We met up at Brian's around 6:15am and loaded his gear and headed over to Circle K for gas and ice. We finally got on the road around 7am. With all our gear, plus the two yaks, plus 15 gallons of fuel, plus 12 gallons of potable water and another 5 of filtered water, firewood for a week, etc, etc, my truck was sagging pretty good. My 9-pack Deaver leaf springs were custom made for the lift and weight capacity, but I underestimated the load when I had them made. Since the trip I've talked with Scott at Deaver and he will be upgrading the leaf springs for me when I am ready. Just need to find a week where I won't need my truck!
After talking some with Goodtimes that morning, we realized that he didn't have his birth certificate or a passport. Spending more than three days in Baja mandates that you by a tourist permit! You can't get a tourist permit without a birth certificate or passport! The only option was to just go for it really. However, along the way he called his mom in Denver and asked her to fax a copy of his birth certificate to us someplace along the way. That ended up working really well. We stopped for lunch in Calexico at a Subway and right next door was a copy shop with a fax machine.
Drama avoided, we crossed the border around 12:30 with all the right papers. Driving in Mexican cities is always stressful. The signage is poorly placed and if you don't know where you are going it gets even more stressful, you really have to pay attention. Having fresh memories of the last time I crossed into Mexicali, when I led our group miles astray toward the airport, I was very alert trying to get us on the right road. The GPS with the new Mexican topos and road layer from www.LBmaps.com really helped! Alberto at http://www.bicimapas.com.mx/ worked overtime to get everything working in my Magellan Explorist 600 series, Alberto and Larry from LB Maps are great to work with. Brian is a great navigator too and he helped me watch the signs as I kept my eyes on the road. We opted not to stop at the immigration office in Mexicali since parking can be so problematic. We opted to head on to San Felipe.
View east toward the
Sea of Cortez.
Once onto Highway
5, the drive was nice. Not much traffic, but the smog was pretty heavy. We
rolled into San Felipe around 3pm. As you come into town and are about to
reach the Glorieta turn around, the immigration office is up on the left hand
side of the road. You have to go around the Glorieta and head north again
to get there, parking on the street and walk up the stairs. It's actually
an old house that was remodeled into the immigration offices. They were open
and very friendly and didn't mind that Goodtimes' birth certificate was only
a faxed copy. The fee was the usual 20 bucks and we were on our way. We didn't
have to go to a bank and pay this time like in the past, I'm not sure if the
officer just pocketed the 60 bucks or not… Thanks to my friend Andy for the
advice on going to the San Felipe immigration office versus Mexicali, it was
way easier.
We gased up and headed south. The 87 octane in Baja was about 2.21 US per gallon, much better deal than home. Imagine that… Diesel was about 1.87 per gallon, WAY cheaper than home. We drove down to Campo Percebu to see about camping on the beach. The restaurant/bar there was full of drunks yelling and there were quads racing everywhere, and they wanted 15 bucks to camp. Forget that!!!!!! We decided to go further south, but we had to help out some folks before we left. Some guy had gotten his new Ford truck stuck in the low tide zone and the tide was on its way in. Goodtimes has a winch on his Jeep and he offered to try and help out.
Once the Ford was hooked up, the winch stopped working! The controller had just stopped working. The reverse worked, but not forward. Goodtimes quickly pulled out some tools and in less than a few minutes had deftly rewired the controller and had it working. Next problem: The winch just wasn't big enough. It was a 9000lb winch and it didn't budge this poor guy in the Ford. The wet sand was up to his frame and the suction must have been a real problem. Had it been my truck, I'd have been digging like mad, but the owner just walked around smoking wondering what to do. He kept joking that he had Mexican insurance, but in most policies they have exemptions for loss of vehicle within a normal tidal zone.
Some local Mexicans offered to dig the guy out and allow him to drive out on 2x6 boards for 150 bucks. The guy accepted and then we headed off. I hope he got out…
It was well after dark now as we got back out to the highway and headed south. We wanted to camp on the beach south of Campo Christina where the populated area starts to thin out. We took the road for El Linares and then followed a few 2-tracks out to the beach south of El Linares. My heavy truck was having a lot of trouble in the sand and trying to get parked for camp I got stuck. I aired down to about 18lbs per tire and the Tacoma popped right out of the holes it had dug for itself no problem.
Here is a map of camp the first night from a scan of the Almanac.
We drank some beer and
had a late dinner and BSed around the fire for a while. Brian blew up his
inflatable kayak from Advanced Elements to be ready for the morning.