Up the Hill

Short Version:
We ride up a mountain, Janine gets a haircut

Long Version:
After our run/walk, we did some relaxing with caffeine and woodpeckers, then extracted the bikes and set off up Mt Tamalpais. There's a school of thought which holds this mountain as the original mountain-biking mountain, so it was kind of cool to ride on it, but it's a disputed claim and the riding in the area is now restricted to fire roads only and banned outright from any of the hiking trails in the area, which is a bummer.

As far as fire roads go, though, it was a particularly nice one to ride; the gradient was shallow enough that even I was enjoying the climb, and the huge swarms of many-colored* dragon- and damselflies were pretty impressive. As were the views of San Francisco from the many vantage points we found, and as was Janine pedalling up the hill with so much force that she broke her chain. Hardcore wife! One quick and surprisingly successful mechanical repair later we blitzed the final half mile to the visitor centre, and ditched the bikes for the scrambly climb up East Peak, where we found a fire-watch tower, bitey flies, and views which dwarfed those we'd seen thus far, necessitating much fluffing around with camera before heading back down to the bikes.

We paused on the way down the mountain to marvel at the West Point Inn, which is a hotel of sorts halfway up the hill, with hike/bike access only, very rudimentary utilities, and stunningly incredible views of San Francisco. If we're ever heading back that way we'll look at trying to nab a cabin. No idea on price or etc, but we do know they do pancake breakfasts on a regular basis.

Back at camp, Nene gave herself a haircut, which actually looks really good**. We made fire, which wasn't looking healthy until Nene took over managing it, at which point it became an inferno which raged so much that our grilled corn ended up char-grilled corn. Still yummy though. We drank the sole remaining leftover Mexican beer, which made us want more, then hit the sack so we'd be on top form for the next day's exploration of San Francisco, city of hippies. And thrash metal.







* = The bright blue ones were the coolest, then the green-and-black ones

** = I'm not sure whether it's because she did a great job of it, or if it's just down to her looking good no matter what haircut she has. Apart from maybe that perm Ma had back in the late 80s - that may be a step too far, even for Nene. (Hi Ma!)

Mount Tamalpais and Muir Woods

Short Version:
We're camping again! And running rings around Amerikans. I learn some things.

Long Version:
Our first morning in the Tamalpais State Park started with a nostalgia trip: cereal with blueberries. Hadn't realised how much we'd missed it during our Baja excursion until we started in on it. As Janine said: "Just as well we like it - it's breakfast for the next several months."

We geared up and set off for a hike, which quickly became a trail-run, and stayed that way for the twenty or so minutes we had before we hit pedestrian traffic near the boundary of the Muir Woods National Monument. The sheer number of people made running unfeasible, so we slowed to a walk which still had us passing most of our fellows, many of whom looked very much like the 200 feet of paved trail at the heart of the Muir Woods was the only outdoor exercise other than a grudging and labored walk from their car to Wal-Mart and back that they were likely to have this year. Even the skinny ones looked flabby, which is quite a feat. The exceptions were largely from elsewhere, based on their accents - the Polish family were a particular favorite, and not just because of the androgynous teenager's incredibly trendy and completely ugly tight-legged baggy-crotched purple jeans.

The reduced pace had at least one advantage, in that we saw a Winter Wren, which we'd otherwise have bypassed unknowingly as it was tiny, and was hopping around near-silently in the bushes off the side of the trail. Eventually, though, we were through the traffic, and Nene kicked up her heels and disappeared off into the distance. My attempts to catch up were foiled by the fact that we were now heading uphill, which isn't my favorite altitude adjustment. Luckily, my lovely wife was nice enough to wait for me at scenery-enabled locations instead of indulging her usual, incredibly irritating practise of running back to check I'm still following, then running off again, repeatedly. This may be partly attributable to the fact that our last run was the Oregon waterfalls shenanigan, a month or so back, and that our last intentional run was even further into the past; Vancouver for me, Karaka Bay for Janine.

