vandy - 11-22-2009 at 05:06 PM
Just got to the house, looked at all the work to be done, and scooted to Tio Pablo's in Los Barriles for some dollar beers and WiFi.
Friday afternoon, crossed at Tecate, green light so no problem with my 130+ pounds of grains, hops and yeast.
Still some construction going on, maybe 10 miles of dirt road before Ensenada. Got behind a water truck and covered my car and small open utility
trailer with mud.
Ensenada was a madhouse. Huge Friday afternoon parties going on in the streets which turned into Friday night parties before I got through all the
traffic and closed roads.
Further south, I noticed a LOT of people parked on the side of the road, and nothing registered until motorcycles came roaring at me with their
ultra-intense high beams on. It was the Baja Mil (Baja 1000)...Doh!
Spent the night maybe 30 miles north of San Quintin at some clean place with high-pressure hot water shower for 250 p. Almost 30 feet off the
highway, too.
Saturday, did a loooong drive to Juncalito for the night. Juncalito was empty except for one motor home who had to hear me unload and repair my
trailer from 1130 PM to 1230 AM.
BTW, south of Mulege LOTS of cows at night. Have good brakes and reflexes and lights if you decide to drive at night.
Ciudad Constitucion FINALLY shut down their bad stoplight system. Just realize that you must treat all of the twenty-odd stoplights as all-way stop
signs, just as in the US. The white-truck cops are passing out tickets.
Speaking of cops, the PFP is out giving speeding tickets right and left. There are a lot more on the road, probably put in Baja as a response to the
drug violence.
But hey, they have to make extra money somehow.
Only searched at one of the several checkpoints (including two PFP) at 11 PM in Loreto (army).
The worst part of the road was so bad I thought my trailer would be damaged (It was). About 77 Km north of La Paz were a bunch of miniature topes to
warn of a moderately sharp corner. They are the worst in Baja that I've come across. They are a long stretch before and after the corner, all the
way across the highway. What kills me is that if I was driving too fast, my antilock brakes would not have worked well with all the very sharp bumps
One more road hazard, and rather more serious, is south of La Paz. There is a one-mile stretch where oncoming traffic is routed together into the
southbound two lanes. After they are put into two lanes, there is NO warning from either end that you may face oncoming traffic for the next mile.
No cones in the middle, no signs, nada.
I'm sure this will be fixed shortly after the first or second head-on collision.
As I said, just another road trip. Welcome to Mexican driving.