We took in the sights (didn't take long), and had a picnic & shell finding on a beach a few miles south of town. Also toured some of the back streets of San Felipe. The people here are extremely poor, but appear to be moderately rich in real estate. Many had decent sized properties. Most consisted entirely of dirt with a modest shack for a house and a small junk yard of miscellaneous tatter.
Despite obvious wealth disparities, I didn't feel the least bit threatened. In fact, I felt more threatened in California then Mexico. Not that Cali was hostile, it's just a bit more intense. Hard to explain.
Ended the day with a nice dinner at our favourite restaurant - they spoke perfect English, and were very accommodating to Vicky and I. Being vegetarian is not easy in Mexico.
Day 28
We say goodbye to the Sea of Cortez, and head across the peninsula. Today's destination is Ensenada, home to the start of the Baja 1000. Better fill up with gas, as the road crosses 245km of nothing. The drive is a lonely one. Nothing but desert and Llantera shops.
Let me digress a bit here. Not certain why, but there was a tire shop about every 30 feet in the towns and about every 20km in the middle of the desert. Do they make poor quality tires? Do people drive like teenagers and literally burn through rubber? The roads were good to excellent, so I don't think that was the reason. We made a joke of it, and kept saying "hey, I haven't seen a llantera shop in a few seconds, I wonder if...there's one!!!"
Back to the drive. It was uneventful. Until.... We started up one of the mountain passes just East of Ensenada. The traffic was starting to build a bit as we neared the city, but still wasn't too bad. As we climbed at a bit better than a snail's pace, a couple of vehicles began to catch up. The first one, a cube van with a fish store logo on the side, caught us and settled in for a long wait. The road was only single lane in each direction, a steep drop-off to the left, and very tight & twisty. No room to pass. Or so we thought.
As we went towards an S curve (with a double solid yellow), there was no traffic in front of us for the short distance I could see ahead. I took a quick look in my side mirror and then cut the corner a bit to maintain my speed and mitigate some of the sway of the trailer. Looked again in a couple of seconds, and the cube van was right beside us, nearly being pushed off the side of the cliff. I quickly started to ease the truck to the right and give him some more room. As he drove on through, he clipped my side mirror. No damage, but lesson learned. Don't underestimate the "boldness" of a Mexican driver.
The remainder of the drive was uneventful. Stopped off for some groceries and beers in town, then headed out to the south west coast to our camping spot. It's near Cabo Punta Banda on the map below.
Great place on the beach, but again nobody there. Only two other RVs. The others also being from Canada.
Tough times indeed.
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