The Muir Woods National Monument* is named for early environmentalist writer John Muir, who climbed at least one mountain with US President Theodore Roosevelt**. It's conceivable that this link was pertinent at the point where US Forest Service head Gifford Pinchot*** was lobbying that same President Roosevelt to have a chunk of forest set aside as a wilderness preserve, named for John Muir, in the face of attempts by a power company to requisition the region for a series of power-generating dams aqnd reservoirs. It's now one of the last remaining significant old-growth Coastal Redwood forests, and contains some pretty awesome trees. Even the medium-sized ones are really old, and some of the old ones are ancient. One which fell in the 1930s had slices taken from it and preserved in the park, with accompanying documentation pointing out features in the visible rings which coincided with important events in human**** history. The earliest of these were well over a thousand years ago. That's pretty cool. So is the fact that Dan Simmons references John Muir heavily and unusually in his Hyperion novels, which are rather good.







* = Initially I thought that the stupid Americans were at it again, using words incorrectly, on the grounds that a monument isn't a big chunk of land, it's a thing made of stone or similar substance, formed by humans into an aesthetically-significant shape, or, if naturally imposing, placed somewhere special. The obelisk on No Tree Hill, for instance. Then I started to wonder if maybe they were actually right, and whether the restriction of monuments in NZ to comparatively small-scale objects actually came down to NZ's comparative poverty. Mr Google says both are right, but that the Amerikans are against the etymological grain on this one

** = I'm pretty sure he's the one that teddy-bears are named after. Nice to know he had a penchant for the outdoors.

*** = One of the trees in the Monument was named the Pinchot tree, but there's no need to feel bad on his behalf for the slight implied by lesser recognition; he has his own National Forest, which covers a vast area of Washington State including the Mt St Helens Administrative Area.

**** = Amerikan

A Zebra Farm, a Castle, a Blimp, and Six Birds Perched on One Cow

Short Version:
We drive north, to San Francisco

Long Version:
Heavy dew overnight slowed the tent-stowing process, but the hummingbirds had decided that today was a day for singing, rather than chirping, and the result left us feeling suitably entertained and not lamenting the delayed start to the day. Which wasn't all that delayed, given that we were lost in Santa Monica (thanks a bunch, GoogleMaps Directions feature!) by 0945. Luckily, the nice chap in the gas station helped us become unlost, and we were back on the road with new fancypants camera charging on the central console, by 1030, heading north on the 101 and then the smaller, coast-hugging Highway 1.

In the space of five minutes either side of San Simeon we saw:
- a zebra farm
- a castle
- a blimp
- six birds perched on one cow

Then we found an elephant seal colony, and stopped for a peek. They were enormous, flabby, ugly, and noisy. They didn't reek, though, which surprised me after having experienced the pungency of the seal colony at the creatively-named Seal Island in NZ's Abel Tasman National Park a few years back. Despite the molting and the laziness, the sea elephants were pretty cool, and some of the females even managed to be cute, although not as cute as the sea-lion intruder we spied, and nowhere near the coolness of the critter we saw being busy in the waves; a sea otter! The awesomeness knows no bounds.

All that seeing things had left us hungering, so we stopped at a clifftop roadside spot for sandwiches and a wee with a view. Then, compressing many hours into a single sentence, we drove, had a near-miss with a car from Nevada, drove, and made it to San Francisco just in time for rush hour...

...which wasn't actually that bad. Or possibly was, but we were distracted by all the things there were to look at. Before we knew it we were past the really cool houses on 19th Ave, past the Presidio, and heading up and over the Golden Gate Bridge. I've never seen the Golden Gate without some crazy driving going on, or some supervillain or giant creature or natural disaster making it writhe like a Portugese winger who`s had an opponent venture within 10 feet, so it was kind of weird for it to stay stable as we drove across it. No complaints here, though.

Found our off-ramp, then our narrow, winding roads, then our campground. Which was lovely, apart from the incredibly strong wind whipping through it. Setting up camp in the gale was interesting, but it dried the remaining Goleta dew off our gear quickly, and we were able to get around the repeatedly-blown-out camp stove by cooking inside the tent (in direct contradiction of the cautionary labelling on the gas canister). We'd found a vacant spot next to a nice family (Hi Maxine and Mark and Sophie!), and both they and us were in bed and asleep early. Unlike the two young blokes who woke us all up at half past ten, saying we were in their reserved campsite. We said they could have a disused piece of ground for the night, which they declined. To their credit, they said they weren`t going to ask us to pull down our tent, which was just as well because we wouldn`t have complied. Maxine piped up from inside her tent to state uncategorically that there were no reservations at this campsite, and that they were probably supposed to be elsewhere. I suggested their reservation for site number EN6 at an unspecified campground within the Tamalpais National Park might have been referring to the reservation-enabled eco-campground at Steep Ravine, and they disappeared off into the night*.

