Alrighty, now that I am home I will do a bit of trip report (short) and add some pics.
As you can see by previous posts it was a major crush for me to get ready to leave. There was a bunch of reasons for that which I will skip but it was a first for me to crunch so hard before leaving on a trip.
The two days before I left I only slept 6hrs in 48 and worked on the truck almost the entire rest of the time. I finally just stopped working on the truck at about 12am or 1am Thursday/Friday. I had a few things left to do but they were not important (wiring of camp lights & power ports) so I stopped and began to toss my gear together. I rolled out of Jackson at 4am Friday morning. Once loaded I knew I had rear suspension issues, actually knew before that. Was squatting in the rear and I was worried I was going to blow a Fox shock on the trip. So I made arrangements to pick up new rear coils and some shocks from Kurt. Picked those up on my way south. Spent 5 or 6 days with my buddy Jason (Krazytoy) before we had to part ways, mostly because I needed to go to the hospital in Loreto and he didn't want/need to go that far south on his limited time budget. I had a dog bite that needed medical attention as well as some antibiotics which is why I needed to hit the hospital in Loreto. Once there, I was in and out in only 8 minutes and the emergency room visit cost me $14!! Gotta love Mexico! I feel I made one big mistake on the trip which I will talk about at the end of this thread.
For more on the first part of the trip, see my buddy Jason's thread here,
http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/138140-Boise-to-Baja-in-a-60-Series-Land-Cruiser
After that we (my co-pilot & myself) drove down to Los Barrilles, 4wd out a wash onto the beach between Los Barrilles and La Ribera and camped. After that we drove the East Cape road. Met an amazing father/son team from mainland Mexico who are kayaking the entire Sea of Cortez. Spent most of a day drinking beers with the son and listening to his awesome stories. That was at Cabo Pulmo. One story he told I will never forget. They had been out to sea when the hurricane hit on some islands. They were making the crossing from mainland mexico to Baja to begin their SoC journey. Now I have done some sea kayaking and crossing the Sea of Cortez is no small feat that much I am sure of. The son was also using an open top kayak which means he is wet 24/7 out at sea and the boat is much less stable than a sit in where you can wear a skirt and seal the hull up. Any ways, when the hurricane hit they held up in a cave on an island. It was about 20ft off the deck above the sea. They lashed their kayaks and gear down to some rocks and fortified in the cave. They spent the next three days in that cave and did not leave, even to go to the bathroom. He said the sea was lapping at the mouth of the cave for a lot of it. He also said the eye of the storm passed over them and for 30 minutes it was clear blue sky and calm. Unfriggin believable! One of the most incredible stories I have ever heard. On top of all this the son had been abandon by his father when young, he now was 20-22ish and was rediscovering and bonding with his father. They were on a 6 month journey and were at the last 2 weeks of the trip. They also walked the width of Baja 100% self reliant when it was hot about 4 months ago carrying over 7 gallons of water each. I met the father, a very nice and respectful man. My age, 40's and looked like he was in the marines. Extremely good physical condition.
We hit some beaches as we drove down the East cape for a peak here and there. I like my truck at these times a lot when I am in and out of 4wd a lot. We spotted some waves while on the East cape, mostly at 9 Palms. But we lacked boards and were heading to San Jose to get some. As soon as we hit San Jose we hit up Costa Azul Surf Shop to buy boards. I bought one there last time in Baja, back in 2009/10 and liked it so wanted another. However, last trip I didn't get to meet Alex Olea the shaper and owner of Costa Azul. Well, this time he was there and came right out to greet us. As most people know Baja got beat down hard by the hurricane last September. Costa Azul lost 95% of their inventory and their shop was a total loss. None the less Alex starts hooking us up left and right. We bought two boards from him (used) and he gave us wax, shirts, hats, stickers, sunblock and tossed in new leashes. Before we left he also invented us to go fishing with him on Sunday, at this time it was Friday afternoon. We were soooo stoked, Alex is such an outstanding human being and person. Of course we agreed to go fishing! He said all we had to pay for was fuel, no worries we said. I had met Alex's nephew Roy Olea who runs their shop at Cerritos on my last trip, mentioned it to Alex and told him we were headed there next to see Roy. BTW, Roy is an outstanding person also and is a surf instructor at Cerritos. Alex instantly says, you guys can camp in our compound there, for free! Man, we were blown away, these people are more than just nice.
