Guerrero Negro

We decided to spend an extra day in Cataviña as the boys were having such a fine time boulder climbing.  The desert is dry, clear, beautiful and quiet.  Later in the day, three Airstreams (long, cigar shaped, shiny aluminum trailers) came in, a 5th wheel with THREE axles (who immediately began to fill up his ONE HUNDRED GALLON WATER TANK), another 5th wheel, a trailer and a Class C.  Even so, it wasn’t even close to full.  The camping area is enormous.  After the kids had their fill of boulder climbing (and Ellen was insistent on being able to DO IT HERSELF), we headed to town for lunch. 

We found the cafe (I think that there might be two, all together) and ordered.  I then saw the menu and was broken-hearted at the prices.  Thirty pesos for a taco; forty for a burrito.  We’d found, the day before, that a Mexican burrito and a Californian burrito are VERY different.  The Californian is ENORMOUS and more than a meal.  The Mexican is a simple tortilla with meat it in and rolled.  Exactly like a taco, but rolled, not folded.  Jesse was less than impressed; I think he was envisioning a Californian burrito.  After I’d ordered (and I’d ordered in mind with just a start on the food we’d be getting) I realized I’d just ordered 200 pesos (about $18) of food and was horrified.  I hoped they’d be large plates of food and it would work for all of us.  The food came; one solitary taco on a plate; one solitary little burrito on a plate; I was terribly upset.  I gave my food (a sope, which turned out to be what we call a "tostada") to Jesse and warned Pike not to ask for any more food; that his simple taco was going to cost $4.  I left Jamie to pay while I tried to keep Ellen off of the Transpenninsular.  He came to the car and said the meal (2 tacos, 2 burritos and 1 sope) had cost 48 pesos.  I guess I never should have looked at the menu.  I was starving when we came home and hurriedly made myself and the kids something to eat.  For dinner, we tried the campground restaurant and although the bill was 200 pesos, we walked away stuffed.

We left Cataviña at 9am; the earliest we’ve managed to get away yet. The batteries didn’t last the night and Jamie got up in the middle of the night to connect the generator.  It quit (ran out of gas) but had juiced the batteries enough to last til morning.  I’m really wondering if these batteries will work for us if we can only boondock one night without needing the generator, but Jamie assured me that he’d accidentaly left the furnace on both nights.  We made incredible time to Guerrero Negro; we averaged 75kph.  The roads were flat and good.  We were passed by two caravans (about 10 or more RV’s traveling together) and spotted one grey Lazy Daze in the second one.  They are a bit frightening to pass; they seem to hug the middle of the road and there were more than two RV’s who were actually in MY lane as they passed.  Luckilly, I had my driver’s side mirror pulled in and was hugging the right edge of the pavement.  I much prefer the semi’s.

We’re at the expensive place in Guerrero Negro; it is TWENTY THREE dollars a night, so tomorrow we’ll be boondocking at Scammon’s Lagoon.  We hope to take the kids whale watching, but hear that tour prices in town are about 500 pesos a person.  We’re hoping that by going out to the lagoon we’ll save 100P/person and further that they’ll charge us 1/2 price for the kids.  At any rate, it can’t hurt to try.

There are apparently two internet cafe’s in town; the first doesn’t know what an SMTP server is and I can’t send email so tomorrow I’ll try the second and see if I can’t get email out.  I’ll also post some of the 3 million pictures we’ve taken. 

All pictures are from Cataviña; you;ll have to excuse typos and spelling errors and lack of tildes and accents; I’m lucky to get online!   

Just a quick update as this is the easiest was to get news out; we’ll stay in Guerrero Negro for a couple days; we did 5 loads of laundry yesterday and the kids are having so much fun playing in the trailer I hate to break them away (so I’ll post lost of pictures while I wait for them to be done).  We’ll stay at Scammon’s Lagoon tonight and try to get in a whale watching trip tomorrow.  We’ll stay there again tomorrow night and then head to San Ignacio and spend the night there; then to Santa Rosalia and/or Mulege (we really only do a maximum of 200km/day) and we’ll post an update from Mulege (we’ll stay in town).  Then we’ll head to Bahia de la Concepcion and stay on the beaches for a couple weeks (unless we really hate it).  We’ll then either head back up to Santa Rosalia and take the ferry to the mainland or head to La Paz and take the ferry from there.  I’ll update while we’re in the Mulege area and expect Mom and Dad to do the same. 

We’re still planning on hooking up with you guys on the mainland and are really looking forward to it.

Thanks to Chrissy for all the emails (two? ) and pictures.  Please send more pictures (tho not movies; take too long to download) of Becky!  Love to all!

(it is 9 years later and I'm importing all these old entries that I had assumed were long lost.  when i originally wrote this i had no clue of a tilde.  Ellen just corrected me and chided me in a very gringa accent of my writing catavina and not Cataviña.  so they are now corrected)