Janine went straight back to sleep. And snored.











* = Their return the next day, coupled with the statement from the Ranger that they`d removed a probable placeholder attempt involving a blanket from our site earlier in the day, imply that they may well have been where they were planning to be, but that they`d been thwarted in their attempt to turn up late and still have a spot

The Breaking of the Fellowship

Short Version:
Anoushka and Craig head to Oz, Janine and I to Santa Barbara

Long Version:
From ratty, pot-holed narrow single-carriageway roads to well-maintained multiple lane freeways in the blink of an eye. Lunch stop in San Diego at the Kiwi Bar, which had a Bay of Plenty Steamers rugby jersey on the wall above Anoushka's head, as well as the detritus of a large group of Brazilian football fans who'd just seen their team demolish Chile in the World Cup Round of Eight. Inhaled delicious foods, then hit the road north, where the Breaking of the Fellowship awaited us.

First, though, there was LA traffic to negotiate, which Craig did with aplomb. Then there was the Hacienda's bar's Happy Hour, which had half an hour remaining when we arrived; plenty of time to sample and reject as overly-vile the $2.50 Miller Genuine Draft beer and still have time to down somewhere in the order of eleven $3 margaritas between the four of us before jumping the complimentary shuttle to the nearby mall, and dinner at the California Pizza Kitchen. Our friendly, fruity El Salvadoran waitperson Miguel was very apologetic about the pineapple-free BBQ Hawaiian, but we were busy running through everyone's best and worst moments of the Mexican trip to care. And when it came down to it, missing pineapple from a pizza kind of paled in comparison to pretty much everything we'd hit in the past fortnight.

Next morning we rose and showered, watched the end of Paraguay v Japan, then Janine and I left Craig and Anoushka packing for their impending flight to Melbourne and made our way past those members of the teenage geek convention who were up and about to the restaurant, where we ate delicious foods and fluffed around on the internet. Loaded our stuff into the Reaper, collected Craig and Anoushka, and hit the massive electronics store before rolling into Island Burgers for a) delicious foodburgers, b) never-ending refills of soda*, and c) Espana v Portugal on many enormous televisions. Espana went through, leaving the so-called-ladies bereft at the absence of Mr C Ronaldo from the remainder of the competition, and then it was time to farewell our super-awesome travelling companions, off to Melbourne to be responsible adults. Goodbye, C&A. You guys were truly excellente to travel with, and we're looking forward to seeing you again soon!

Took a while for the girls to finish their hugging and stuff**, but eventually Nene and I hit the road alone, heading north through sunny LA and rainy Ventura and then on to cloudy Santa Barbara, where we found an auto parts dealer which sold appropriate fuses for radio/horn/lights repair, and then found our way to Amy's house in Goleta, ready and able to help her shift house. Apart from Janine, who was unenjoying a sore back and asthma. As it turned out, letting agent shenanigans meant no shift, so we pitched our tent on the back lawn, learned about the bobcats of Goleta's suburban parks, and went to the most excellent grocery store ever (Hi Trader Joe's! Thanks for having so much excellent stuff and so many cool and hot staff!***).

Woke the next morning to rain, and hordes of hummingbirds, chirping and buzzing around the place. We set ourselves up outside once the rain stopped, and did some bike maintenance while watching the hummingbirds enact territorial warfare, with the feeder full of sugar-water at the epicenter. Revisited Trader Joe's for delicious trip foods, then went in search of cameras, which basically meant Janine trying features and enquiring about warranties while I took really bad photos of other shoppers, mucked about on the internet, and generally annoyed everyone. I did prove useful eventually, though, by using the store's internet access to find better pricing on a competitor's website and getting them to price-match down $50 on Janine's new favorite toy. None in stock, though, so we had them set one aside at the next store up the line northwards, in Santa Monica.

And then it was time to break out the bike and go ride up a hill with hill-climb-specialist Amy. Nene's back was still complaining, so my plan to let the two of them go and then noodling up the hill at my own leisurely pace was thwarted. Amy and I rode**** uphill for 30 minutes, plus a few more because Amy's a sadist. Then we rode back down****, which was much faster, and also much more scary. Two weeks drinking beer in Mexico does not a fitness nor a riding ability improvement make.

Back to Goleta, where we learned about defects in crystals and watched old South Park episodes***** while eating delicious Indian foods, then out to the tent, and to sleep, ready to get up and hit the road north early the next morning.






