After a break we just paddled directly across several small coves in San Francisco Bay towards the beach where we had started. On the way we ran into Alberto Walfors in a panga in the bay! At first we thought he was working, taking clients out to go fishing. He was in the panga with three beautiful women while two men were diving and spear fishing in the water. I kidded him later about how we could see how hard he had to work! But it tuned out that the three beautiful women were his daughter, sister and his girlfriend. The two guys in the water were his sisters husband and his daughters boyfriend. We didn’t want to interrupt his family outing on the water, so we talked with him for a few minutes about how much we owed him for the water and for watching our trucks. We stuffed the money in an envelope under his door before we left.
After moving all the gear from our boats to our trucks and loading the kayaks on top, we stopped at the San Francisquito resort for a fish taco lunch and to get a slow leak fixed in Dave Harry’s truck tire. Then we rushed off to get to Bahia de Los Angeles. It was Thursday and Sunday was Easter. I knew that Easter was a big deal with the Mexicans and I expected all the hotels to be completely full by Friday night. As we approached Bahia de los Angeles we saw the lights of “the city”, fireworks going off, and encountered a large number of cars going the other way. Once we got to town we found all the hotels filled up, every inch of beach already had a tent on it and so did most of the parking lots in town. There was no place for us to get the hot showers we had been looking forward to. The manager at one of the hotels told us that people stared arriving around Tuesday! Next time I plan a trip down here in the spring I will arrange to get off the water AFTER Easter! We went to Guiermos Restaurant for a nice dinner (the restaurants were not crowded) and then headed out of town. We drove a few miles out into the dessert and found a side road that ran out to some spot we read about in the “Baja Adventure Book”. As soon as we were far enough from the road to avoid car noise, we turned off into a flat spot of desert and set up our tents. Camping in the desert for one more night without a hot shower.
The next day we were supposed to drop Doug Hamilton off on the side of the road somewhere to catch a bus to Cabo San Lucas. He probably could have met the bus at the Bahia de los Angeles turn off, but we really didn’t want to drop him in the middle of nowhere. So he stayed with us until we got to Catevena and talked to the people at the hotel there. They agreed that the bus normally stopped here but had no information on how much it cost or whether it would be full a few days before Easter. We might have left Doug there, but the hotel was full and they could not put him up if he missed the bus. So he stayed with us until we got to El Rosario. This was a long way the wrong way and we joked that eventually we would drop him off at the San Diego airport for a VERY EXPENSIVE flight back south. But as we drove into El Rosario we found the bus station with a bus waiting in it! This turned out to be the northbound bus but the driver was able to answer all of Doug’s questions. The southbound bus was due in an hour, it cost $100 US to go to Cabo San Lucus and there should be plenty of room. Doug would have had time to join us for lunch at Moma Espinosa’s, but he camped out at the station (with an order of chiliquies to go) to make sure he didn’t miss the bus. After lunch we stopped by to find out that the bus was running late, and the driver had warned him that every hotel room in Cabo San Lucas was full. Doug had a reservation for a condo starting on Monday. He was going to sleep on the 16 hour bus ride for one night. But he would probably have to sleep on the beach for one night in between. He collected some of his camping gear from us before we left.
We drove to Encenada in time for a nice dinner at our favorite taco restaurant. We could have had a room at our favorite hotel but the price was higher due to the holiday. While we were discussing our options the clerk lowered the price. But we decided to drive the road to Tecate in the dark and stay somewhere in California Norte. The road to Tecate is a very nice road and the border crossing there is easier than the one at Tijuana. But I found out that driving this road at night in the rain is very miserable. Better we had stayed in Encenada and driven up in the morning. However we survived the trip and found ourselves a Motel 6 on Interstate 5 north of San Diego to crash in late at night. The next day we had good luck driving through LA early in the morning and we all made it home safely in time for Easter with our own families.