Sunday 3 August 2014

0070 2nd August - Santa Rosarita to Loreto

Well it had been a beautiful cool and peaceful night on Santa Rosarita beach with the fisherman.  By the time I woke up there were 10 pick up trucks all lined up below me – The locals had come down while I was asleep and were all out fishing already !!   Well, if you can’t sleep in a little on your birthday, when can you ? !!

As I drove up through the dirt streets of the little fishing village, I couldn’t help but be stunned by the number of Alto signs – On dirt roads in a tiny fishing village ?   So you can imagine how many there are on all the other streets in bigger towns !!   Once on my way, I took a picture of a solitary yellow flowering cactus that had caught my eye on the way in the night before - It was the only one I was to see.  Then there were all the white flowering ones – Quite stunning in their complexity and beauty – Especially in such an  arid and unforgiving place.  Nature always amazes………   These white flowering ones are everywhere at the moment, and so plentiful that often I thought they looked like a flock of white cockatoos sitting in the bushes in Australia !! 

Basically todays drive was first down the west coast of northern Baja.  It was pretty much desert scenery to start with, although there were several poles that had been set up for eagles to nest on – Probably trying to keep them away from the many power line poles that you can see in the photos. Saw nests on the poles, but no birds. Then as we drove down this long straight flat avenue of power poles, in the heat (well over 30 deg all day), I suddenly saw this apparition in the distance – And as we got closer I realised it was an enormous Mexican flag !!  I though it signalled the mother of all Military Inspection posts, but it turned to just be a big military base – No inspection at all, for a change.  We did have a plant / agricultural inspection station though, which we have had before, but normally only stop trucks and pickups full of water melons etc.  But this time they stopped us, and were very polite and told me that there was a 20 peso (about $1.50) inspection fee !!  But they didn’t inspect me – Just asked questions !!  Anyway, I keep a couple of 20’s stashed under the dash board mat in case they might be “required” at any time, so for that amount, and since they had been so polite and smiling, I decided to pay up.  Still not sure if it was a legitimate charge – Especially since two local girls came through beside me in a Beetle and they certainly didn’t hand over any 20 pesos !!   Hmmmm.

Driving along a very sandy and desert like road, although there was some kind of agriculture going on under massive white shade clothes, with lots of people and trucks there.  Not sure what they were growing there.  Then we came into Guerrero Negro which is quite a tourist area because the big bay off the coast, the Bahia Sebastien Vicenzo, is a major whale watching area at the beginning of the year.  The town is full of hotels and campsites, and whale skeletons etc beside the road.

We then turned more eastward and headed across to the other coast, through a Volcano National reserve.  Much more scenic, with mountain passes and lots of bridges over dry river beds.  I laughed because if a bridge has more than one span, they give each span a different name.  One very long bridge which I photographed had about 6 spans, and that meant they could name one bridge with 6 different names – And in this case it was like a king or a ruling dynasty because every span had the same name in Spanish, but one was the 1st, the next the 2nd, and so on – So they managed to name this bridge after 6 different important people !!!  Useful when you have lots of important people you wish to honour and not enough bridges !! 

As we neared the eastern coast and our first sight of the Sea of Cortez, we also slowly drew closer to a big mountain which turned out to tbe the granddaddy volcano of this park, the “Vulcan tres Virgines”, at 1920 metres.  We were still at about 300 – 500 metres, so this volcano rose up pretty dramatically right beside the road.  I wonder how the three virgins got involved – Thinking about the possibilities kept me going for some time !!   Over the last mountain pass before the sea, we had quite a big and hard rain storm and a lot of lightening everywhere, which made it all quite entertaining.  Then we dropped down towards Santa Rosalie, which I knew from my research was an old French copper mining town, and I was expecting it to be really pretty with camp sites and villages along the coast.  But as we dropped into the town, there were denuded hillsides where the mining had taken place, and then I saw hundreds of vultures (common in this part of the world) circling in the sky – Couldn’t work out what it was – Until we drove past a disgusting open town rubbish tip almost right beside the road !!  Then driving along the coast into town, it was just a dirty industrial town right beside the sea – Certainly no campsites there !!  The “museum” right beside the road is the shell of an old mill or smelter, presumably for the copper ?  And mining still continues because there is a big stockpile of bright yellow stuff – Hmm – I thought copper was green ??  I wonder…..Yellow cake ????

Just down the road was the local prison – No camp site there either !!  And the temperatures here on the east side we much hotter than they had been west coast – Obviously the Pacific has a much greater cooling influence than the semi enclosed Sea of Cortez.  Driving down the coast started to see palm plantations – Not sure if they were for dates or palm oil.   Then on down through Mulege which was also supposed to be pretty, and this time did live up to expectations – Stunning little bays and coves down the coast line, as we wound down through small passes all the time.  But it was only about 3 pm, and still so hot that I really didn’t want to stop too early and have to just sit there in the heat – So I kept going, with the intention now of getting to Loreto which Geary, my Houston friend says is supposed to have great offshore fishing and be really nice. 

We had another big pass to get over, and this had even more lightening and rain, along with increasingly frequent herds of goats wandering around !   There was one point in the pass when it looked like white glaciers in a couple of places ahead, but when I got closer it turned out to be the sun shining only on those particular mountain sections, while everything else was cloud covered, and thus the sunlight gave the rocks their comparative white appearance. Eventually we dropped into Loreto, and I found the town a bit “small”, although the front esplanade along the waterfront is really smart with nice beaches and beach huts, lots of accommodation and restaurants along the waterfront, and a harbour full of small fishing boats for charter.  I could only find one campsite, and to get there you had to cross a dry river bed on the stones in the middle of town because there wasn’t a bridge !  Wasn’t sure what I was going to find, but when I got there, the camp site was beside the beach, had a swimming pool, nice showers, laundry and wifi !  The campsite itself was pretty grotty, but the facilities made up for that.     It was still revoltingly hot, but a dip in the (unfortunately tepid) pool was nice if not overly refreshing, so I alternated between the pool and setting up the van and doing my laundry !! Unfortunately the wifi didn’t work………

Eventually got to sleep but need my new fan going all night to enable me to keep reasonably cool

Pics are here :- https://picasaweb.google.com/117739775480775657932/0071SantaRosalitaToLoreto?authkey=Gv1sRgCJaL09mS2aS_yAE#

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