* = Root beer is delicious, for the first five giant-size cups. After that it's a bit yucky.

** = Took Craig and I all of a minute to finish punching each other, after which we stood around with our hands in our pockets, watching our wives express emotions and stuff.

*** = The hot ones are fairly self-explanatory, but the coolest one was the enormously tall and fat black dude who was minding the "Try our delicious corn chips and salsas!" stall, who was singing, loudly and tunefully, and completely unrelatedly to the music on the store sound system.

**** = May have involved some walking.

***** = A double episode about Peruvian folk bands. I gained extra amusement at one point when a giant guinea-pig dressed in a bee suit was shown in the parking lot of a Best Buy store, as we'd encountered a swarm of bees in a Best Buy parking lot earlier in the afternoon

Goodbye, Mexico! We'll Miss You!

Short Version:
Reaper security beats Ensenadan thievery, then we evade the military despite our own best efforts, shop at the border, and end up back in the USA!

Long Version:
Rainy Monday mornings in Ensenada aren't quite as happy-making as seeing the sun rise into a cloudless sky over Bahia Concepcion. Still, good to see another side of Mexican life - albeit a grim, chilly, workday grind side - at the front end of our last few hours on the Baja. We ate an eggy breakfast in the Desert Inn restaurant, in the company of a cabal of men who ranged from painful-looking late middle age to sprightly old. One had a very nice suit, another a cool hat. Most had moustaches.

Someone had had a crack at penetrating the Reaper's security overnight - we could tell because their break-in tool was on the passenger-side floor where they'd been forced to abandon it after failing to gain entry. Reaper 1 : Scoundrels 0.

Traffic wasn't as bad as we'd feared - we suspect people may have been starting later than usual after the excitement of the previous day's political rallies*. We got mildly lost trying to follow both the maps and the signposted route to Tijuana and the border, and we had some issues with hidden stop signs**, but we got out, and hit the toll road north.

First military checkpoint of the day saw some excitement, with Anoushka staging an intervention between Craig and the soldier with the big gun. By this stage we'd successfully managed umpteen checkpoints, and been speaking Spanglish to officials in a charmingly-incompetent way for almost two weeks. So it was somewhat surprising that it was at this point that Craig's recent, adult Spanish went AWOL, leaving him with what we figure he must have picked up as a youngster from exposure to Manuel from Fawlty Towers. We stopped at the checkpoint, and the soldier with the big gun rattled off the by-now-familiar-yet-still-incomprehensible string of high-speed Spanish words. Standard practise for us in this situation had long since become a combination of words, gestures, and face-pulling, all intended to convey something along the lines of:
"Despite my best efforts to learn your language, I have had only limited success - probably because I'm not very bright. I'm very nice though - everyone from New Zealand is. No-one from New Zealand would ever do drug- or firearm-smuggling, because we're too nice. I, in addition, am not very bright. No need to search the vehicle. These aren't the droids you're looking for."
This time, though, Craig said: "Que?"
We think the guard probably thought he had a Spanish-speaker with impaired hearing, and repeated his initial statement, just as rapidly as the first time. Craig said: "Que?"
At that point Anoushka, mastering her urge to fall about laughing, stepped in, and said something along the lines of "This is my husband. Despite my best efforts to teach him your language, I have had only limited success - probably because he's not very bright. We're both very nice though - everyone from New Zealand is. No-one from New Zealand would ever do drug- or firearm-smuggling, because we're too nice. My husband, in addition, is not very bright. No need to search the vehicle. These aren't the droids you`re looking for."
We tried not to laugh until we were out of range of the soldiers' big guns, but failed dismally, which was somewhat nerve-wracking.

Not long after, we reached the town we`d dubbed 'Ciudad de la Zombie Jesus,' because of its enormous Jesus statue, which stands atop the hill behind the town, looming over the city with arms outstretched in a very non-benevolent "I want to eat your brains... BRRRRAAAAAAIIINNSSS!" kind of way.

