BOLA Trip Report 9/21 – 9/29

Busy with work, so this is a little late...

Finished packing up the truck on Thursday night and left the house Friday before 5 AM to get to the border at daybreak. In spite of my own experience with the infamous TJ border road, plus all I’ve read here, I was pulled over for speeding on the hill! ARGH, not a good start for my kids’ first trip to Baja. The cop told me to pull over into the Playas neighborhood. I made sure when I handed him my drivers license he saw the Sindicatura phone numbers I have pasted to the back of it. He started the mordida negotiations at 1,500 pesos and I politely asked if he could just give me a warning. The price kept dropping and my answer was always no, gracias. I finally said if you can’t let me go with a warning, write the ticket and I will pay it by mail. Surprisingly, after he noticed my 10 and 12 year old in the back seat, he let me off with just a warning stating it was “for the ninos”. I think he was slightly embarrassed with the young audience he had for his financial requests. In any case, we were glad to be back on the road and headed south. The rest of the trip down was uneventful with very light traffic on Mex 1 south of Santo Tomas.

When we arrived in BOLA at 5 pm, it was hot and humid, probably from the Hurricane Ivo to the south. The next day the humidity dropped and we had great weather for the week we were there.
Highlights for me:
1) Seeing the kids enjoy themselves with hours and hours of exploration in the tide pools. They used a bucket to create their own mini tide pool filled with crabs and other temporary friends.
2) Kayak fishing. Although I did not get outside to the reefs, I fished near Smith and caught some nice trigger (made great ceviche), bass and jawfish. I went out in the bay under windy conditions and ran into Steve, aka 4Baja on the water and then again a few days later in town.
3) Going out on Marco’s panga to see the whale sharks. He asked if it was OK to take along a couple of guys that were collecting data. No problem, it will be interesting to see what they’re doing. It turned out to be Shari and Juan’s cousin Ricardo and Doc from Camp Gecko.
4) Great meals –cabrilla fillets cooked with butter, garlic, capers and kalamata olives and lots of fish tacos.
5) ZERO wait time at border crossing in Tecate on Sat morning at 11:00. This is a first for me. We drove straight up to the kiosk and were through in about 15 seconds.

cabrilla fillets cooked with butter, garlic, capers and kalamata olives

[Edited on 10-5-2007 by Yakfishing]

Ricardo and Doc

My Daughter Feeding fish carcasses to the pelicans

Yakfishing. Thanks for the pictures and the report.

Skipjack,
They had a great time and I never heard the dreaded "I'm bored". Suprisingly, it wasn't too tough to get them to sit down and work on the homework assignment they brought with them.