Greetings from cold, rainy, and WINDY Baja

 The title says it all. We have been in Baja for about 7 days now. Our initial idea to head to Baja was to escape the cold weather and wait out a bit of winter before heading north. So far, our bathing suits haven't emerged from our clothing piles yet, and we are still wearing full winter garb (insulated sweatshirts, furry boots, and fleece jackets (even long underwear at night and in the early morning!!!).  What the heck is going on?  And we haven't even begun to tell you about the wind and rain.

Let's talk about the wind.  Holy cow, Chicago has absolutely nothing on this place (not true, says Misa, who has experienced many a blustery winter in Chicago).  Each day we have to reposition the truck so that we are not blown away inside our sleeping area.  We've spent our days watching the whitecaps on the ocean...which makes the ocean look quite unfriendly. 

Baja is also known as a pretty dry place--it is most likely a desert--but it decided to dump about a third of its' yearly rainfall average on us during the course of one night and morning.  We camped at a beautiful point break called Punta Baja, which is a very remote fish camp.  The second morning, we woke up to the drumbeat of a heavy rain falling on the truck.  We thought, "This can't be right. It never rains in Baja!" But sure enough, we got quite a storm and it turned all the dirt roads into the slipperiest driving surface ever.  Getting to Punta Baja required driving on about one hour of mountainous dirt roads. There were many times when we weren't sure if we were still on the road or had veered off onto a ranch road. Getting out of Punta Baja started with a very long and steep grade, which was made incredibly challenging by the rain. It was impossible to maintain a straight line going up and down these hills, even in 4wd.  The truck is absolutely covered in mud and probably gained a few hundred pounds of mud cargo. We are on the lookout for a pressure washer to clean off the undercarriage.

We also learned some things about ourselves.  Misa really doesn't like turning off on every dirt road that may or may not in a few hours lead in the general direction of the beach. Colin, however, will gladly turn off on any dirt road to try to find the beach if it means that we may end up with our own private beach at some point in the vague and distant future. So we needed to discuss this.  After a long talk about car sickness and bumpy roads, we decided that maybe we should focus more on places where we truly want to live, not just places where are interested in for recreation. Now we are going to head north out of Baja.

We are both a little surprised that we haven't found the Baja that we expected.  Maybe we didn't travel south enough?  Maybe we hit a weird weather pattern?  Maybe we didn't choose the right dirt roads to explore?

Some highlights that we had while we were here included a great night's stay in the Bibayoff Winery, on La Ruta de Vino, which featured a fantastic outdoor shower via a pipe coming out of the ground,which we got to experience by full moon. The rain also brought real unexpected beauty to the desert and mountains. The desert is in full bloom now with flowers coming out of every plant. It is spectacular.

Some downsides to Baja were the numerous federales checkpoints (the Mexican army checkpoints where every car is stopped because of all the drug cartel problems).  The soldiers are all very nice and courteous, but they seem to have a problem with stealing things. Of course we don't notice it during the check, but it has happened twice so far. Colin got his brand new headlamp snatched, which was his Christmas present and Misa got a pair of underwear taken.  Even if we saw them taking our stuff, how are you going to argue in a foreign language with a bunch of soldiers with machine guns?  If you are ever in Baja and you see a soldier wearing a Black Diamond headlamp and pink panties, tell him we want them back!!!