Whitey and Scooner on the road

2-19-09 San Felipe
We are on are second day in Baja. We took the Tecate border entrance and were successful in getting out tourist cards with no problems. It was a smooth drive through Tecate to the Valley of Guadalupe where the wine district of Mexico is. I have visited the area numerous times before and was never really impressed. The wineries are pretty scattered and for such a young wine region the attitudes and hospitality really lack. I remember on my last visit we went into a winery and ask politely to taste some wines. We got the cellar worker or some other guy whom knew nothing about the wines and let us try three of there crap wines for 10 bucks. I looked on their menu of prices and saw a bottle for $125 US. I questioned and asked if that was a mistake and it was meant to be pesos which would have made more sense since the exchange rate was about 10:1 at the time making the wine about $12.50. But no I stood corrected; the wine was $125 US dollars. If that doesn’t have rip off written all over it I don’t know what does. They must sell 2 a year to some guy who got loaded on his tour through the wine country and that place happened to be his last stop and he had to think the world of that wine. I was so shocked by the prices they were trying to charge people and just the tasting fees were out of control So to make a long story short we only stopped at one winery L.A. Cetto, which has very decent wines and affordable prices. We picked up four bottles a rose, a white and two reds. Don’t know how often you are going to come across a place that sells decent wine.
So here we are at Playa del Sol. Funny little RV place little north of town. There are a lot of people that seem to live here year round or at least a good portion of the time. They got the full setups going with big palapas hanging off there 5th wheel motorhomes and palm trees planted the works. Scooner and whitey held up pretty well on the rough roads. We were heading down highway 3 towards ensenada when there was a pretty steep and rugged speedbump right in the middle of the road. Lets just say going 45-50mph and hitting something like that isn’t good for any car or truck. I think that is where scooner broke a pipe from out main water supply. Luckily we had some silicone and some solerez ( fiber glass to fix surfboards ) which both came in handy to plug up he hole and refill the water tank. Other than that its been a couple of nice relaxing first days. There is along beach out front and the classic huge tide swings that you see in San Felipe. Its really fun to wake up in the morning and see the tide all the way to shore and by the evening it’s a half a mile out to sea. We are gonna wake up early and get a move on it. Tomorrow is Carnaval and apparently there is quite a party. This information is coming from the military guys who checked our car on the way in. So we might stay in town if there is a conveint place to park and sleep for the night otherwise I think we are gonna head farther south and try to find a good spot for some fishing.

2-22-09
Drove into San Felipe to see what the caraval party had in store for the city. Lots of setting up for a big concert and what not but wasn’t enough for us to stay around and see the festivities. So we grab breakfast at the place that said “ desiyuno deliciosos” and I have to say it was pretty good. We both had huevos ranchers and I had a cup of coffee. The gentleman was bringing out Nescafe, which is the instance coffee most Mexicans make and I politly said not to the coffee when this was brought to me. As the waiter was about to serve the meal he brings me a cup of coffee and apparently the chef also enjoys himself a good “natural” cup of joe. He actually boils the water and lets the grounds obsorb the coffe. Really good coffee! The breakfast was great and hit the spot. We drove south and eventually the rode ended little past puertocitos, a dungy little town with not much to offer. We carried on south and about 2 hours down a hellish road of rock, rubble and anything you can throw on a road we came to a little stand that had beer and things for sale. We stopped for a abeer and met hermondo who appeared to have a wooden leg or something of that matter for the way he stumbled around. Had a delicious Sol and asked him about the area and things of interest. We pointed to the beach out in front and questioned its safety and the ability for us to camp there. He said si si, es tranquilo. So we check out the beach out front which was very nice and was a nice long sloppy beach with large and small rocks covering. We cirled whity around and setup camp. Was a bueatiful spot call cinco isles, meaning 5 islands which were there were five island that line the view point from the beach. We attempted to fish but there were a ton of rocks that were not condusive to catching anything. So we relaxed and gathered wood for a fire. Midnight rolls around as we are fast asleep and Shannon woke up to what sounded like very close waves crashing right outside whitey and scooner. And sure enough when we looked outside the tide and come up within 5-8 feet of the truck. We figured that was about as high as it was going to get so we waited it out and it head back out to sea so we could get a good nights sleep.
