottom beans and we headed for Walmart to buy 8 days of food. 3 for our first part of our walk and 5 days for the one and only box which we will have food in. Total cost of Walmart shop? Just under $100 (including mammoth papaya and yoghurt for tea!).

We have bought smash, noodles, muesli, powdered milk, salami, sausage, ‘cat food type packs ‘ of tuna, tortillas, just add water instant porridge, peanuts, trail mix, clif bars, nature valley bars, biscuits, oxo cubes  and instant coffee. Mhmm just as well we have 4 stone to loose between us! I’ve got more blubber on me than the whales we’ve been chasing with my Mental-pause and HRT 🙂

No hay ballenas! No Whales! Loreto, MX – SHE

Part two of the viaje in Mexico was the hunt for blue whales. This drive was only five hours with great roads and more spectacular scenery.

190ks before Loreto and after our coffee break, Cory has been looking out for a Pemex (petrol station). He knew I would freak so didn’t tell me. We had passed wee pueblos in the no-mans land (no telegraph poles national park) where people were selling Gasolina from the back of their trucks. However the entrepreneurs had dried up! 

He gave in when the car read only 10km of petrol. “Mmm. Mandy I might need your help with something.  We have about 30+ ks to go and only 10ks of petrol. We need to stop at the next shack we see and ask for gas”. 

Cue ‘mandy freak out’! Next little adobe house shack we see we stop. I run in and ask the little niña, she called her mum. “No hay!” How far?4km she says. This turned out to be the next military checkpoint. 

After the usual, where have you come from? Where are you going to? Vacation? I asked for help with finding petrol. Nope they didn’t have any. Cory showed him the dashboard. With a big sympathetic sigh and shrug of the shoulders he waved us on with an ‘Adelante’ =Welcome/ on you go!

Argh! 24 to go. Cory was coasting down hills…. anyway we made it.  And the usual bus situation happened. Three at once! 

Baja California is lovely. Amazing landscapes and so diverse. The desert was in bloom too so a fantastic time for our road trip. Cory   Ended up as the designated driver. The roads varied massively from ‘skateboard’ perfection to ‘washed out chassis breakers’. We didn’t want to be driving at night so we were under pressure from Tijuana to Guerrero Negro but less pressure for the 5 hours to Loreto ( well except for the petrol pressure)! We were concerned about potential crime but we only have lovely things to Say about Baja and it’s people. We went through numerous military and policia check points with only one boot search.

There weren’t a lot of foreigners around in Baja. Just plenty of Mexicans on holiday for Santa Semana. People were lovely, friendly and always ready with a smile. 

Our road trip fuel was tortillas with avocado, refried beans, fresh cheese (quesso fresco) or atun ! I created them on my lap and force fed the driver 🙂 Yum!

No blue whales in Loreto. What a shame (Que Pena!). So we signed up for a half day trip To Isla Coronado where we had heard there was a chance to see blue footed boobies. 

The boobies were indeed ‘out for the boys!!‘ and just as spectacular was the 50+ pod of shy and tiny (compared to our native population) bottlenosed dolphins. We watched and delighted in them for over an hour. Amazing.

We ❤️ Baja!

The Wall – SHE

The Greyhound bus was great. Wee Fee onboard and empty. We headed south through LA and suburbs and passed villages of tented homeless in San Diego and headed towards La Frontera.

At the US side we arrived at the bus station and the driver announced something mas Rapido in Spanish and everyone got off! What’s going on? We finally realised we had to get onto the little bus to get over the border. (Micro-bus!)

The US side of the border was SO busy. Lots and lots of people thronging around and the queue of traffic trying to get out of America was huge. Nose to bumper. The sheer volume of traffic staggering. There was a trickle of cars filtering through the other side.

The Americans don’t mind if you leave and the only, very friendly, immigration was on the Mexican side for us.

On arrival at Tijuana Airport we loaded up our packs onto our burro backs and started walk the mile and a half to our Aerpuerto Hotel (needed to get some Garmin steps in).

For dinner we wanted Tacos. We headed out to the Open air, busy with locals, Taco kiosk we had seen earlier and the Del Boy Spanish hilarity began.

Now when I left Central America in 2011 my Spanish, all be it present perfect tense Spanish, was great! Now it turns out it can only be described as grim!

The cooks were in fits of laughter trying to describe what the Taco Toppings were. I could order the Tacos, our drinks, understand basic questions but I had no idea what we are being fed.

We ended up with three staff members playing charades with us, as they established with ‘moo’ imagine two fingers being held upright attached to a forehead. ‘Oink’ and curling tail dances, the basics of what we are eating. We turned into the ‘white pets’. The boss started giving us freebee Tacos and Tostadas to try. We had a ball!

There is a wall at the border.

Clearly not a wall all the way. Not Yet! When we picked up our hire car the next day we could clearly see the border driving out of there city. The old fence, rotten and corroded. The new fence, White and gleaming. In Mexico there are building right up against the wall in Tijuana. On the US side there is an area of green ‘no man’s land’.

Let the Mexican Whale Hunt begin!

Whalecome!

The first 20 minutes in the boat you hold on tight as the boat bounces out of the initial bay and then the captain slowed down before we really started turning green.

Within 5 minutes of being bounced and splashed in the choppy waters a beautiful grey whale breached right beside our boat!!!!

Grey Whales = tick:-)

But there was so much more to come!!!

Most of the whale tour companies have already closed there doors as the season is at an end but there are some mums still waiting in the bay for their calves to get strong enough to start the long dangerous journey to Alaska.

We were blessed again and again and again with many whale sightings. Then at the very end one curious mum and baby came to our boats for a better look at us.

They either come right out of the water to look or turn on their sides to get a good look(due to the position of their eyes). Our whales did both!

Mira! Lo vista? Ballenas!