Christine and Bruce were going down to the campo, so I thought I might as well join them. I had a break in my consulting business, so time was not an issue. With the skeleton crew and just myself to setup and break down camp, I decided to not take my motor down and launch a boat. I fished from shore only. I needed to catch up on a few chores that had been put on the back burner during the last three trips down. The weather those last three trips was simply too warm to do anything other than eat, drink and fish.
Although Cathy and I were just down there three weeks prior, this trip was a study in contrasts with the last one. We were basically experiencing Indian summer during the October trip. The November trip was, well, a November trip, but not necessarily a typical one. My first couple days there saw the arrival of a strong cold front from out of the Gulf of Alaska. On Wednesday, rain fell, sometimes rather determinedly. I had not seen quite a rain since Hutch and I built the shed back in March 1995. I'd say we got a half inch or so. The days were pleasant....in the low to mid 70s. The nighttime lows ranged from the mid-50s to a low of 43°. I had to run my little Kubota generator Tuesday, Wednesday, and a bit on Thursday to get my batteries conditioned. Solar charging was simply not available.
The trip down was uneventful, just the way I like it. I did the standard drill in San Felipe, stopping at the Los Arcos Corona sub-agencia for cerveza, the Seven-Lleven for gas, Hielo Estrella Agua Azul for ice, then over to the Mercado Horse for groceries, to the Telcel store for a couple Amigo cards for the cellphone, and finally to Licores Calafia for ron & tequila. As usual, it took an hour to stock up.
The Puertecitos road had been modestly improved. While returning from the last trip, I alluded to a certain pile of asphalt that had been deposited near Playa Mexico, south of Campo Bahia Santa Maria. The asphalt had been used for paving, just as I suspected (hey, in Mexico, you never know). The road south of where the real pavement ended (km 32) was repaired in spots. As I recall, these spots were severely degraded, pothole laden sections. The repairs looked to be in the old style (1 - 2" of asphalt), not real paving (3 - 4") like the northern section appears to have. We'll take anything we can get though. I'd say the latest addition added another 5 miles before you had to play dodge-em with the potholes. After that, the potholes appeared to have been filled with dirt and graded so that the ride down to about Campo los Pulpos was fairly smooth. After Campo los Pulpos, the long straightaway leading up to the Campo Christina S-curve was still degraded toward the east and OK at the western end. After that, the Puertecitos road was crappy for the duration.
The Gonzaga road was, well, the Gonzaga road after all. The first 8 miles were well graded to past Campo La Costilla. After that, the next 10 miles of road winding through the Three Sisters was not swell, but even if it's graded, you can't go very fast on it anyway unless you have wings or a death wish. This stretch has some spots that still show erosion damage from last summer's storms, but no washouts are present, nor much washboard. Once the road descends Huerfanito Grade to what I call the Huerfanito Flats, the worst part of the road is encountered. The stretch between the bottom of the grade to about the Cinco Islas Cafe is nasty, nasty washboard with lots of sharp rocks (ancient arrowheads). This part seriously needs the grader. Speaking of which, a short distance later, I saw the elusive beast coming straight toward me, following an official truck from the Ministry of Transportation and Roads. I gave the driver a thumbs up and stopped to record the rare event after it had passed.
Only one "lane", i.e. half the road, had been graded in this area. I figured optimistically the whole road would be graded up to Huerfanito Grade on the way back. NOT! Maybe mañana. On the way back, I couldn't figure out where the grader went after this encounter. I think the mystical beast disappeared into thin air. Still, only the one half of the road was graded up to about the Cinco Islas. As I continued south, however, the half-grading became whole-grading at some point. I was the second person to travel over it. I made 40 - 45 mph the rest of the way to the our camp turnoff.
When I got to camp late Monday afternoon, the weather was calm, warm and inviting. I unloaded and set up all the essential stuff. The next day, clouds blew in as the leading edge of a cold front arrived. Seeing clouds backup over or engulf Cerro La Alguatosa is not uncommon. Clouds and fog up there do not mean rain on our narrow coastal plain. That's why we can look through the telescope and see Cirios and Barrel Cactus on the slopes of the peak, but they don't grow where we are.
We all went for a walk south on the beach. Here, Christine, Bruce, Skipper (Junior), and Gabby (or is it Gaby?) wander down the road.
I awoke Wednesday morning before dawn to the sound of raindrops pounding the tin roof of our trailer. A half hour later, I got out of bed and the rain continued intermittently throughout the day. At about 6:15 AM, I shot this panorama of the cloudy Sierras and rainstorm to the south. As is tradition on the Dean & Cathy's Baja Home Website, all the panoramas on the following pages are displayed as 680-pixel-wide images. This is the same width as the other pictures (they're 680 x 510). If you like the image and want to see it full-size, click on the image. JavaScript will open a new resizable window with scroll bars to display the full size (510 pixels high) panorama. When you're done looking, close the window, as the original page remains in the background.
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The cloud wave extended way past Isla San Luis. The low ceiling is apparent in this shot. The high peak on San Luis is a tad over 200 meters high (672').
A short time later, heavy rainfall obscured the island.
Tuesday night, one exciting moment occurred when I was returning to Bruce's house after seeing a man about a horse near one of the bushes out front. A Sidewinder was slithering across Bruce's front porch. Bruce and Christine kept the light on the snake while I grabbed my lantern and jogged back to the campo to get my snare. I snagged Mr. Snake and dropped him into a 5-gallon bucket. I put a cover on the bucket with a crack just big enough to let some air in. The snake probably didn't need much air that night, because it was downright cold. After the rain let up late Wednesday morning, I dropped the 5-gallon bucket into my garbage can with a sealing lid and gave the Sidewinder a taxi ride west out into the outback to eat some mice and rats unmolested by the likes of me. On the way back, I tried photographing an uncooperative Black-tailed Jackrabbit. Digital cameras are just not so good for quick shots.
The sun tried to come out at around 3:30 that afternoon. Isla San Luis basked in the sunlight, in a contrastingly different Baja mood to the pictures above.
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