The northeast section of Baja is a extremely arid and undeveloped, but you can see abandoned grand gated entrances of subdivisions that never quite made it out of the planning phase. The road was actually paved a little further this year then last, but still ending out in the desert far from everything. So after stopping to air down the tires we were headed south again.
There is some pretty bizarre vegetation that I'm starting to notice, what little freaking vegetation there is. Its so dry in this part of the peninsula there really isnt even any grass growing. But check out this Ocotillo, its like some crazy creepy spider arm thing. With giant thorns you shouldn't high five out the window when you drive by, just saying. The plants would only get more bizarre later.
After a stop to buy fireworks, because we can (including one the size of a hand grenade that made all of us giggle like 12yr olds), we made it to Gonzaga Bay around 10:30. This a very small beach community of mostly ex pats. The reason for the stop was the restaurant. When we walked in the whole community (about a dozen of them) were discussing safety and first aid. Makes sense since the nearest hospital for them was several hours by two track road or airlift. Shrimp omelette, pacifico, and hell of a view from the table (this really sucks :) )
The weather was starting to warm up, so we found our way to a couple of really nice oases looking for wildlife.
Los Palmytos was a super isolated oases with a dug out tank for watering cattle, cuz running cattle in desert is a real good idea, but it was still fun to poke around. There was an old trailer there and a cattle pen. Nothing looked like it had been used in quite sometime though. The water in the pit still looked almost good enough to drink.
La Turquesia was a gorgeous arroyo. I really thought I might spot some frogs around but all we found were some run of the mill lizards. It might have just been so isolated the amphibians couldn't make it. Still really nice little spot
Heading out we were bound for Patchen's Cabin just south of Catavina. Patchen's was a small shelter in the middle of some really gorgeous desert, much more vegetated down here. Widlife other then birds was still pretty scarce after the massive cold front (I mean I haven't even been bit by anything yet!), but the weather was improving everyday.
camp
Nice desert, with the staple cardon cactus.
Now, I mentioned the vegetation would start to get odd. But look at this Boojum! What the heck is it? Is it a tree? A cactus? A prop from a Tim Burton film, or just Dr. Seuss inspiration? This is actually a fairly normal one, some were all curley or with little mop like extenstions at the top.
Another cool night at Patchen's.
The morning of the 28th, we made it up to the head of the "road" into Mission Santa Maria de Los Angeles. The mission was built in 1767 by Jesuits before they were expelled from Mexico. We stopped briefly at Ralph's place. Ralph is an old timer who basically lives in a bomb shelter (complete with heavy steel door) with a cement walled backyard. Think Dale Gribble mixed with Willie Nelson. He was an odd fellow to say the least.
Michael didn't think his truck would make it down this road, and Ralph has a high powered radio we would check in with in case of emergencies, so we left the two of them and the kayaks then Chuck and I pressed towards the mission. This is a famous baja road for its challenging 4x4 sections and Chuck was pretty excited to take it on, it had been a few years since he drove it last. The roughly 11 miles would take us over an hour and a half to do each way. The first 7-8 miles were rough but nothing really difficult. Then we started to find the bigger rocks.
On the drive out we accidently dropped the front right tire in the large gap in front of the truck in this picture. Caused enough tilt in the truck for my butt to grab the seat and the hair on my neck to stand up. Chuck assured me we still had a little bit of tilt left when your butt puckers, but it was close. Never the less we both nervously laughed when we floored it out of that hole. And now I understand what the pucker feels like.
We made it through without too much of an issue, a few sections we had to to pre-walk, and only a couple of "geez!" moments. However when we got too an overlook and could finally see the oasis near the mission, it was more of a rock slide then a road. Being by ourselves we elected to hike the rest of the way in than to risk a mechanical problem.
Hard to miss the palms of an oases.
Pacific Tree Frogs in the oasis! A tree frog, in the desert... on rocks?...I geeked out a bit.
An adobe frame was really all that was left of the mission. Very cool extremely isolated place few people have seen. Hard to imagine maintaining a mission here.
Made it back out, pretty late in the day and decided to crash another night at Patchen's cabin.
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