Anxiety got us going early this morning. There was still a little doubt in our minds as to whether there was a road from San Francisquito to El Arco and even if there was we figured we might need the entire day to cover the distance what we estimated to be another 80 miles back to Mex 1. About an hour on, our anxiety was somewhat reduced as we found an intersection and some signs. Left to San Francisquito and right to El Arco. At this point also the nature of the roads changed (or more accurately the nature of the roughness changed). Yesterday the road did not really have washboards, but rather large "whoops" (like washboards but about 3 feet between high points - we assumed caused by high speed vehicles). At this intersection the washboards arrived and they arrived in force.

We traveled the 10 miles down to San Francisquito, after all of yesterdays effort we had to at least see the place, returned to the intersection and commenced the haul to what the sign told us would be El Arco.

The 35 or so miles from the intersection to El Arco was more lonely but picturesque desert. The road alternatively pushed its way across sandy valleys and climbed over rocky hills all the time challenging us with washboards, hard to see wash aways, or heavy sand. At about 20 miles we passed the lonely establishment of Rancho Piedra Blanca and from then on we saw a few more car tracks on the road which increased our faith that we were going the right way.

At the 35 mile point from the intersection El Arco arrived as expected and with it the well formed but rough road back to the highway Mex 1.

The smooth sealed road of Mex 1 was a real pleasure as we headed a little way north to the nearest town of Guerrero Negro to get fuel. We returned a little south before turning west to Laguna Ojo De Liebre a salt water lagoon famous for its whale watching. Interestingly the road to Laguna Ojo passes through an active salt processing area and we had to stop at the entrance to this facility to have a guard take our name and description.


At the visitors center we paid our 65 pesos and drove a little way along the waterfront and chose a palapa to camp next to for the night.


Nina's report

Yesterday morning we woke to glorious sunshine on the beach at Bahia de los Angeles. I enjoyed the morning sun and beach, and chatted to fellow campers and photographed the pelicans flying off for breakfast and Eric a fellow traveller on his SUP (Stand Up Paddle) board, while Rob busied himself about the vehicle.

However, I was a little edgy as we had been unable to contact Richard and so were not at all sure his adventure to drive the Earthroamer RV to Disneyland had been successful, or had even taken place. There was no cell phone reception here in this little village, just a corner store that had a very poor internet connection that would not enable us to receive any emails. Even an effort to call Richard from the little store using their land line got a "no answer".

This morning I had planned for us to travel south from the campground at Bahia de Los Angeles to the small settlement of San Francisquito about 85 miles and then get a connecting road to a place called El Arco an old mining town and then link up with another road to get us back on the highway Mex 1. There after I planned we would head for the major town Guerrero Negro and the nearby reserve of Laguna Ojo de las Liebre where there is whale watching in January.

Our guide book indicated the route was suitable for small RVs and even trucks with light trailers. But a number of things were beginning to increase my anxiety about this plan:

  • our GPS showed the road to San Franciquite, but not the one thence to El Arco.

  • I checked with some other campers who had a map, that also failed to show the road from San Francisquito back to Mex 1 via El Arco.

  • yesterday afternoon while exploring the town we could not even find the start of the road south.

  • Eric had said he travelled in Mexico a lot and felt very safe in this town but one should always be careful. Another gentleman at the campground told us of a woman from the town who was murdered in her car for the money she was carrying. He had hoped to buy land from her, now he was dealing with the sons.

But it was just after 8am still early and that gave us plenty of time , we had plenty of fuel to go the 85 miles and back if necessary, or the whole way about 190 miles. So we headed out. We found the path out of town and headed along the dirt road, the route of the Bahia 1000. It had raced along here only 2 months ago and the road was quite chopped up. Once on the route navigation was easy, the road began fairly straight but Rob had to maneuver the vehicle around potholes, boulders, branches and avoid the worst of the washboards. It took all his concentration and he never got above 16 miles per hour and that was only for about 300 yards. Much of the time it was 3 -4 miles per hour. Cactii of various kinds surrounded us at all times which was quite interesting, some were in flower as there had been rain a few days prior. We left the coast within a few miles and continued through the desert.

Travel was slow but we were happy, anxious however to know if we would get through all the way and not have to return. About 4 o'clock with 60 miles behind us ( we had averaged 10.1 mph) we came upon some really tight sections. The road was narrow and rain had cut gullies into both sides of the road making steering the large rig a very difficult slalom course with significant drop offs on my side. I filmed one of the first of these encounters and was pretty shaky having to stop in mid film to tell Rob to get over or he would slide off the edge. After that I stayed in the vehicle, but in places I could see no land just outside my window, and got a little freaked out, as the house swayed with the changes in camber and the twist of the corners,. I remained silent but I was shaking badly. It was the scariest I had encountered and this was my idea. So I couldn't even complain. With a tear creeping into my eye we passed by another set of gullies and made it to the summit where 3 gringos were there filming our ride up the mountain. They greeted us with amazement. What were we doing with such a big rig in this part of Mexico etc. The tears would have to wait for another day we had to be sociable.

After the gringos left we realised it was 5 and getting dark; we were not going to make it to San Francisquito and there were no camping grounds anywhere in sight. We had agreed when planning this trip to the Baja that we would not camp outside camping grounds as we had been told there were bandits in some areas and that "wild camping" could be dangerous but driving this road in the dark would also dangerous. So tonight we had no choice, we pulled about 50 feet off the road and parked behind some bushes and settled in for the night. Not wanting to be seen we pulled all the blinds down and kept the light to a minimum and hoped no-one would come by until after dark and that the full moon would not reveal our location. Not sure why all the concern we had only seen 5 cars all day and 2 of them were the gringos.

Only one car passed but the night was cloudy and they didn't notice. We managed a reasonable night sleep and were off really early to check out the route. I was nervous we may have to retrace our path and I couldn't see how I could drive the last part again.

We made it to San Francisquito by 9, it was a tiny little settlement on the coast, and we left immediately so as to pursue the road inland back to Mex 1. It did in fact exist and although it was a very bad washboard road it didn't have the scary obstacles that we had to negotiate yesterday.

We arrived at Ojo de Liebre about 3pm. We had made contact with Rick and discovered he and Lizzie had had a successful trip to Disneyland and were safely back in Phoenix. We felt very elated that we had driven the route from Pacific coast to the Sea of Cortez and back without mishap, just a few broken shelves and one broken thermometer.