So off we went to Cerritos, we arrived late like 9pm. I was disappointed to see it has really blown up there, I simply prefer things undeveloped. It was a much mellower scene there 5yrs ago when I last was in Baja. It is still nice and will always have good waves but was pretty packed when we were there. None the less we posted up in the Costa Azul compound, met everyone, Rafa, Roy's uncle and all of their's mother, her we just called mama. Now she is one fantastic human being also. Unbelievable really. They were cooking carne asada when we arrived and fed us. We spent the next 4 days at Cerritos. Unfortunately it was raining and cold, this began and 9 day stint of rain on us. Not constant but pretty much a shower every day. I had forgot my wetsuit at home and Alex didn't have any at his shop. So my first day surfing I only spent 45mins of so in the water before I was freezing. Normally it is warm here but with the rain it was cold. There was swell though. On Sunday we went back to San Jose to go fishing with Alex. We kind of got skunked that day and only caught a bunch of bonita which I don't care for. Oddly enough at the docks that morning, just random, was a high school buddy and good friend of Alex's, his name I am leaving out on purpose but he is on the city council for Cabo+San Jose. Something we didn't learn until the end of the fishing trip. Of course he jumped in the boat with us and we all went out to the tuna grounds. Both these guys grew up together and have been friends for nearly 40yrs. They also knew all the people at the docks so they scored a big bag of yellow fin for free and we headed up in the hills to the council man's house. His wife prepare dish after dish of sushi. It was outstanding and the conversations I will remember a lifetime. Some bonding definitely took place. We went back to Cerritos for that night but the next day hit up Cabo again to stock up as we were running low on supplies. Alex had offered to exchange some money for me as he gets a really good rate so went back to Costa Azul where he hooked me up again! Man, what a guy, can't say enough god things about this guy, his family and friends.
After this we spent another day at Cerritos and then decided to head north. Roy hooked me up with a good wetsuit for $100. We said goodbye to Roy & Rafa but saying goodbye to mama was heart breaking. She hugged me and wouldn't let go and started crying, I almost cried myself. I will never forget her!! While there we had shared a bunch of meals with them and also sat around every night sharing beers and stories. Please if you go to Cerritos give these folks your business, they have been there a really long time and as you can read are exceptional people. They have a lot of competition these days and just 5yrs ago it was nearly all their beach.
We wanted to drive from Todos Santos up the coast/beach to Punta Conjeo. We tried to do just that but got shut down about 40 miles north of Todos due to a massive construction project taking place. Eventually we decided this site must be for sea salt production as they were building huge flood plains, ducts and channels to direct sea water and more. We couldn't find a way around it, even right up the beach. I did however air down to 8psi and did 40mph for 20 miles or so right along the ocean. A fun but risky drive as the sand was soft and it was obvious at high tide it came up to where we were driving. With another truck no probs but alone it was risky, we were way out 40 miles north of Todos on dirt tracks and up the beach. I even 4wd'ed up a few washes as far as I could make it comfortably alone. Found some of that chalky talcum dust you always here about in Baja, thick, deep and super fine particles. We finally gave up at dusk and found a good place to camp in the dunes. The next day we headed back to Todos and then made our way to Scorpion Bay. I missed this spot last trip and wanted to hit it up.