Hung out through the day and went over to Hermondos to buy a few beers. There was a little house-trailers down the beach and we saw a couple of guys heading out on kayaks to go fishing. Later in the afternoon the big guy “ Steve” paddled kayak towards us for a chat. Apparently he had been coming to that spot for about 15 years now and built quite a nice little place there with a solar shower and the works. Very talkative and funny. We think he was drunk and it was only about 2 in the afternoon. Low and behold, about 2 hours later big steve is clumping across the rocks in his ugg boots in nearly 90 degree weather. Pretty funny!!! So he was kind enough to bring us some civche from his catch that day. Cochito is the fish that makes this wonderful civche. Its’s a round fish that has these narly teeth, they look like really screwed up human teeth. He sat with us for about 30-40 min chatting away about his place and his life back in the states and eating civche. Nice guy, you almost had to feel bad for him as I think he was pretty lonely and had fallen on hard times with his family and ex-wife, kids etc. Again he offered for us to use his shower and come over for a beer. Shannon was not to into it so we passed on the offer and went to sleep. Once again around midmight or so Shannon wakes up but this time its not the tide, she hears voices and a boat right outside from where are camper is. We cant see or tell what there doing so we get a little freaked out about what the hell this boat is doing with a light on in the middle of the night. We get the binoculars out and start observing there movements and try to listen to what they are saying. They eventually drift down the beach a bit and then all the sudden they are on the way back towards us. When they get about half way between us and Steves place I can see that they are fisherman catching bait but boy was that a scare. You never know who the hell is going to be out and about and where. We are nearly in the middle of nowhere and these fisherman just happen to need bait in the place that we are camping at. Nontheless is ended up being a long night as we started to pack up some things and be ready to bust a move if anything were to come of these guys out front. We were planning on leaving early the next morning so all them midnight packing worked out ok for us. We got up around sunrise and packed up and were on our way toward Bahia Gonzaga.

02-23-09
Yesterday we made our way to Gonzaga. The road was hellish as ever. Lots of brutal rocks and obstacles everywhere. I kept looking back and scooner to see how he was doing and I have been having problems with the turnbuckle system. They seem to come loose all the time on rough roads which means tighting them pretty often so things to shift to much and cause more pressure on the bed of the truck which its connected to. I also started to see water come out the water fill side of scconer. I thought that my silicone fixture didn’t hold up but after closer examination it turned out to be our olive oil. It had been pushed up against the wall of the cubered and poped its top and the whole area under the sink was flooded with olive oil. Enough OO came out that is sipped down to the next level below and cripped out of the shell of the camper. So the side of whitey had a nice olive oil shine to it. Pretty nice!!!! We were in a sense relived it was OO and not water as water is more important than olive oil. Made it to the soccer game-military check point and just down the road is Gonzaga bay. Filled up on gas and went to the mini mart to stock up on a few things. At the restroom, I asked the guy who owned the tire shop in the back what he thought was a nice spot to camp. He mentioned papa ferandez back near the military checkpoint and also said to go check out the sperm whale that washed ashore recently. So we took his advise and head south on the beach to see the wale. Ou know you are close when the stench gets pretty strong and you see a filmy what foam debrie floating in the water. Sure enough there is a 30ft sperm whale about 10ft from shore that stinks like all hell. A couple pictures and a glance is all you need to see of the mammoth. Got back in whitey and headed for papa Fernandez. The soccer match was still on at the checkpoint and we came to papa Fernandez, A beautiful little cove with a nice long beach. Setup scooner and went for lunch at the restaurant. Yummy, taco, burrity, quessidilla combo. Hung out by the beach when we heard a guy from the beach asked if its cool if four guys on motorbikes camp near us. Of course we said!! Jim, Jim, Jay, and Jeff were from the Vancuvor area in British Colombia and riding there motorbikes up and down the penensuila. Of course two of them had a BMW Gs model which is the bike I have been reading about and would like to some day purchase. All really nice guys that love to ride bikes and had a ball on the rough road coming in to Gonzaga. They were on the move and were planning on leaving early the next morning for Bahia De Los Angles. The way they described parts of British Colombia had me sold and intrigued to visit at some point in time.

