Leaving the oasis we made it back to the car in good time, which had me thinking we'd get to Bahia de Los Angeles with lots of time to spare. Mexico had other plans. We hit the paved highway and drove south, enjoying the silky smooth road...for about a mile. Almost immediately Highway 5 turned to dirt and we were back to the slow grind. I wondered how long 25 miles of driving could really take. We only rarely passed traffic. Road crews were also rare. The regions did pass through some nice granite desert landscapes. At one point the road had a left turn signed for Coco's Corner while the wider road we were on appeared to continue straight. We continued straight, very soon realizing we were driving an unfinished future highway! I tracked our progress on my phone- we were definitely veering away from the existing road but if all went well it looked like we would rejoin in about 8 miles. No road blocks in sight, we drove on. A military caravan approached from the other direction and signaled to stop. I thought for sure they would tell us to turn around but despite the difficulty communicating it was clear they did not want us to turn around. They waved buenos dias and we drove on. The road began to climb the hillside. Within about a mile of the current road rocks blocked our path but a freshly tracked two rut dirt road seemed to branch off in the right direction. This took us to within the view of the road and with a little more navigational effort we rejoined the road and the rest of the cars. The adventure was not quite over with another 5 miles or so of slow construction and then a further 5 miles to the junction with Carretera Federal 1 near Laguna Chapala- what a relief! Highway 1 still was a mixed bag in terms of road quality- a mile of potholes, a mile of yesterday's pavement were interspersed but we now made pretty good time driving through the desert. We turned off on the road to Bahia de Los Angeles, our best road yet and some of the nicest desert.
We managed to make up some lost time so two-thirds of the way along the road to Bahia LA we turned off onto some sandy 4WD tracks for an 8 mile detour to the Montevido pictograph site, which by all accounts is one of Baja's hidden gems. Two miles shy of the pictograph site we encountered a new ranch gate with a large no trespassing sign. At that exact moment we also encountered a large group of hikers that said the sign was less than a couple weeks old, that they hiked past a couple ranch hands that did not seem to care about their presence, and that the pictographs were well worth the hike. We didn't quite budget enough time for a hike and so we turned around. We stopped in the shade of a saguaro long enough to fly the drone around over the expansive forest of saguaros and boojum trees.
Our first view of Bahia LA was stunning, but also disappointing. Numerous colorful deserted islands protruded from a deep blue sea but even at a distance of several miles I could see a heavy wind swell and current. We made it this far so we might as well have a quick look around town and drive to the tombolo north of town where we had planned to packraft a couple miles across open water to Isla Smiths where we would have our pick of isolated picture perfect beaches to camp on. The view and strong wind at the put-in beach said it all: nope! Things were not quite working out in our favor today! We spread out our map on the cobble beach and contemplated our options.
Rather than suffer through some windy campsite nearby, we decided to use some of our remaining daylight to finish off some of the drive back north. We'd try to find a place to pull off somewhere in the desert near Catavina, which is exactly what we ended up doing. Pressed for daylight we camped only 1200ft off the highway, our vehicle partially out of view thanks to the largest saguaro around. The camp was nothing special but served our purpose well.
In the morning we stopped to check out the Catavina cave paintings which were great- colorful, creative, and well-preserved. Then lots of driving! We drove through at least four distinct desert vegetation zones and I enjoyed the changing landscapes. It was a nice surprise to find out a few more cacti and succulents varieties I had in my yard were native to Baja. We passed through more military checkpoints. We had grand ideas of lunch in Ensenada, not fully appreciating how long 100 km could take to drive. Only about 15 miles south of Ensenada we hit a major construction zone with the highway closed for about 30 minutes to opposing traffic before we were able to proceed. At this point we decided we'd try to cross the border this afternoon rather than tomorrow. One of us calculated times at this point and determined we would be back in Riverside by 7p at the latest...We aimed for a food place on the north end of the city but on arrival found out they were basically closed. We drank a smoothie and drove onward along the coastal toll road to Tijuana.
Tijuana turned out to be one of the worst driving adventures I have had. We followed signs and maps to the main border crossing only to find out the way was blocked off forcing us to circle back almost to the coast. For our second try we blasted on past to the Otay Mesa crossing instead. At least here we found the right line easily enough but the line of cars crept just as slowly- about 2 hours to go 1.5 miles. It sucked as expected and was after dark by the time we finally entered US soil. We beelined for my favorite Mexican restaurant in San Diego, the only Mexican food we ended up having on this trip as it turned out.
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