Guerrero Negro - San Quintin – Ensenada

We spent only one night in Guerrero Negro because the next day is a fairly long drive, 410 km to San Quintin. For me it’s the worst part of the whole Mex 1, especially the 100 mile long pothole section in the Catavina area. And we wanted to stop in San Ignacio for sure to see the Mission. As usual we stopped in San Ignacio, visited the Mission and had lunch at the beautiful square in front of the church and time goes so fast. The local natives  called it Kadakaamán in their own language, it was founded in 1728. A very interesting building with 1.4 m thick walls, probably that's the reason for calling it in the early years the „Stone Church”. We arrived late afternoon at El Pebellon RV Park in San Quintin and paid for one night. Later we decided to stay longer and ended up with 4 nights, the beach is so beautiful and so long you can’t see the end of it. Today I do this post from Ensenada, tomorrow we probably cross the border back to the good old USA. 

The very nice square in San Ignacio.......

............in front of the Kadakaamán Mission.

Founded in 1728, the inside of the church.

The basic but beautiful campground El Pebellon just south of San Quintin right on the beach.

                                          

You can collect he famous "Sand Dollars" on the 10 mile long beach.

Some lazy folks do not walk on the beach, they drive, then they walk for hours to get a tow truck.

Sunsets like this was the reason we spent 4 days here.

2014 trip to Mexico-7

After 9 days we had to leave and head home. I wanted to give us enough time so we don't have to hurry and we still wanted to spend some time in California. We said our Good By-s and got to Guerrero Negro early in the afternoon, it's only a 4-5 hr drive. We wanted to see the other options in town as well so this time it was Malarrimo RV park and Hotel. We heard about the place and it was a pleasant surprise. Nice and clean, good WiFi, friendly staff and they also have the Whale Watching Tours in the lagoon that was on National Geographic. Met a nice young couple, they were in a camper van next to us, the guy from Australia the girl from Finland, they have been exploring the US and Mexico for a year. That's what we love when on the road, you run into interesting people and their interesting stories every day. The next day we drove back to the same beach where we were on the way south in San Quintin and the next interesting traveler were waiting for us: Charlotte and Anton from Austria in a motor home they built themselves and shipped it over to Baltimore, toured the East Coast, crossed the US, drove to the bottom of the Baja and now they were headed to Canada for the Spring. Anton said: we stay here for a few days, we have over 2 months to get to Canada. Hope to see them because they are coming to Vancouver Island as well.

Hwy Mex 1 from Santa Rosalia to Guerrero Negro going north trough the desert.

A makeshift memorial of a trucker at an intersection.

Malarrimo RV Park in Guerrero Negro was a pleasant surprise.

Advertising the Whale Watching tour at the World Heritage Site.

Here is the newer version of my invention. Instead of using the water from the small tank an extended hose from the winterizing valve to the bottle outside, flip the valve and the pump delivers fresh water from the bottle. As I said: we use purified water even in the tank, so this is a lot easier way to save it.

The next day we met Charlotte and Anton in San Quintin.They are touring the North American continent in their self built motor home.

2014 trip to Mexico-3

Next day our goal was to make it down to San Quintin because it has miles and miles of sandy beaches and we heard and read nothing but good about it. But to get there we had to drive about 200 km first trough the Santo Tomás Valley and then the desert begins that's famous for a type of cactus that grows only here in the whole world. ( it's called cirio or boojum tree ) It is very tall, looks like an upside down carrot and does not look like cactus at first sight. It was a very easy day, pulled over many times to take pictures, have a bite, we even stopped to by a phone again. The major carrier in Mexico is Telcel with stores in every little village. They have the same "pay as you go" deal as we had in the states for 199 pesos (16.5US) and it includes 300 minutes local airtime. Long distance and international is different of course but for 200 extra pesos we could use it every other day to call home and did not have to worry about minutes. The girl in the store did not speak English, our Spanish isn't good enough but to do business she got creative: called a friend who translated and we had a working phone in 10 minutes. After we left Mexico we gave it to an Australian couple who were just headed there. We arrived in San Quentin at El Pebellon RV Park around 4 pm just in time to enjoy the sunset on the beach with people from Campbell River, Michigan and and even a couple from San Felipe.

 

Hwy. Mex 1 trough the desert

 

 

We have a phone for Mexico now.

 

 

A huge whale skeleton at the entrance of the El Pebellon RV Park in San Quintin.

 

Made it there just in time for the sunset.

 

January 25. and walking on the beach. I can live with that!

 

The upside down carrot is called cirio and grows only here in the whole World.