02-26-09
Few days later now and we left Papa Fernandez the morning of the 23rd and made our way south to Punta Rosillilita and a little north of that called Aleandros. It’s a quint spot with a really great right point break. There are a few little palapa-hut style places on the beach for rent. We drove into Santa Rosillilita first and grabbed a couple of supplies before heading to Aleandros. It’s a little tricky of a drive to get there as the road is pretty bad and there area couple steep hills that can get a little slippery when rain comes. We scooped out the place and saw two other campers already there. One had a van with more equipment than I have ever seen, they have now been named the traveling X-Games! The other camper is in a late 80’s Ford diesel with a steel shell on the back. He had his little hut all set up and it looked like he had been there for a while. W chatted very briefly with the traveling x-games and have not really spoken with them since. They seem to like there privacy and keep to themselves. The old ford truck belong to Matt from Point Loma. Matt works on a sport fishing boat in San Diego and in the dead months for sport fishing he comes down to baja for a couple months. He has been here since Christmas day. He says he will be here till about early March. Matt is big fisherman and surfer. He came down here with 10 surfboards. There is also a little house a hundred yards behind the camp that is a nice little stone house with a boat out front and a Toyota Tacoma. The house belongs to George and Sandra. George is originally from Jersey transplanted to San Diego 27 years ago and Sandra is originally from the Neatherlands. They built there little dream home about 4 years ago and have been living here happily since then. George did tile work back in San Diego and his craft shows through on his stone work on the outside of his little beach front dream home. They run there house on solar power, have a solar shower to heat there water and built there own septic tank, the works. Very simple living and very creative I give big props for taking those big steps. He said the whole house cost about 9k to build. Not bad for a beach from home. Got into Aleandros about noon and set up camp and unfortunetly there wasn’t much surf to speak of . The little bay is really beautiful. There is a rocky point to your right and the bay extends and far as the eye can see to the south. When there is a good north-west swell the wave wraps around the rocky point and makes a long awesome right. We took a walk up the rocky point around sunset to catch the falling sun. The bay actually faces almost directly south so to see the sunset you have to walk up the hill a bit to catch a glimpse of the fading sun. There were a bunch of locals out clam hunting and we were sitting in front of scooner watching the waves. There was one little kid in blue plad short, new black pumas. He kept running around and not really helping the clam hunters. Our X-Game neighbors were out on the beach with a wind skate =board type thing. It was a skateboard with a wind sail on it that they could cruise around the sand on. The little kid kept coming up to him and trying to get himself a turn on this skateboard. The X-Game guys were not into and kept shoeing him away. The little kid made his way up to us and started chatting about where were from what were doing yada, yada yada. Then he started asking about my tackle box and what I had in it. Did I have a knife, hooks, what kind, any new ones. I could tell at this point this little shit was nothing but trouble. Everytime after we told him we had nothing and we were done talking to him he would run by and make little jokes about “oh si hablaaa espanooolll” tryin to make fun of out limite Spanish skills. After he left I was talking with Shan in disappointment in the youth of Mexico. I didn’t really pay much attention to this until it was brought to my attention in my language school in Cuernavaca. I was in class with one of many christain travelers spreading the word of god throughout Mexico. The Christians next stop was the Universidad de Cuidad de Mexico. The biggest University in Mexico and in Mexico city which is one of the biggest cities in the world. Our teachers kept repeating to Colby whom was the Christian student in my class that she was going to have a very difficult time talking to the students at the university as the youth in Mexico is the worst she has ever seen. She described them as very political, uneducated, violent, destructive. Etc. etc. She went on for about 5 minutes about the youth of mexico and there lack o drive to do anything except be destructive to there surrounding. The more I thought about this and the already huge income and social economic divide, it seems that with the current youth of this country that its only going to get much worse. The youth don’t have any skills, there parents at least had agriculture, or automotive skills to maintain jobs. But the youth never acquired those skills and instead concentrated on learning how to get tattoos and spend there parents very hard earned money or current pop culture items. When I looked at this little kidded decked out to the nines with new American pop appearal watching his dad or uncle or someone of an elder age do all the work as he went around the camp seeing what people had, what he might be able to steal and then make fun of us. I was completely digusted by his behavior. This kid was going to grow up and not know how to clam hunt which from the looks of it is possible how there family makes money to survive. His Spanish was poor, which I am guessing means he probably doesn’t go to school, so he is completely uneducated in his own language and has no agrigulcture or skills of any sort to contribute to his family. And to top it off he is not even a good kid, he is a little monster as Matt calls him. As we travel through this country I see more and more of the same of this youth. The future looks bleek for this country as its already on the break of a failing state from its drug war, now it has the most unskilled, uneducated youth of its countries history. What will come of a place that was built on agriculture, farming, caddle rasing, industries. The tourism business is nearly extint at the moment because of the lack of security from the war on drugs and most people tried to cash in on the tourism boom in the late 90’s and gave up jobs in other industries. I ponder a lot of what will become of this beautiful country with truly kind people. I feel for the baby boomer generation of Mexico. That generation is now in hard times and have worked for many years to create a nest for there family and are watching there children act like little lazy monsters. It’s a problem!!

