The San Ysidro border crossing is also currently being remodeled.
While most Baja travelers who drive Mex 1 don't do
back-to-back trips in the same month, I've been doing just that this past month.
I drove down in the Roadtrek in early July, flew back home and drove our Ford SUV
to Ensenada and back across the border for the WON Coral Tournament, flew back to
East Cape for the Bisbee Offshore and then drove the Roadtrek north to
California.
Driving down in early July, the grade south of Loreto before
Insurgentes was crawling from bottom to top with road crews and heavy equipment
removing all the blacktop from the road leaving bare dirt. No news there. In
recent years, road repairs have been commonplace up and down the peninsula.
What impressed me this time was that on my return trip a month later the grade
had been totally repaved and with the exception of painting the centerline, it was
complete.
More recently, road crews are busy on the highways between
El Cien and Constitución, south of Loreto, north of Loreto, Bay of Conception,
north of Jesús Maria, between Punta
Prieta and Cataviña, between San Quintín and Santo Tomás, from the top of the
ridge north of Santo Tomás Valley toward Maneadero before Ensenada. And one
more repair item, the San Ysidro border crossing is also currently being remodeled.
All of this construction prompted several Baja veterans to declare that their recent
drives were the worst in twenty-five years. This was bad timing on their part,
but twenty-five years ago there were pot holes large enough to lose a rig in and we would have welcomed construction crews.
If you are driving down soon, allow some extra time for the
delays caused by the many delays where the roads are being repaired your next
drive on Mex 1.
As for the cost of fuel, on this trip fuel was $2.80 per gallon
for magna and diesel was about $2.84.
In 2005 at East Cape authorities began enforcing a 'no ATV's
on the beach' policy with inspectors patrolling the beaches issuing fines and
in some cases, confiscating equipment. While I completely agree with the decision
to enforce the law, fishing the beach on ATV's was my personal favorite method
of fishing. This trip there seemed to be a continuous stream of bikes of every
description cruising up and down the East Cape beaches, and I didn't hear of
any inspectors patrolling the beaches.
We did fish the beach with fly rods for several days in July
and the four anglers I was with all caught their first rooster from the shore.
Nothing huge, but fishing was good and they all had shots at quality fish.
In response to a recent Roadtrekker column where I spoke of
the kindness of the Mexican workers when I had a flat, one reader sent me another
good Mex 1 story:
"I was driving alone northbound on a weekend that was
also a Mexican holiday. As I approached
the large military checkpoint to the north of Jesus Maria there were hundreds
of vehicles backed up. After an hour of
creeping along, I was finally at the start of the inspection lanes. I got out to stretch my legs and struck up a
conversation with an officer surveying the chaos. He asked where I was going. I explained I was driving to my casa in
California and that I had not seen my wife in eight weeks. I added that I loved her very much and was
looking forward to seeing her. He said
"No hay problema" and motioned my truck out of line and to the
front. He then instructed the soldiers
to pass me through. I guess that the sympathetic officer had a wife or novia
that he missed, too.
I should mention that the exchange with the officer was
totally in Spanish. I must of sounded
pretty 'soapy' to him...mucho amor...solitaro... separatos"...Roger F.
A long time reader and WON Tuna Tournament participant , Joe
McGinnis, is planning his 6th Trailer
Buddy Boat Cruise from 10/25/2011 'til 11/25/2011. Since this will be his sixth fishing cruise,
he has it pretty well dialed in.
His trip includes a couple of weeks at Mag Bay, Lopez
Mateos/San Carlos fishing for wahoo, marlin, tuna in the Pacific ( Thetis Bank)
and some inshore estuary snook, etc…then returning to the Sea of Cortez at
Santa Rosalia/San Bruno. From there he plans to cross over to San Carlos
(mainland Mexico) and Guaymas for a week and then back across to PTO Escondido
stopping at many islands.
Anyone interested can contact him at 805 581 2504, at itzlinda@sbcglobal.net or at Vagabundoswww.vagabundos.com