And then, before we knew it, we were in the queue for the US border crossing. Craig stroked a ceramic monkey in a green-and-white-striped bathing suit, we marvelled at the expression on the faces of the ceramic turtles, the sensible red-shirt-wearers (Anoushka and Nick, believe it or not) restrained el stupido green-shirt-wearers (Craig and Janine) from eating the churros (which had been sitting uncovered in the sun for an unspecified number of days)... basically, the hour-long queue was hawker heaven, with mobile pedlars giving way to a series of fixed-site stalls as we got closer to the border. These stalls had runners, who went car-to-car, seeking a need. When they found one - as they did with our hammocklessness - they'd then visit as many stalls as it took to find what was sought, with return trips for different size or color option requests. In our case, the poor guy had run several hundred metres by the time Janine started haggling with him in earnest, and he'd not quite finished telling us how hammocks were made*** when we reached the clear zone before the border control booths and he waved us a friendly goodbye.

For some reason, the clear zone seemd to have an exemption clause for little old lady beggars, so we decided to get rid of our coins. In another display of linguistic mastery, Craig yelled "Hello, Mister" at her to get her attention. She didn't seem to mind, although she didn't seem particularly impressed with the handful of metal that was dumped into her polystyrene cup. She had a moustache anyways.

The border crossing itself was incredibly anti-climactic after all the interest we'd had from soldiers during our Baja sojourn. The man in the booth looked at our passports, gently queried the lack of entry stamp in Janine's****, then waved us through. No search. No vehicle X-ray. Nothing. Obviously we weren't the droids they were looking for.







* = We passed through red town, yellow town, and blue town, all of which had been extensively decorated, both with massive banners and posters, and with painted buildings. All were being whipped into a frenzy by men with loudhailers. No female candidates until we reached cosmopolitan***** Ensenada. We each adopted a candidate, and, if we remember, we'll check the election results next week (or however long after the election the final, massaged results are published).

** = If you want people to stop, don't hide the stop sign behind other signs.

*** = Something about fishing nets and car tyres and prisoners. We think.

**** = And then didn't stamp one in it - what the...?

***** = We could tell it was cosmopolitan because most of the feral dogs were alive, and because there were obviously-homeless people. And female political candidates. And car thieves******.

****** = Would-be car thieves. Yay Reaper!

Mexico* By the Numbers**

No. of People: 4

No. of Days: 15
- In Mexico: 13

No. of Nights: 15
- In Mexico: 12

Total km driven: 4237
- No. of drivers: 2
- longest driving day: 961km (Playa Buenaventuras to Ensenada)
- shortest driving day: 0km (Playa Buenaventuras)

Places So Good We Returned For a Second Visit: 2 (Playa Buenaventuras and Hotel California at Todos Santos)

Cinnamon-Scented Vehicle Sanitising Sprays: 1

Police Encounters: 2
- Legitimate driving offences not charged: 1
- Trumped-up charges incurring fines: 1

Military Checkpoints: 14
- Vehicle searched: 9
- Large plastic bins in vehicle searched: 1
- Waved through with no inspection: 5
- Southbound: 4
- Northbound: 1
- Soldiers referencing World Cup: 4
- Inappropriate comments made to soldiers with guns: 2
- Inappropriate comments made to soldiers with guns: Janine/Anoushka/Nick: 0

World Cup Football Games Watched in Full: 5
- NZ games watched in full: 2
- Mexico games watched in full: 1

Scrabble Games Started: 4
- Scrabble games abandoned: 1
- People with one Scrabble victory: 3
- People with no Scrabble victories but tied for the lead when Game 4 abandoned: 1

500 Games Started: 4
- 500 games abandoned: 1
- People who were part of two winning combinations: 1
- People who were part of one winning combination: 2
- People with no 500 victories part of combination in lead when Game 2 abandoned: 1

Drinks drunk***: 266
- Bottles of wine by the bottle: 5
- Bottles of wine by the glass: 2
- Bottles or cans of beer: 202****
- Growlers of beer: 1
- Bottles of tequila by the bottle: 3
- Margaritas: 35
- Mojitos: 6
- Pina coladas: 12

Items for which numbers are not available:
- Meals Eaten (lots, of which lots were delicious, some were OK, few were disappointing)
- Digestive Health (don't ask, don't touch, don't tell)
- Dead Dogs Seen (many)
- Trucks Scarily Close to Reaper on Highway (many)
- Cows on Road (some)






* = Includes some non-Mexico ie everything south of and including LA

** = May not be entirely accurate

*** = Possibly wildly inccurate

**** = Almost certainly completely inaccurate

A Day in the Reaper

Short Version:We drive a long way.

