San Felipe to Papa Fernandez (Gonzaga Bay) and onto Bahia de Los Angeles

These two days are Jan 8th (happy birthday Chris7 nobody called me on my new cell phone! not even my brother) to January 10th. I missed when I was blogging. I am back in Ottawa so I have added it here (and changed the title). As you read down what I originally wrote is right at the bottom of this blog.

The morning I left San Felipe I met these two riding there pedal bikes. They were camping mainly but having the odd rest at motels. As far as I remember they started at Washington State somewhere, and rode down the west coast U.S. They left in the fall/2010 and have to back at University May 2011. They are planning to go down into Central America. For some reason they looked very fit! I hope they are OK, some of the sand I experienced on the same roads they will be traveling on were hard for me but at least I had 80HP at the back wheel! One feels a little humbled when you meet folks like these two.

After leaving my new Mexican adventure friends (who headed back up to Mexicali after safely depositing me in this motel) I spent a day in San Felipe, bought a cell phone (safety first) and rested up a bit after the Laguna Salada crossing. By coincidence I am following the same route as the Baja 1000. The road to Bahia de Gonzaga was great, after leaving the blacktop it became quite challenging off road but not crazy impossible, just fun. It was very desolate and with the help of my "adventure" GPS map I was quite happy to arrive at my destination of "Papa Fernandez" as the sun was going down. It's an old fly in fishing camp. The road there is being paved now so the old off road track will be a memory soon, kind of a shame for people like me but good for tourism I guess. There were lots of photos in the restaurant of famous actors who used to fly in and go fishing with "Papa Fernandez".  The restaurant was closed until you arrived and somebody would come over and open up for you,  the food was great.



One of the pictures in the restaurant, Papa Fernandez with John Wayne circa 1972

                                      

My Beach!
Very strong off shore wind, the tent is anchored to my bike, but the wind did a 180 turn during the night and blew very strongly onshore! so at about 3am I thought the tent was going to take off.  I  got out of my warm sleeping bag and attached the tent to the front of the pole structure. Next day I spent the whole day just relaxing, reading,swimming etc on my beach, what bliss.



Inside of the restaurant at Papa Fernandez.



These fishing Trawlers were in the bay the whole time I was there day and night. I counted 15 of them at one time. Sometimes I could hear people and radios from my camp site.



Hey This is my Beach!
These two from Germany (Britta and Juergen waving goodbye) ship there Toyota Land Cruiser from Europe to where they go "adventure touring" every year (good idea eh? Michael and Judith!) then travel/live in it. It has a cool pop up camper feature. They were very nice and were heading to central America then back up the east coast America to ship back to Germany.



After leaving Papa Fernandez I travelled to Bahia de Los Angeles on very good roads like this 



Except for the odd bike eating pot hole like this one (3' deep x 3' wide).  Rule #1 in Baja never let you guard down driving!



You just have to stop at Coco's Corner. ...........This is Coco who lost his legs below the knee in a horrible industrial accident and now has a business where you can camp and he will cook you up some taco's if you ask. It is very neat and tidy with lots of memorabilia everywhere. He gets around on this 4 wheeler or on his stumps. It is a favorite Baja 1000 stop over apparently. I think there's a lesson here somewhere.

 Bahia de Los Angeles took about another two three hours after this stop.



This was written while I was camping at Camp Archelon Bahia de Los Angeles.

Hi All, I am writing this on the worlds slowest computer and a Spanish key board to boot, It feels like a type writer (break). Very very painful, but I guess as this town didn´t get electricity until three years ago I should not complain. I will update properly when I have access to a good computer. But for now I am safe, continuing the adventure, meeting all kinds of cool people and loving it, having the time of my life. I was told by a 60 year old American lady who travels here in her 4x4 by herself with her dog for two months every year over the last 10 yrs that it is statistically 25 times more likely to be robbed in the U.S. and 20 more likely to be killed in the U.S than here, so be safe and travel to Baja!. I have to say that everyone I have met has been super friendly and people who travel here on a regular basis agree it is pretty safe here using lots of common sense.
I have been following the Baja 1000 route. My bike has many scratches now, definitely not new anymore! I have lost count of crash%&/()==?¿es. I really should use Aprils 650 next time!

Tchau for now.

PS Thanks for all the letters.