Our Travel Blog
Our last ferry took us from Alaska to the lower 48. We just purchased tickets from La Paz, Baja to Mazatlan! We are heading to mainland Mexico!
It’s a 14 hour overnight trip across the Bay of Cortez. Our very rough, no plan plan, is to scoot across to the Yucatan Peninsula, Guatemala, and Belize to check out the Aztec and Mayan ruins, and perhaps do a bit more snorkeling in warmer waters.
Now where did we put that Dramamine!
Who knew that diesels don’t produce their own vacuum to help power the brakes. We didn’t!
Our new motor has an added vacuum pump that creates some vacuum…we needed more.
As we drive into La Paz, Baja, we see the big orange Home Depot sign and stop in to get the components to fabricate a DIY vacuum tank!
We broke out the Swiss army knife and drilled a hole for the brass fitting and cemented everything together. We spliced the new DIY storage tank into the brake booster line. And voila lots of extra vacuum to power our brakes!
The Wee Rover is much happier now because after updating the throttle cable in the last blog she just wanted to go, go, go! We wanted to be able to slow her down and brake, brake, brake!!
Now we should be all set for our next adventure!
Many people told us we shouldn’t go to Mexico. It is scary. It is dangerous. The people are unfriendly, or will rob you. We heard all of the stereotypical phrases you can imagine.
We crossed into Baja excited, but with a bit of trepidation. Were these people correct? Were we making a huge mistake? We couldn’t help thinking about the things we had been told (even though a fair number of people told us the exact opposite). Who should we have listened to?
After almost a month in Baja, we are glad we didn’t listen to the nay sayers. We have found the people to be incredibly friendly, kind and welcoming. One example is Christmas Eve.
We are in Agua Verde sitting in our little screen room making dinner when two of the local young people we say hello to every day on the beach walk up to the Wee Rover. They wanted to wish us a Merry Christmas and to invite us to their family’s Christmas Dinner later that evening. Well, it wasn’t quite as simple as that! We used our simple Spanish, and Google translate, and 15 minutes later we figured out they were inviting us to the family dinner. We didn’t want to impose on their family time, but it seemed like they really wanted us to come, so we said we would stop by to say hello.
Well, a few hours later we had eaten a second dinner, played with the kids and the dogs, showed everyone photos of Vermont and our travel route map, and taken photos together. All with very little actual communication! They even invited us to come back in the morning to open presents with them.
Such a welcoming family and place…we felt lucky to be a part of their family, if only for a short while. We are extremely glad we didn’t let the fear dampen our adventure! Onward and upward…well actually onward and southward. On to the next adventure!
Tidbit: We have not only met amazing locals during our time in Baja, we have met many other travelers. Most we only spend a few days with and say adiós, but a few turn into good friends we hope we will meet again somewhere down the road.
Agua Verde is a tiny little town in a cove on the Bay of Cortez, far from the main route south. It is accessed by a 25 mile twisty steep dirt road, or by boat.
We aren’t really beach people, but we decided it was far enough away from the beaten path, and the hordes of RVs lining the easily accessible beaches, to be just our kind of place. It took a couple of hours down the rough dirt track to get there, but wow was it worth it!
Swimming, snorkeling, stars at night and a siesta during the day, fresh fish tacos at Maria’s tiny little restaurant, Brisa del Mar, just down the beach, and a great little general store that supplies the 200 or so residents of the village, and us, with everything we needed, or all the junk food we didn’t need.
I think we may be turning into beach bums!
Tidbit: We are from Vermont, which is French for Green Mountain (vert mont), and since we were far from home we thought it was serendipitous that we ended up in Agua Verde, or Green Water, Baja
While in Utah, we found our secret canyon. On the Bay of Cortez, we found our secret lagoon.
We were looking for a spot to pull in for the night, when we saw a couple of faint tracks in the sand leading off into the bush near a small rock cairn.
As usual, we turned in…
Shortly, the tracks dumped us in the front yard of a tiny cinder block house. In front of the house, a woman was hanging up her wash as a little boy played peekaboo through the slat fence. We hopped out, said hello and pantomined falling asleep while pointing toward the beach. She noded that it was ok to sleep futher down the track…and that is where we found our Secret Lagoon with our own little tiki bar right out of Robinson Crusoe!
We ended up spending 5 days walking the beach, looking for hermit crabs and collecting sea shells. Beach life isn’t too bad.
High winds kept us in Loreto a few extra days so we took the time to do a bit of maintenance on the Wee Rover.
Over the past few weeks, we have had a couple of little engine stumbles at odd times, so while we had wifi I did some research. The hesitation, and the few mini stalls are a fairly common indication that the fuel filters needed to be changed. We carry a couple of extra filters, so we popped the old ones out and the new ones in. Voila! Problem solved.
The other maintenance item was to make the change from bell cranks & rods to a cable actuated throttle. This is what happens with the “crank & rod” system. We try to slowly climb some nasty bit of track and the rover hits a bump, the diesel rocks a bit on its motor mounts and the wee Rover pops a little wheelie! Just kidding, but it does jerk forward a bit like we jabbed the gas peddle! Makes it tough to pick our way around over a rough patch, or a tiny cobblestone village street. Switching to a cable should fix the problem.
The mounting brackets for the new cable system came with the motor conversion kit, but we needed a bicycle front brake cable to complete the swap. Off we went to find the only bike shop in Loreto! Broken Spanish, pointing, and hand gestures were used to get a custom brake/Wee Rover throttle cable. A second trip to the bike shop, the next day, to shorten the cable to the right length. And a third trip, the next day, to find 2 bolts to mount one of the brackets. Three days, a few miles on foot exploring Loreto, and we had all of the bits ready to install! Even the little things are an adventure on the road.
A bit more Cabo. A bit more trendy. A lot more touristy. A bit more city than we usually do, but everyone said we should go, so in we went to a campground right in town. It ended up being a really nice stop. We met up with other travellers, made a few new friends, saw a wedding in the old mission, ate great food, visited a street fair, and enjoyed the constant live music. We had a really nice couple of days…and we got to meet Santa!!!!
So, we are walking around Mulege, Baja, a town day of running errands. We need to find a local sim data card for our Wi-Fi box, a stomach antibiotic for when, or if, we get ‘Montezuma’s Revenge’ and some groceries. Along the way to get the sim card, we pass the local bakery. We drool over the pastries but decide to wait for the goodies until after we find a card. An hour or so later, sim card in hand, we are back at the bakery and ordering up sweets. We plan to sit at the street side counter so we can watch the world go by, but the young lady motions us inside to a table. We walk in and a woman sitting at another table gives us a funny look while her husband chats on the phone. I look at her and we both realize that we know each other! It’s overlanding friends, Marilee and Rob. Over a year ago, we camped next to each other at Boice-Cope County Park in Oregon and struck up a friendship. What a strange world…Who would have thought, that we would have met up in a small bakery in Baja over a year later. If we hadn’t waited for our cookie, or the owner hadn’t motioned for us to have a seat inside we would have passed right by each other.
Another small oasis amid the desert.
