Catavina was every bit as amazing in the morning light. We explored the camping area a bit, then headed just back to the entrance, where there was a nice pathway that had signs giving information about the Colima tribe that once lived in the area. As we climbed up the hill we came upon an…
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We woke up early, super excited! One of the other rally teams had arranged with a company called Whale Magic Tours for two boatloads of grimy off-roaders to row out into the bay and commune with gray whales…and we got a spot! To those of us from the Pacific Northwest, a “whale tour” was an…
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We woke up to a lovely sunrise. We made a quick breakfast, packed up camp, and drove up to the tiny village of San Juanico. There was a small restaurant (whose parking lot was filled with trucks we recognized) and a few little winding streets with nice “get-away-from-it-all” houses. It was up on a cliff…
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After a lovely night’s sleep in a big soft bed, we packed up and had a nice resort hotel breakfast and got back on the road. We had a lot of miles to go, and we were looking forward to taking the last part of the actual rally route off pavement to get into our…
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We woke up after an arrest-free night on a beautiful sandy beach. Packed up camp and headed into Todos Santos where we drove around for a while, checked out the famous “no, this isn’t the one” Hotel California and witnessed a cowboy on horseback strolling along amongst a surprising amount of traffic. We found a…
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So, we’d heard the rumors. We weren’t the only truck that had, uh…problems. Some were far more dramatic than ours. But now that their owners had a few days to work up solutions, we started to realize two things. One, nobody was going to give up and go home. Nobody. And two, Mexican mechanics are…
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We started the day with showers. One for me, one for Jon, and one for our fridge and most of the things in it. We did a nice tidying of the truck, checked out of the hotel, and went in search of coffee. After coffee & breakfast in a very Pacific NW style coffee shop,…
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The sun came up on our lovely campsite and we prepared for another day of moving southward. As we packed up, we tuned in to the daily briefing, held over CB for proper social distancing. Around 7:10 as the briefing was ending, someone asked if there was an official start time. We’d always known there…
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Day Two dawned sunny and cool. The first morning waking up in the rooftop tent afforded us a beautiful view of the mountains across the not-so-dry-lakebed we gleefully avoided. We had breakfast, packed up camp, downloaded the day’s checkpoints and were off. Eight out of the first ten conversations of the day involved whoops. Predicting…
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It’s finally here! The first official day of the Baja XL…a day we thought might not happen with us a part of it after the series of events leading up to this moment. The organizers’ original plan for the Day One start was a sort of crazy launch with people in costumes and lots of…
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