Wednesday, February 24
Ah, Bahia! Today we travel from Bahia de Los Angeles to Bahia de San Quintin (or rather Bahia Santa Maria, as it turns out). The wind stopped during the night and the day dawns bright, sunny, and calm. In sheltered places, it is warm. There is still a slight breeze off the water, but is comes from the southwest and blows toward shore. We decide not to to hurry our departure. We set up our breakfast on the picnic table outside D & G's room. After breakfast, we putter a bit. We pay Roger what we owe, so we are free to go when we are ready. There is no hurry, Roger says. No one is coming today to occupy the rooms we had.
I walk up the driveway to take a picture of the strange-looking ocotillo. Instead of a sprangly bush as we are used to, here they grow closer to the ground but in all directions and develop thick, gnarly trunks. B takes a kayak ride. D and G head for the beach palapa, and, after I help carry the kayak down to the water, I join them there. The breeze is just a bit chilly, so I sit in the sun to dry my wet feet.
We chat a bit with a fellow from McCall, Idaho. My, it is a small world. I take a few pictures of the insidious, creeping neglect that seems to beinvesting this place. Then we load up and go.
Our journey is, for the most part, uneventful. After a couple of hours on the road we are waved down by a young woman in an orange shirt. Can you help us, she asks. We are stuck in the mud down there (pointing down a dirt road to our right). We agree to try. At the end of the road we find a VW Vanagon 4WD mired deep in mud at the egde of a storm-filled, once-dry lakebed. The men from the nearby town have been trying to pull the van out, but so far, no luck. In fact, the blue truck that has clearly been hauling on the van has now broken down. Pouring gas into the carburetor doesn't help it start. Nothing seems to help. A young man is dispatched back toward the road to bring help. He comes in a smaller truck and, backing up around our jeep, hauls the blue truck back toward the road.
The woman tells us they went down this road to see the water in the dry lake. They've been stuck and trying to get out since 8 a.m. It is now after 11. She laments that they didn't back up when they first realized that one of the wheels sinking in the mud.
B gets the car into position, and D hooks up his tow strap to the towbar on the back of the Vanagon. This is already conspicuously bent, and is even more bent before D finally calls a halt. Even with 4WD, we don't have enough power to haul him out. Another contingent from the nearby town arrives, this time in a big van. They have a radio and will call a tow truck from Punta Prieta, the turnoff to Bahia de Los Angeles. I take pictures, but am not brave enough to ask for an email address so that I can share them with the unfortunates.
We mount up again and head north. Just as we clear the limits of the small town, we come upon a truck and and SUV, stopped in the middle of the road. In front of the truck is a big red bus, also stopped. Now what??? We get out to find out what's going on, but the whole thing clears up and starts moving before we do. Whew! A little mystery.
We continue to Catavina, where we lunch at a Desert Inn. The tortilla soup is good. Like salsa, like refritos, each cook has his or her own variations. This soup has some cream in it.
Our destination today is San Quintin. D and G want to stay at the Desert Inn (formerly La Pinta) at the beach, where they stayed with other friends on their last trip to Baja. We overshoot the turnoff. We turn back and head toward the Bahia Santa Maria. The Desert Inn (formerly La Pinta) is now called Hotel Mision Santa Maria. Go figure. The beach access that figured prominently in G's recollection looks closed off. The dirt has been scraped back, perhaps in preparation for construction of yet another new wing. One new wing is under construction now, nearing completion;r maybe it's just being renovated.
The rooms are nice and the public areas are spacious. D retires for a nap, and G to read. B and I repair to the bar, where there is internet access, albeit slow, and sip martinis. B claims there is no tequila in the drinks, but I beg to differ. For a while we watch CNN, but at 5 the barmaid switches to a show she wants to watch, a gory epic dubbed in Spanish. Women bleeding at the mouth do not appeal.
Tomorrow our goal is to buy some wine, and get close enough to the border that we can continue home on Friday. B researched the information we were given at L. A. Cetto, and it is indeed true that if you're not from California, you can bring in a "reasonable" amount of wine for own consumption, up to 60 liters. If you're from California, one liter per person. California winemakers have a powerful lobby.
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