Booze, Boats and Trains

Cabo San Lucas on the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula was pretty much exactly what I expected, a beach resort town with a rowdy nightlife and loads of Americans. This is one of the main places in Mexico where Americans go to have fun, equivalent of what Europeans have in say Mallorca or the Greek Islands. It does get crowded but for a reason, the beaches are gorgeous and with American standards things are cheap. I found a hostel and met some fellow travellers, but may have indulged slightly too much into the nightlife and not spent as much time on the beach as I would have hoped. After a few days of this, Tony, an Australian guy and I decided to move on to the nearby San Jose Del Cabo, which had more of a relaxed vibe, however the weather wasn't optimal for beachlife so we soon moved on to the city of La Paz once again heading north. La Paz is a major porttown and the place to catch ferries heading across the Sea of Cortez to the Mexican mainland. I had hoped to get a ferry to Mazatlan but soon found out the next available one would not be for another month or so, La Paz was not the kind of place I wasn't to spend a month in so together with Tony I decided to get the following day's boat bound for Topolobambo. That night I'm not sure what happened, but something I ate or drank was not agreeing with me so the 9 hour crossing on slightly rough waters was pretty horrible. Once we got across we found accommodation and got a couple of hours sleep before setting off for the trainstation where we would get on the Copper Canyon Express.

Even if I was still feeling a bit under the weather and couldn't eat or drink anything, this was the most beautiful trainride I ever experienced, travelling through dense jungle and between narrow canyons with incredible views for 15 hours before reaching the final destination of Chihuaha. Chihuaha is famous as the birthplace of the tiny dog of the same name and has got a reputation for being quite a dangerous city, however we didn't see a single dog and the only danger we encountered was how cold it was. We spent the day walking around the colonial mansions and churches, schooled some Mexican homeboys in how to play pool and drink tequila, and then got a very long nightbus for 22 hours to the Unesco listed town of Guanajuato.

Guanajuato was a very picturesque small town with colourful houses, grand churches, theatres and townsquares nestled in a little valley. At one point this was the wealthiest city in Mexico due to the abundance of silver but today it's a quiet place, heaving with tourists. Underneath the city channels once dug to divert a river have been converted into an intricate system of underground tunnels trying to divert motor and pedestrian traffic off the cobblestoned streets above. We left the following day and got to the polar opposite, the massive capital Mexico City.

Baja Buses

Mulegé happened to be the name of the town my finger landed on further southeast on the Baja Peninsula, and the very friendly people at the busstation promised me it was a pretty place. The bus took me overnight through the desert, when I awoke I was amidst a jungle of cartoon-like cacti by the eastern coastline and shortly after the busdriver told me this was my stop. I looked around and thought again that my gamble had not paid off, but then I found the entrance to the town and the promises that had been made were true. It was a tiny little town or maybe a village I forget how the two are defined, but very charming nonetheless. I found a cheap hotel, and went in search of the beach, unfortunately this is where I found out my beachhunt had been in vain, because I arrived to find that it was a pebble beach and even if I have got some Brighton blood in me, this just wasn't what I was looking for. The following morning I heard about some nearby beaches but you would need a car to get there so I decided to hitch, I couldn't believe my luck as the first car to pass was a van with three French and Spanish hippies, they gladly drove me south and about 30 minutes later I found the beaches I had heard of. I thanked my drivers and walked towards the water, now this was more like it, white sand, turquoise waters, small islands just offshore in a guarded and peaceful cove. I chilled out in paradise for a few hours, only problem is that I don't carry the amenities to camp, so I went back to the road hoping to hitch a ride further south once more. This time I stood for more than an hour and not a hippievan in sight, so I decided to cut my losses and try to get back to Mulegé where I could maybe still get a bus or at least I knew there was a hotel. This proved more fruitful as a local Juan picked me up straight away and dropped me at the busstop. There was one more bus that day so I bought my ticket this time heading for Loreto a place people had told me good things about.

Loreto was a much bigger place, and I arrived late at night and walked towards where I had heard rumours of a hostel. Every now and then while travelling you come across hostelowners who are doing everything right and this was the case once I found Mike and Gus at Coyote Village, free beers, free breakfast, free bicycles, all the information you could want, the list goes on but hell they had me at free beer. I spent the next day biking around Loreto which had a nice townsquare a harbour (malecon) buzzing with pelicans and a quiet ambiance, but once again the beaches weren't up to my standards so the day after I got another long bustrip south to what I expected to be a sure card, Cabo San Lucas.

South Of The Border

It was kind of strange to be sitting on a greyhound bus again after being spoilt with private chauffeurs for so long but the three hour trip was not bad. We started walking around town in search of a hostel and before we had found one we bumped in to Simon, who had left Los Angeles the day before us and he guided us to where he was staying. San Diego really has a much more relaxed vibe than L.A. it is very walkable and if you cant walk to your destination public transport is good. During the days we walked around the bay, Balboa Park (which is the largest urban park in U.S.A) and took a bus to nearby La Jolla where sealions and very wealthy Americans share a strip of the coast. Our hostel was in the gaslamp quarters which happens to be the main bar area, so needless to say we felt at home. After four days we all went in our separate directions and I decided that my time in the United States was officially over. From San Diego you can actually catch the tram all the way to San Ysidro where the busiest border in the world lies, I did this and 40 minutes later I was in Mexico. Only problem was I hadn't realised I was in Mexico and had completely missed the border control, so I went back and got my passport stamped to avoid future problems, I guess the border is more for keeping Mexicans out of USA than vice versa.

The short walk from the border to downtown Tijuana provided me with more clichés and stereotypes than I had expected, within minutes I had been offered countless drugs, sombreros, tequilas, beers and women. I turned all offers down, found a cheap hotel to put my bag down and walked out to see what else was on offer. Turns out that was pretty much it just in much larger quantities, shopowners, stripclub promoters, salesmen and donkeys painted as zebras stood at every corner, and everybody wanted part of this newly arrived gringos wallet, and we had only just passed midday. I stuck to the main downtown drag the whole day, drinking in the crazy before calling it a night. The following morning I decided to get out and went to the busstation, I told them I wanted to go South and they asked me where. I had no idea so just pointed at a town on a map that looked of decent size and asked them how long it would take. San Quintin, where my finger had landed, was only 5 or 6 hours away, so I should get there before sunset. In actuality I arrived way after sunset and what on the map had looked like a decent size town turned out to be a very dark line of closed shops and restaurants parted by the highway. In very broken Spanish I asked the people at the terminal how far the beach was and if there were any hotels nearby, they laughed and said that at this hour it would be very difficult to get there, so I looked at the map again and pointed to a new destination, asking when the next bus there would be leaving. It was only a two hour wait (in actuality it was a four wait) so despite the ticket being expensive I decided to buy it and hope for better luck in the morning.