Long Version:
Early start on the long drive was thwarted initially by sleeping through the alarm, then delayed further by Senor Moctezuma*. We eventually got underway around 0700, and were in San Ignacio for delicious eggy breakfast by 0930, having seen our second roadrunner just before the incredibly stinky fishing town of Santa Rosario. On our way south, Santa Rosario had appalled us with the miasma emanating from the dump on the northern edge of town, but this time it was the fishing industry which kicked us in the noses. Indeed, the lack of smell round the dump was cause for comment as we passed by, mainly around how glad we were we'd managed to get away as early as we did, before the heat caused the filth to start wafting particles towards travellers' nostrils.

As it turned out, it never did get hot - quite the opposite! After photos with the whale skeleton at San Ignacio and a bird strike which came close to claiming our windshield, we carved further inland, and the temperature dropped, and dropped some more, and by the time we reached the west coast at Guerrero Negro it was 16 degrees, down from the 42 we'd been basking in at Playa Buenaventuras. The windows, which had been down while moving since we left San Diego, were clamped tight, and the soldiers at the highland checkpoint had their khaki polar-fleece scarves on. They still had their senses of humor, though, as evidenced by the ones who gave us the score update of the elimination match between Mexico and Argentina (0-0 after 5 minutes), then brandished their machine guns and asked who we were supporting. We said "Mexico" quite quickly, which made them so pleased that they stopped searching the Reaper and waved us on through with big smiles and some laughing.

The rest of the day revolved around kilometres of Mexican desert driving, with trucks at close quarters on the open road interspersed with dead dogs in and around the towns**. We saw some beautiful scenery, including various desertscapes and some comparatively fertile valleys, which looked a lot like Central Otago.

Eventually we were waved though our last military checkpoint of the day after a perfunctory search, and it was onwards and into Ensenada, where we found but didn't quite manage to stay at the Colon Motel for our last night in Mexico.



* = Aztec ruler at the time of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Lent a variant of his name to "Montezuma's Revenge"; the colloquial term for any episodes of travelers' diarrhea or other sicknesses contracted by tourists visiting Mexico.

** = Still not entirely sure whether that's because they're the only critters around, or because there are so many dogs around that they eat everything else that ends up dead on the roads. Either way, we saw heaps of them, including one that had been burned after it died. We also saw some evidence of why there are so many dogs around the place, with every male dog fully-equipped with massive testicle sets, and one pair going at it in a service station forecourt. Admittedly, the receiving puppy was more interested in eating something from the ground and kept wandering off looking for more snacks, but the protagonist was undeterred.

A Day at the Beach

Short Version:
New and improved relaxing day, now with extra fun!

Long Version:
Waking in the morning to a gorgeous sunrise and the knowledge that there's no travelling to be done that day is pretty bloody good. The only shadows looming as we awoke that morning, other than our hangovers, were the knowledge that we were near the end of our time in Mexico and nowhere near the end of our kilometres; and the tummy effects which had started a few days earlier, and had been steadily increasing in both scope* and intensity.

Janine and I still managed to kayak round the island again, with critter-sightings including dolphins moving at a hell of a clip, some pretty cool bird of prey action, and heaps of leaping fish**. There were a bunch of fish doing crazy stuff back at Playa Buenaventuras too, with mass strandings and regular solo insanity displays from the little ones, both of which were greeted with beak-smacking approval by herons and pelicans and blue-footed boobies alike.

We'd picked up some goggles at Wal-Mart in La Paz, and discovered the richness of the marine life in the area was even more striking when viewed at close quarters - bright colors galore, across a wide variety of fish, plants, and critters in-between.

In the evening, we sacrificed the firewood we'd accumulated in Oregon to the spectre of the impending US border crossing, and cooked quesadillas on the grill. I say "we" cooked, but really Janine and Anoushka did so, on the fire that Craig built. My capacity for independent thought and useful activity had been severely compromised by an entire afternoon sitting shoulder-deep in the sea on a plastic chair, drinking beer***, so my role became largely ornamental. Luckily, I was wearing Speedos, so was at my most aesthetically-pleasing.

Once the remaining tequila had been polished off, synchronised swimming may have occurred.

Scrabble was attempted, but thwarted by someone which may have been me falling asleep mid-game****, then it was off to bed, ready for the early start next morning, for the 900km+ driving day of doom: Playa Buenaventuras to Ensenada.


* = Craig was last to succumb, at least partly because he refused to do so

** = Including a solo enormous fish, seen by Janine, and a repeat-leaping school of 20ish small fish which we both spied

*** = Amidst schools of the tiny yellow-and-black fish we'd dubbed mini-Nonus, after their larger like-colored cousins, which we called Nonu-fish because they were yellow and black and looked like they were wearing eyeliner.

