Home Again
Too much lunch
Friday January 18th 2013 – Ensenada
My alarm went off at 3 am and we were on the road by 4. I don’t know why I do this to myself.
The ride back was a mirror of our trek down Baja. We started out driving up the lush, tropical Sea of Cortez coast.
Loretto is a little town about three hours north of La Paz. We stopped there for gas and breakfast. You do not pass a gas station in Baja with less than a full tank. You never know how far it is to the next one.
We had a pleasant breakfast in an open-air café with a thatched roof. I shuddered to think of what it was like when it rained. The roof was so old you could see large patches of sky through it. I guess they just close down when it rains.
Loretto turned out to be a pleasant little town off the American tourist track. There are a few hotels, but I’m guessing those are mostly for Mexican travelers.
They have a great bay. It is one of the preferred hurricane holes on the Sea of Cortez. When a hurricane is stirring, many boat owners from La Paz and Cabo bring their boats here to ride it out.
Back on the road, we continued on our journey north. This is a beautiful part of Baja. The road twists and turns along the coast, the water is a beautiful azure and the beaches blindingly white. Most of the beaches are deserted. Occasionally, there is a RV park or hotel on a beach, but mostly they are in their natural state.
A couple or three hours up the road was Melengue. Melengue is a gorgeous tropical town with the only river we’ve seen in Baja flowing through it. The beaches leading up to Melengue are dotted with small resorts and RV parks. The highway by-passes the town, so you have to get off the road to see it.
I needed to use the restroom, so this was a great place to make a rest stop. A large arch frames the road into town, labeled with “Bienvenidos al Melengue.” You see that in many Mexican towns, it means, “welcome to Melengue.”
We found the obligatory Pemex station. While we were stopped, we walked around town a little bit. At one of the stores I found a gorgeous hand-woven table cloth with a nautical theme that I bought for my mother’s wedding present.
We decided to have lunch before we got back on the road and found another little road-side restaurant with a gravel floor and thatched roof. True to what we’ve seen in Baja so far, there was a brick kitchen in the back of the restaurant.
The lunch was good and the people friendly, then back on the road for the next five or six hundred miles.
I’ve already told you about the trip down. All I can say is ditto for the trip back home. We didn’t have any accidents or great adventures. We just drove on hour after hour for sixteen hours through the uniquely Baja landscape.
We got home at around 10 pm and crashed in our bed.
My alarm went off at 3 am and we were on the road by 4. I don’t know why I do this to myself.
The ride back was a mirror of our trek down Baja. We started out driving up the lush, tropical Sea of Cortez coast.
Loretto is a little town about three hours north of La Paz. We stopped there for gas and breakfast. You do not pass a gas station in Baja with less than a full tank. You never know how far it is to the next one.
We had a pleasant breakfast in an open-air café with a thatched roof. I shuddered to think of what it was like when it rained. The roof was so old you could see large patches of sky through it. I guess they just close down when it rains.
Loretto turned out to be a pleasant little town off the American tourist track. There are a few hotels, but I’m guessing those are mostly for Mexican travelers.
They have a great bay. It is one of the preferred hurricane holes on the Sea of Cortez. When a hurricane is stirring, many boat owners from La Paz and Cabo bring their boats here to ride it out.
Back on the road, we continued on our journey north. This is a beautiful part of Baja. The road twists and turns along the coast, the water is a beautiful azure and the beaches blindingly white. Most of the beaches are deserted. Occasionally, there is a RV park or hotel on a beach, but mostly they are in their natural state.
A couple or three hours up the road was Melengue. Melengue is a gorgeous tropical town with the only river we’ve seen in Baja flowing through it. The beaches leading up to Melengue are dotted with small resorts and RV parks. The highway by-passes the town, so you have to get off the road to see it.
I needed to use the restroom, so this was a great place to make a rest stop. A large arch frames the road into town, labeled with “Bienvenidos al Melengue.” You see that in many Mexican towns, it means, “welcome to Melengue.”
We found the obligatory Pemex station. While we were stopped, we walked around town a little bit. At one of the stores I found a gorgeous hand-woven table cloth with a nautical theme that I bought for my mother’s wedding present.
We decided to have lunch before we got back on the road and found another little road-side restaurant with a gravel floor and thatched roof. True to what we’ve seen in Baja so far, there was a brick kitchen in the back of the restaurant.
The lunch was good and the people friendly, then back on the road for the next five or six hundred miles.
I’ve already told you about the trip down. All I can say is ditto for the trip back home. We didn’t have any accidents or great adventures. We just drove on hour after hour for sixteen hours through the uniquely Baja landscape.
We got home at around 10 pm and crashed in our bed.