Dia 8: Mulege, BCS, Mexico

We took our time in hitting the road when leaving San Ignacio, opting to let the Baja Amigos tour group get out ahead of us. Once we had our chores done, we drove a short distance into town, where we had a look at the town square and the old mission church there.  It is an attractive building, constructed of lava rock, and with a huge guilded altar.

As we were driving into town I heard a squeak behind me that seemed to be coming from the camper, which sounded suspiciously like it was the wheel bearings that we had just had repacked. After visiting the mission I had Alea drive the van slowly around the square so that I could hear the sound and isolate its origins. It was coming from the wheel hub, and I suspect the nut holding the bearing race in place may have been a tad over-tightened. With that knowledge in hand, we kept an eye open for a good place to pull over (without an audience, which was the case in the town square), so I could pop off the dust cap and loosen the splined nut that holds the bearing assembly against the hub. That only took a few minutes, and a short test drive afterward failed to recreate the squeaking sound. Hopefully that was it, but we’ll pay attention to that as we poke along southward. We aren’t likely to drive significant distances for the next four weeks or so, but that will change once we need to start heading for Boise. If there is any trouble with the bearing, it will be those long haul days where it could become a serious problem.

While trying to find our way through town we found a water purification store, so we stopped to refill our 5 gallon jug and to buy a bag of ice. The total cost was 30 pesos, or $1.50 - less than we would pay for just the bag of ice in most parts of the United States.  These little stores house reverse osmosis machines that take the existing water through a multi-step process, with the final step being sterilizing the water with ultra violet radiation.  The attendant wears a lab coat, mask and disposable shoe covers.  He disinfects the returned bottle and then takes into a clean room to be rinsed and refilled.  And when they fill the bottle, it is ALL the way to the top.  When he is done he pops it through the window onto a counter for you.

Our water jug being refilled.

While there, we bumped into three guys who had stopped to admire our camper last evening. They’ve been living down here for years, and so offered some tips on what to see and do as we drive south, and suggested some places where to stay.

We also met our first bicycle tourist. Rick is from Seattle and was planning on riding to San Diego, but found that once there he couldn’t stop going, so he’s pedaling south with no detailed plans other than taking the ferry from Santa Rosalita over to the mainland and continuing south.

We passed the couple that we had seen at Rice and Beans, several miles out of San Ignacio. And as we entered Mulege we passed a couple with a Counterpoint-style tandem (recumbent in from, standard configuration in back), who were towing a fiberglass Bob-style trailer. They had a CH sticker on the back, so there were likely Swiss. Either that, or they had been through Switzerland at some point in their travels.

Just before arriving at the Sea of Cortez we descended the steepest grade on the Transpeninsular Highway, Cuesta del Infierno (roughly translated as the grade to Hell).  The Baja Amigos tour guide noted that one section was a 12% grade, while there are other sections that are 7% and a few flatter places.

La Cuesta del Infierno, with the Sea of Cortez in the distance.

In San Ignacio and many other areas that we passed through today we saw signs of a major storm or storms in the area. Date palms were decapitated, low lying areas were being cleaned of storm debris and several of the vados (fords that are normally dry) on Mex 1 had been washed out, though all but one of them had already been repaired. This knowledge scuttled our original plans for this evening, which was to stay at a beachside campground about 15 miles north of here. The campground was at the end of an 11 mile long gravel road, and that road was in an area with a LOT of washed out vados. We didn’t like our odds that either the road or the campground would be open, and didn’t relish the idea that we might have to back up a long way to get out of there.

So we pushed on, hoping to stay at an established campground in Mulege with a restaurant called Ray’s Place. But when we got there a couple of different signs told us it was closed (likely due to storm damage). So we continued on, picking Villa Maria Isabel RV Park (360$, power, water, hot showers, wi-fi at the owner’s house) just south of town (it is owned by ex-pat Americans). We got a prime spot between date palms and with a nice palapa for shade.

The campground is in the process of being restored from the storm damage, and when we arrived early in the afternoon we were the only campers (though one other couple arrived there after dark). We asked one of the owners (Antonio) when the storm took place. He said they had a big storm about a month ago, but a lot of the damage is from a total of eight storms over a 13 year period, and that there had been no storms that caused any significant damage for more than 30 years prior to that.

There are a number of houses between the campground and the river, all of which are now abandoned. Antonio said that most of the owners had tried to rebuild, but nearly all of them gave up after the third big flood. And all through town there are signs of undermined roads, storm debris, eroded banks and a washed out bridge. The main part of town seems to be mostly intact, though the south side of town didn’t seem to fair too well.

We heard from our CPA. It sounds as though he will be contacting the IRS with specifics about our situation, most likely to see whether we can fund our HSA with the full $8,550 that we are allowed under the law, and whether we can simply return the amount we overfunded to our IRAs (since those funds are still untouched in our HSAs) so that we are in full compliance with the law. But first we had to contact USAA because they had mis-coded our HSA funding transfers on the 1099 form for 2014. So we have to wait for them to send us a corrected 1099 form before he can contact the IRS for us. Once he hears back on that we should know for certain what, if any, financial ramifications there will be for us (other than his fee), and he can go about filing an amended return for us.

We went into town and explored, visited the lighthouse (Faro Sombrerito) and took Lana to a beach on the Sea of Cortez to get some exercise.

We are entering an area where there is a lot more for us to see and do, so we are selectively skipping over some areas on the way south, so that we can visit them on our return trip north.