The day after Wendy and Isaac got married, we made a break for the Mexican border. We weren't fugitives from the law, but we drove like we were. Our destination was La Paz in Baja California and we covered over 1800 miles to get there.
The Baja peninsular is everything you expect a desert to be: Sandy, *lots* of cacti and flocks of circling vultures. The only characters missing were Wile E. Coyote and that irritating Road Runner chap.
The roads were long, windy, bad and stunning. Much fun to drive. They were also littered with all sorts of debris and road humps that looked exactly like the ones we'd encountered in India, and just as vicious. I wonder who exports to whom? Our little Audi, with its low suspension and Michelin Alpin snow tyres, was not entirely suited to the terrain and inevitably, we bent the suspension again - the third time. You might leave your heart in San Francisco, but you'll likely leave your transmission in Baja.
The road was long, twisty and thin, and there were a great profusion of cacti.
Baja peninsular is narrow, but surprisingly long. We drove over 3300 miles! - and only sailed 100 :-(
This big, hairy, inverted carrot is unique to Baja (no jokes about Mary please). Ciros grow only an inch each year and some are over 250 years old!
There are many big-ass cacti in Baja.
Military checkpoints abounded and we were stopped and searched many times. These wooden figures marked the approach to a checkpoint and were very disconcerting at night. I wonder if the soldiers make them during arts and crafts time in basic training? There's clearly an influence from South Park, although it's not clear if this is consciously acknowledged by the artist.