It was kind of a long drive and the paved road out to Scorpion in trashed badly. We made it in though and found some camping on the point at about 930pm. We had actually hit a jack rabbit on the way in, I tried to miss it but he darted under my tires. We collected it in hopes of BBQ rabbit for dinner but unfortunately but the time we got to camp we discovered he had soiled himself when he got squashed so he ended up crab food in the sea. I woke up at sunrise the next day to see the bay as flat as a lake, bummer. I took a long walk that morning checking out all the other points where there actually was some waves. However, I was not surfing that until I saw it at low tide since it is over rocks/reef and I am a newb surfer. It rained a bit this day too and was a bit cold. I worked on the wiring I hadn't finished before leaving and got it done. My buddy went for a short surf on very small waves on point #2, the main point into the bay. That night I got very sick. I started throwing up violently at about 9 or 10pm. It got worse and worse and I also began to have bad diarrhea. This continued for 2-days and I spent all but about 6hrs of 48 sleeping in the back of my truck. I couldn't keep anything down. On the 3rd day I felt a little better but still not much for waves and it was rainy so we decided to leave and head back over to the SoC and Loreto. I had met a super awesome couple who have a place south of Loreto 5yrs ago and wanted to see them again. They were not there when we passed through 7 or so days earlier but we had heard they were coming down so we stopped in to see if they were around and sure enough they were. We spent the rest of the afternoon at their place and they both nurtured me with tea, fresh grapefruit juice from their garden and much more. We shared some really nice steaks we had gotten from a local butcher earlier that day. That night we camped on the beach near their place. The next morning we saw Richard on the beach in his FJ55 Cruiser so I had to get a pic of the two Cruisers together. See below. He invited us over again and gave us more love. At this point we headed into Loreto to do some laundry, stock up and decide on our next move. I was still sick so we decided to head for the US. We pushed hard for San Felipe but spent the night about 70 miles south of there. That night was the worst for me, I got no sleep, threw up a lot and had god awful diarrhea which was now black and I thought I saw some blood in my barf. Gross I know. The next morning I bee-lined it for San Felipe and went straight to a doctor. He put me on an IV as I was going down fast. He also gave me acupuncture, both made me feel better. He prescribed some meds and said I had an "amoeba" which I took as a parasite. I got the prescripts and we headed straight for the US.
After all this I came straight home and only just got in tonight at about 8pm, it took me 2.5 days to get home as I took my time and stayed in motels but it still was one of the hardest drives I have ever done being so sick.
So that is about it folks, I am home and deathly ill. I feel ok and have not thrown up in 3 days but still have bad diarrhea which is black which means I have internal bleeding and feel weak. I have a buddy who is a surgeon so as soon as I hit the US I called him. He thinks I have a toxic e-coli. Tomorrow first thing I am calling my doc and going to begin to work on getting better.
Unfortunately it turned into the worst trip yet for me. If you have followed my posts or previous trips you know I have spent much time in Latin America living out of my truck. In 10yrs of traveling I have never gotten sick and have always ate everything. I guess I was due. Every trip for me is a learning experience and I always take something from each trip to expand my life. This trip was no different in that regard. I left a lot out to try and keep this short(er) but the above sums it up fairly well.
Main lesson learned for me was don't leave town without my med kit. Meaning the meds I always get that are prescribed by my travel doctor. Being in a hurry to prepare the truck and leave and with the holidays I was unable to get in and see him. His assistant did prescribe me what I needed over the phone last minute but the crunch to prepare the truck and me feeling over confident that I was only going to Baja I skipped out on picking up the meds. Had I not done that I would have had antibiotics on hand for the dog bite as well as cipro for the internal chaos. Both I think would have kept me in good health and not required visits to the docs down there plus not cut the trip short.
So now on with the pics! I didn't take many so don't expect to much.
Climbed the Cruiser up a mountain above Pescadero. Pretty decent 4wd to get up there, only dirt bikes had been up it for some time. We met a gringo up there on a hike who lives close by and he couldn't believe we had driven up here. Hail the mighty Cruiser!!
Some tiny waves north of 9 Palms on the East Cape.
and my super awesome Cruiser
doing it right on the beach
the infamous selfie
our camp at Cabo Pulmo, don't try to get here without 4wd.
another Cruiser shot
this one speaks for it's self
Alex Olea and us in front of his shop
Scorpion Bay camp
and yet another Cruiser pic :sombrero:
Richards FJ55 and my 80
Loreto area
I didn't mention it above but I received a counterfeit $20 in SoCal at an AmPm
I like my scan gauge
My 12.5yr old Shiba Inu happy to be in a hotel bed
I may have a few more pics on my iPhone but that is about it for now.
Cheers
