Dia 5: El Rosario Arriba, BC, Mexico

With this being the weekend, we decided that we weren't likely to make much progress on our IRS issue.  So we drove about 50 miles south, to a point with the last gas station for the next 215 miles.  Our plan is to bridge that 215 mile gap tomorrow.  Once there, we should have a campground with wi-fi access and may stay there as long as necessary to make sure that the wheels are churning to get the IRS mess sorted out.

Camping at Hotel Sinahi.

We left Los Olivos and decided to see some of the local sites around Lazaro Cardenas.  It was the site of a failed American colony, and there is an old mill and a pier that still exist from that era.  We went and saw the mill, and decided it hadn't been worth the detour, and the pier was down a road that was a little too sandy for our tastes.  So that ended our tourism for the day.

The road out of town became narrower, the population thinned way out and the traffic volume dropped considerably.  There aren't many towns to pass through, and those we did travel through were very small.  We were within sight of the Pacific Ocean for quite a ways, but all the access was on rough roads that we would risk getting stranded on with the low ground clearance of our van.  But we'll eventually get to the beach, either on the Pacific or the Sea of Cortez.

We passed our second military checkpoint late this morning.  This time we had to open things up.  It was unclear what they wanted opened, so I asked "camioneta o caravanita?"  To which the soldier replied, "Es una casa?"  (It's a house?)

After digging through the camper, he had a look at the van.  He seemed interested in our bikes, and more than a bit disappointed that we couldn't communicate better in Spanish.  So he finally let us get on our way again.  We later ran into a Baja Amigos caravan member who had a similar experience.  It seems the soldier was attempting to see how much money he would want in order to part with one of his guitars.  So he was likely abusing his position to find items that he could buy cheap and flip for a profit.

The Baja 1000 off-road race gets underway on Friday.  The area around here is already filling up with race crews, and a couple of crews are staying in the hotel that we are parked at.  We were told the turnaround point for the race is less than 50 miles south of here, so we'll be well clear of the action once the race gets going.  Which is good, because we were also told that by race day every Pemex station within 100 miles of here will be out of gas!

We are staying at Hotel Sinahi RV Park (200$, power, water, hot showers, free wi-fi), which is basically a level terrace with concrete parking pads located on a terrace above the hotel.  The power is grounded and seems to have steady output, though we aren't likely to use the AC today.  We had quite the time getting things sorted out so that we could have access to a bathroom at night.  It took several attempts, but they finally figured out that we don't have a toilet in our caravanita.  It is also interesting that we are in an area without its own municipal water supply, as a water truck came and topped off their tanks while we were there.

At one point I was trying to make the desk clerk understand our toilet dilemma when a couple of the Baja 1000 guys came by.  I was explaining things to one of them when his buddy walked out and offered to help out.  So I repeated the story.  He promptly went in the office and repeated the whole thing IN ENGLISH to the hotel owner (who spoke no more English than the clerk).  I had to choke to keep from laughing, but I did appreciate his efforts.  Eventually, with some very feeble Spanish, the message did get through, and we ended up with access to a toilet and shower (only to have them lock us out during the night, meaning we had to go through another round of charades in the morning).

It is worth commenting on the practice here of not flushing paper down the toilet (because it clogs their pipes, due to the design of their sewage systems).  When we first heard of this, we imagined a stinking mess that attracted hordes of flies, but that has not been the case at all.  Surprisingly, there is no noticeable smell and we've experienced no flies (and it isn't like there is a shortage of flies in Baja).