It was going to take several days to register the car, or “Undead Red” as we like to call her and so Jon and I went on to Ensenada by coach before Figgis and Paul drove up to meet us. Ensenada is a weird place, a tourist hotspot for Americans, Candadians and Mexicans alike. All the signs are trying to do American corporate culture but they dont quite make it, they are all a little bit too neon and their fonts a little too funky Mexican. It being Saturday night peak season Jon and I got the last room left in the city without a fan which was covered in coackroaches (shout out to Rob!). Still, we managed to go swimming in the sea and horse riding. Horse riding was a bit chaotic because I was wearing a mini skirt that refused to sit anywhere but my stomach and because Mexicans allow you to ride in flip flops. True, there was a 9 year old boy who was supposed to be helping us on our trail, but he was very podgy and his donkey was in need of a burrito and giving him quite a lot of grief!
Still, Jon and I met up with the guys without too much trouble and we made our first step down the Baja Peninsula, travelling for about 3 hours South down Highway 1. We stopped to stay the night at this little motel and went out to grab some food at a little roadside cafe. Big mistake. I ate a fruit salad admist the flies, happily chatting away to the owner who was called, of all things, Eggy Capone. Went back to our motel room that was pretty hot, especially when youre sharing a two person room with four people. Sort of fell asleep and woke up feeling Id been run over three times by a blunt lawnmower before being whizzed up in a giant human blender. Staggered over the bodies to the bathroom, puked three times and (apparantly) started gargling and talking to myself. The guys were great, they gave me a whole bed to myself. Not only that, but youd think admitting diarrhoea symptoms is a humiliating necessity, but with the lads it was like an amusing tale which inspired jokey anecdotes of a similar nature. They also bought me lots of ice cream and Jon even went on a mission to find me soup and, due to a lack of Spanish but not a lack of effort, came back after an hour with some kind of fried beef! Me being sick left us stranded in our motel for another night and day, but the next day we were back on the road.
Yesterday we came over 300 miles down the Baja Peninsula, which is the little arm that stretches out down the West coast of Mexico. There is only one road that runs down it and its said to be one of the most beautiful roads in the world. You run along huge desert mountains, alongside volcanoes - the Three Virgins is spectacular - and deep ravines, you run alongside little salt lakes and a million varieties of cactus all blooming away. The colours are all incredible, dusty teracottas, mustard yellows, orangey greens all framed against the bright blue line of the horizon and the straight grey tarmac of the road with its single straight yellow line threading through it, like a moving piece of string when youre travelling fast eough. Paul thinks that the cactus look like bony hands rising out of the ground, but I think they look more like quite comic figures, maybe drunk Mexicans in sombreros that are trying to stagger upat a slightly weird angle.
The road is sometimes deadly straight with desert planes, waving up and down like a rollar coaster rather than side to side…it really is like a big dipper when you go over some of those hills. At other times the road winds like a snake around the mountains and there are little graves off to the side where people must have just gone over the edge. We have to be very careful because there arent many road side barriers in Mexico and there are hardly any cars on the road. About half way through our trip yesterday one of our tyres literally blew up and luckily we were able to pull over at the side but I think that shook us all up. We had been thoughtful enough to buy a spare tyre and we flagged over a passing traveller who happened to have a jack. We carried on very carefully after that, even if Jon did insist on sitting on the car window whilst we were travelling along to take photos!
We made it in to Santa Rosalita just after sunset, and our car literally broke down in our parking space. We are still waiting to find out what the problem is before we can take our next step…