**** = I suspect that if I'd had any vowels I may have had more success at staying awake. Having said that, I was a long way off the scoring pace, largely due to a complete inability to recognise individual letters, let alone form words from random collections of the things.

There's tequila on my shag-pile cushion - I can feel it through my Speedos!

Short Version:
Delicious foods, dangerous driving, return to an incredible spot

Long Version:
Before the speedos made an appearance, we needed delicious foods, and none of us could be arsed cooking after the big driving day we'd had. So we hit the road again, heading north from Playa Buenevanturas to Bertha's, first culinary star of our southward path. It was closed. And there was a truck full of gun-toting soldiers cruising the El Burro beachfront. So we carried on, a couple more kilometres north, to Playa Santispac and Ana's Bar and restaurant, where we'd purchased tequila and ice on our way through the first time.

Wonderful setting on a beautiful beach, incredibly friendly waiter guy, and pretty bloody good food (and long-overdue beer!) combined to have us feeling pretty good, up until I realised I was about to have a crack at night driving in Mexico for the first time. Looking back on the experience, it's not something I want to be doing on a daily basis, but not the extreme horror promised by travel guidebooks, although that's entirely possibly due to good luck rather than guidebook insincerity. Having driven around half of the roughly 3000km we've now put in on Mexican roads, I can see all-too-easily how night driving could go horribly wrong horribly quickly. Indeed, we saw a bunch of road-workers on our way to the bar, digging and doing some concreting (at 8pm). We passed the same group walking along the highway on our way back, in the dark, an hour and a half later. We didn`t see them until we were quite close, which was a bit scary, and highlighted just how real the prospect of meeting one of the random cows, goats, and dogs we`ve seen meander out onto roads in front of us and other vehicles was.

Still, we made it back in one piece, then proceeded to spend several hours playing Scrabble and drinking tequila and swimming in the sea, in warm water with phospherescence and full moons*. Doesn't get much better than that.









* = In the sky, and in the sea

Hell on the Road to Heaven

Short Version:
Soldiers are nicer than police officers, but we get to Playa Bueneventuras eventually

Long Version:
Leaving the air-conditioned luxury that is Wal-Mart La Paz for the incredible heat of the Wal-Mart La Paz parking lot was bad. Leaping into the oven-like Reaper was much, much worse. Luckily, some smarty-pants had bought a big bag of ice, and separated it out into four smaller bags, which went to live in hats, around necks, and down shirts. And pants. We'd assumed the extra attention paid to us by the soldiers at the military checkpoints was because we're now heading north, but in retrospect the soaking wet clothes, hair, and van seats might also have been contributing factors.

No problemo with the army though - unlike the Police in Ciudad de Constitucion, who pulled us over, told me I'd been breaking the 40km/hr speed limit (I hadn't, at that particular point, having just pulled away from a traffic light), and took my driver's licence off me. "A guarantee," the older oficer with the large moustache told me. "You collect in the morning." Hindsight says I should have agreed, and left the thing there*, but the amount he wanted as payment for my "small infraction" wasn't high enough to justify the hassle, and the chance of incurring further, more serious untrue-but-prove-it charges meant we handed him the money. We think it was a tourist-fleecing lesson from older, more experienced (bigger moustachioed) cop for younger, less corrupt cop. With big gun.

Onwards, out of Ciudad de Constitucion**, through Ciudad de Insurgentes, and north-east, past Restaurant Miriam (Hi Miriam!), and back to Loreto, where last week's policia encounter had been much more pleasant, less scary, and less costly than this week's, despite having been based on an actual infringement (driving on the wrong side of the road) carried out in plain view of the policeman (Hi Officer Luis!).

No police action for us this time around, although we did hear a siren just after pulling a U-turn across a dual-carriageway. Not for us though, which was nice. Stopped for beer and ice at Nick's Mini-Mart (Hi me!), then back on the road for the last 93km to Playa Buenaventuras, for another two days of beer in the sea, tequila, scrabble, kayaking, and reading books. Heaven.


* = Assuming, of course, that he was actually prepared to do the paperwork and make the false charge official. Suspect not, but not entirely displeased to have not put that to the test

** = Now renamed, intra-Reaper at least, to Ciudad de Cagar