Hung out for a while in Scooner and cooked some yummy spagetti and called it a night early. Woke up to a little more surf but still not much to talk of. I chatted with Matt about fishing and surfing a bit and he said he was gonna take a little hike later to look for arrowheads up in the hills from Indian tribes from the area. Took off about 11 or so and walked north east up the hill in what was a creek sometime ago. The landscape is really beautiful with warm tone colors everywhere. Lots of reds, browns, and the higher you get up the hill there is more green vegatation as well. We walked about 2/3 up this mountain and stopped at t little spot that had a flat landing area with a ton of seashells which as Matt put it “they didn’t walk themselves up here” . You could tell where the little colonies of people were and what area they worked in by the flatness of the little area and the seashells. We spent a few hours going through the earth looking for little arrowheads. Matt was the winner by finding about 3-5 pretty good little arrowheads. Shan and I found some very close examples of an arrowhead but were considered flacks or weatherwashed in the form of an arrowhead. I found a really great green rock that was in a perfect shape of an arrowhead. He didn’t have the marks that would have shown that it was chisles away by an Indian but would have made a great arrowhead nonetheless. Made it back to camp around 3ish and the surf was a little rough but the tide was out and there were some fun ridable waves to be had. It was a little cold so Shan was not to into heading out on this day. But I saw Sandra and George catching some fun right and thought I need to get in the water just to get my arms loose and get back into the swing of surfing. It had been about a month since I have been in the water. I was working overtime on Scooner getting him prepped for this trip. Between installing the solar and getting his electrical, propane, water systems all in place and ready was quite a task. Its held up pretty well so far. I have been taking little notes of things that I would like to change an fix a little better but in a whole to survive some of the roads we went through and come out ontop is pretty great. The biggest problem we had was the water pipe that broke and we lost all of our water that first day. Luckily we were in San Felipe where we could fill up easy after we plugged the whole. Our plan is to hang out here for a day or two more then head east again and make a stop in Bahia de Los Angeles then on down to El Bariil aka La Mancha for a few days. I think it will be nice to be able to use a shower and washing machine. Get cleaned up, get scooner all filled and have a little regroup. It will be almost 2 weeks by that point an we have only spent about $200 dollars total. Not bad for a 2 week trip. I really hope Shann gets out on the board and likes it, I feel bad since she does’t like the cold water and hasn’t really had that good ride that sparks her interest to be out on the water all the time. It takes that epiphany ride or moment in the water to get a person really excited about surfing as the first learning curve of surfing is really difficult and hard. It felt really great to be out on the water yesterday. The waves weren’t anything amazing but it was really great to be in these foreign waters watching the sunset to the west and catching this great right break off the point. I remember when George was about to take his last wave and yelled out to me “ one more for me and you can have all the waves to yourself” George took his wave in and I paddled over to the point and was out there all alone. Last time I was out surfing in San Diego we went camping at San Elijo and when we would go out in front of the campground there would be anywhere from 4-20 people fighting for 1-2 little peaks. So to be out on this awesome right point break by myself taking any wave that look appetizing is truly surreal. I did take a couple of waves and the rights are always open ith just enough power to keep my old 8’6 on the move. We were hoping that the surf picks up a little by morning and we could have a couple good little sessions throughout the day. Signing off for now.