0074 6th Aug - Cabo to Los Barriles, via Pichelingue

Packed up and left the very empty and boring site near Cabo, with the intention of just wandering up the coast towards the ferry terminal at Pichelingue, just north of La Paz, so I could book my ride to Mazatlan on the mainland.  The first hour or so continued with a lot of quite nice development along the coast line, but still quite sporadic.  One minute you pass a spectacular Hilton resort, then there is an empty stretch of land with rubble on it, then there’s a Hyatt or similar resort !!  But I can see that one day this will be quite a resort coastline, and very much within reach for North Americans during their winter time – only a short flight down here.  Surf beaches, apartments, hotels – It is all starting to be here.


Then I tried to follow a coastal B road instead of the A road through the middle, but I never did see a turn off for it !  Place names are often signed or written differently than they are on the map.  But the A road through the middle turned out to be quite fun, anyway.  After the development petered out after San Jose del Cabo, the road suddenly turned from a new 4 lane highway to a little country road up through the mountains and villages across the SE corner of this lower part of Baja Sur.  After only about 40 minutes I passed a Tropico of Cancer sign, and this reminded me that someone in Todos Santos had mentioned to me that the Tropic line was right on the city limits when I was heading south down the west coast, but I had not seen a sign or anything. So when I saw this one along side the road, I had to stop – trouble was I suddenly saw a cop car parked opposite, so rather than slam on the anchors and slither into the parking area, I drove on past and did a sedate U turn further up the road and drove back.   Only to find the cop car had a flat tyre and had been parked by the road for some time – The windscreen was filthy !!

Anyway, the Tropic sign was one of the nicer ones I have seen anywhere – Clean, toilets, little drink stands. And not only a brass plaque, but a big globe as well.  Oh, and a few pews and a mini church – Presumably for the many who fall by the wayside over here – Certainly a lot of memorial candles burning, anyway !! Very impressed.

About 20 minutes later the road dropped out of the hills to a little seaside resort with some development going on, so I dropped into town for a look.  Los Barriles.  Lovely little water spout thingy at the corner, and some lovely little shops – so I went on.  Along the beach, it became less developed, but still rather nice – A bit Bali-ish in places, with side walk restaurants and bars.  I kept going as I saw a sign for an RV Park and thought I would just check it out, because many of them are a bit sad and neglected and empty at this time of year. Anyway, finally found the gate for the Playa Norte RV Park – And it was gorgeous.  Right down on the beach, and Cazz (and her dog Jazz) came over as park host to have a chat.  She has been here 6 years, while there are a couple of other medium to long term residents here as well, but that was it.  Apparently come December, once it cools down a bit, you won’t get a spot here !! More to the point, they had wifi, so I made a note of that, then headed on north to La Paz.

Back into the hills again for the run into La Paz, and some rather interesting Cliffside dwellings were for sale outside the pretty little village of San Bartolo.  There was also an interesting little village with lots of Topes, and by each tope are locals holding up cans of something to sell – I eventually realised they were the red “fruits” off the cactus plant.  Needless to say, I didn’t buy any, but will try to get tome pics of that little village later as it was rather interesting for reasons I will explain tomorrow !!

Then into La Paz where first I saw a car parked securely under a truck which had been trying to make a wide right hand turn – The police were already there sorting it out !  Then I saw a Nissan pick up with the letter FORNTIER on the back.  Now I’m not sure about Nissans, but I am sure the real name for this pick up might be meant to be FRONTIER, and someone in the factory has put the letters on incorrectly !!!  Ha ha. 

Then it was out to the port area of Pichelingue, where the ferries to the mainland go from.  As I drove in, there was the BajaFerries ship sailing out !!  Oh NO !!  Anyway, went to the gates and they said that I needed to go downtown to buy a ticket, and the ferry to Mazatlan, which I wanted, actually sailed tomorrow.  So off I went downtown, and actually found the streets quite easily, with Tom Tom’s help.  It just takes time finding the correct street name because while the address for the office is Allende Street, the actual street name has about 5 names in it, and you have to get them in the right order !!  So it is a half hour job to get the address in there !!

Anyway, walked in and in my best French (?) (my mind still goes blank when I try to think in Spanish, and I revert to French !!) asked for a ticket to Mazatlan for tomorrow, the 7^th.  After a few minutes I worked out that the girl was saying “No spaces to Mazatlan until the 12^th August”.  5 days away !!!  Anyway, lots of exasperation on my part, and eventually I determined that I could catch a ferry tomorrow to Topolobampo – And that T…was only a 5 hour ferry ride instead of a 15 hour one to Mazatlan. The trouble was that T… is about 200 kms NORTH of Mazatlan, so it will then take me 2-3 hours to drive back down to where I original wanted to land in Mazatlan !!  Oh well.  I am a but surprised since this is the low season, but s**t happens, I guess, and this isn’t really that bad in the face of things.   So with ticket in hand, and not having to report to the terminal till about noon tomorrow, it was till only 3.30 pm and too hot to stop to camp yet, so I decided to drive the one hour or so back down the coast to Los Barriles and Playa Norte RV park on the beach, and spend the night there.  So that is where I am tonight, on the beach, and got wifi in my van for the first time in AGES !!!  So hopefully this will get published tonight, and all will be up to date before I head over to the Mexican mainland tomorrow.  Pigs might fly too……………………..

Pics are here :-  https://picasaweb.google.com/117739775480775657932/0075CaboToLosBarriles?authkey=Gv1sRgCLXPvvuT98TJPw#