November 15th-17th, 2014
Leaving Cabo San Lucas I took a bus to La Paz, where the
Baja Ferries operates to take you over to the main part of Mexico. Ahead of time I booked a room, well really a
bed, through Airbnb.com for the first time.
These places aren’t hostels but more likely rooms or beds in someone’s
home. I chose a place close to the main
beach esplanade that was a basic apartment rented by a Canadian woman Raquel
and her Mexican boyfriend Omar. It was a
very bare bones place with a main room that housed a kitchen, a table, a desk
and a single bed. To get to the bathroom
you had to walk a few steps into their bedroom although they had rigged up a
curtain to enable them a bit of privacy.
Sadly above the door to the bathroom was open so everyone in the apartment
could hear what was happening on the toilet and having just arrived in Mexico,
it wasn’t exactly quiet. Oh well, it was
cheap, the couple were lovely people and Raquel cooked up a mean omelette in
the morning.
The night I arrived I wandered down to the boardwalk and
quickly found out that the Baja 1000 cross country race had just finished which
meant that there were a number of tricked out off-road vehicles driving around
and there were many boisterous middle aged American men getting pissed in the
restaurants. The Baja 1000 is a
gruelling race of more than 1200 miles (not sure why it has the 1000 in its
name) which entails about 30-40 hours of continuous driving across extremely
harsh terrain.
On the bus:
The esplanade:
One of the competitors in the Baja 1000:
The next day I took a local bus to catch the Baja ferry over
to Mazatlán, about a 16 hour boat journey.
While waiting in the terminal an Australian journalist named Matt
introduced himself and a woman from Nashville named Katie who was travelling
with her new French husband from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego in Argentina over
the next year and a half in the Volkswagen van.
We boarded a bus which took us to the large ferry and walked on board
and headed straight up to the upper deck at the back of the boat. I ran into Ayla, the German woman from the
hostel in Cabo that wasn’t too surprising as this kind of thing happens
frequently when you are backpacking.
There was a little cart selling beer on the deck so we grabbed a few
drinks and settled in for the long ride.
This actually wasn't our ferry but at first I thought it was:
And we're off:
A gorgeous evening:
Sweet sunset:
Chillin' on the deck:
Gorgeous landscape:
Bye bye Baja:
It was quite pleasant that the boat left the terminal just
before sunset and a gorgeous one it was.
I had long discussions with Matt and Katie and then met a fifty
something year old carpenter from Vancouver, who was riding his motorbike
south, on his first big journey outside of Canada…good on him. Our group of foreigners, English speakers,
continued to expand as it grew darker. I
invited a strawberry blonde guy to join us, Nathan from Washington State, not
too far from where I as living in Canada.
I would later learn that Nathan had just shaved off a two year old
massive beard and that he used to work on crabbing boats off the coast of
Alaska, one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Dinner and breakfast were included but we
ventured down to the dining hall around 7:45, fifteen minutes before the
supposed closing time for food but it was already shut down. We surmise that they just simply ran out of
food. So instead I bought a pathetic ham
and cheese sandwich and a piece of cake for my supper. Matt, Nathan and I continued to drink into
the early morning hours as most people tried to get some sleep. I walked below deck a few times but it wasn’t
an appealing place to try and rest as there were people splayed out all over
the place and the air was warm and stuffy, the outdoors was much more alluring. So around 4am we finally called it a night
and I grabbed a few hours of sleep lying on the deck with a few clothes as
pillows. Amazingly I was able to catch a
few zzzs.
Last call...
In the morning I ventured down to the dining hall for
breakfast and it was a pretty sad state of affairs but at least it filled my
belly. As I was eating I heard a last
call for the food so I ran up to the upper deck to wake up Matt as he had
missed dinner so I didn’t want him to miss brekkie. Sadly when he came down he was only presented
with some refried beans and a few tortillas.
Oh well, better than an empty stomach…maybe.
Sunny on deck:
The ferry pulled into Mazatlan around noon and Matt, Nathan
and I grabbed a taxi to the Funky Monkey hostel. The guys hadn’t planned on staying in
Mazatlan but I guess I had convinced them that it would be a fun place to hang
out for a night or two and it even had a small pool.
Pulling into the bay:
Our boat:
Our sweet taxi:
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The living room:
Cheers boys!
Life's good:
The view from above:
We were welcomed by the hostel owner Salem and right away
knew that it was going to be an entertaining few days. We quickly hopped in the pool to wash off the
ferry ride and then the beers continued to flow…oh dear…
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