Tepic

Once we left Mazatlan we only managed to get a far as Tepic, which was a really cool place with an amazing view from our room's balcony.

I woke up early and wandered through the town and checked out the Cathedral. It was a beautiful old building which looked quite gothic from the outside but was amazingly pure on the inside. There was a mass on when I arrived, so I took a seat and watched a while but decided not to take any photo's of the inside of the church.

After a bit of breakfast with the girls overlooking the Market place we headed off for Sayulita, usually a 2 hour trip but it will end up taking us a little over 4 hours to get there.

A view from out Balcony

The Ferry ride to Mazatlan

Well the trip was pretty cool. All we did for most of it was sleep. Once we found our room we took a quick walk around the ship, then returned for a few hours nap. We all got up for dinner, however the line was massive so we stood around for about 15 minutes waiting to be fed. It was kind of like a cafeteria at school (if you had those at school).

After dinner we watched the sun set which was pretty cool, then I had a Almond Magnum and headed off to bed again.

I woke up a couple of times at night, but all in all it was probably one of the better nights sleeps I've had.

In the morning the line for breakfast was similar for dinner, and after a 15 minute shut eye we were getting ready to get off the ferry again.

Here's a warning for you if you take your car on. WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE TO PUT YOUR CAR ON THE FERRY. This will allow you to drive straight off and not have to wait 40 minutes in the belly of a ship dodging crazy truck drivers (turned out they were trying to get out to the parking lot quickly because the three girls were sat there trying to making passing vehicles crash).

When they say they pack the cars in like sardines, they're not joking. Have a look at the below picture, it gives you an idea about the distance between trucks and cars.

We're in Mazatlan now and just finished a nice feed of garlic shirmp (prawns) and a surf at Playa Bruja which is about 20 minutes north from the centre of Mazatlan.

We've checked into the Mexican Hotel (where do they come up with the names) and I'm about to have a well deserved siesta.

Ferry from La Paz to Mazatlan

The first thing that you should be aware of is that the Ferry company Sematur went bankrupt 5 years ago, so it no longer has any ferry's running this route.......... or any route at all for that matter.

This might not seem like a big deal, but it's listed as the place to go in every guide book as well as any information sources on the net.

The process is fairly simple, it just takes a little while to get it done.

First of all you need to get copies of your documentation. One place I read you didn't need it, another place said you need 5 copies of each, but in the end I only needed one copy. To be safe, get a couple, it can't hurt having too much then not enough.

You need a copy of your Passport, Vehicle Registration, Tourist Visa and your Drivers License (I used my International Drivers License). You can plainly see a copier in the office where you get the permit, but they will NOT copy anything for you . You MUST get copies before you go there.

I've read that if your Mexican Tourist Visa has somewhere on Baja listed as your destination then they will not provide you with a ticket to the mainland. One of our crew had La Paz as her destination, and after a barrage of questions at the Immigration Office they assured us that it did not matter. In this case they were right, but why take the risk? Make sure that your tourist visa has somewhere on the mainland listed, Mexico City would be the safest bet.

Once you have the copies of your Passport, Vehicle Registration, Tourist Visa and your Drivers License you need to get a permit to import your vehicle to the mainland.

This can be done at the Ferry Terminal, however it is best to get it done at least the day before you leave incase you run in to any issues. The Ferry Terminal is located approx 20km North of La Paz at a place called Toppenangle.

The license, passport and visa have to be in the same name that the car is registered to. If you have borrowed or hired a car you won't be able to import it to the mainland (as far as I know). I believe this is to reduce the number of stolen cars being shipped over from Baja.

Give the paperwork to the Official in the Office (someone will direct you as you drive into the Ferry Building) and he will ask you to pay the $US 27.00 with a Visa Card. The Visa Card needs to be in the name of the registered vehicle owner as well.

He takes the card and asks you to come back in 20 minutes once everything is verified.

Once verified you get a sticker for the front window, best to put it on right away because we nearly lost ours out the window as we drove back into La Paz. Keep the paper work that the sticker is attached to as well, you will need this when you get your tickets.

Around the corner from the Permit Office is the ticketing office. I'm not sure if this is all the time, but the window on the left does NOT take credit cards, but the window on the right does, so line up as needed. You don't need to pay with a credit card, but the price breakup in peso's are as follows.

$800 per person
$2250 per car under 5.2 Meters in length (chrissy was fine)
$250 for a 4 bed cabin.

Our total was $5700 peso's, hence the use of the credit card.

It's best to get the tickets a couple of days, before just in case the rooms run out, and more importantly so there is room for you car. Also, the Ferry's don't run every day, definitely not on Thursdays and the weekends are usually booked out .

We did it the day before and had to get to the ticket office at 9am the day the ferry left to try and get the car on (there were only a few spaces left), not fun if you went out the night before. Like I said do it a few days before so you've got an easier go of it when it comes to the day you leave.

When you arrive on the day you will be directed around the far right hand side of the the building. I had to pull up and show my ticket for the car and myself, and the paperwork that the car permit sticker was on.

They chatted to me a bit, not that I understood much, lots so Si, si, ahhhhh, si. You have to drive forward and press a button on some lights, then a green light with "Passe" comes up and you drive through........... weird.

Don't go right around the back from here! I did, then someone came up asking me questions, pointing at the car and saying "Scalpo" or something similar. que? I eventually worked out that I had to put the car onto the scales for it to get weighed.

The car in front of me that I followed in didn't have to do that, so I assumed that because I didn't speak Espanol they were going to screw me out of money by saying the car weighed too much and I had to pay extra.

I drove around on to the scales and handed over the ticket, they had a list of names and cars with the weights written next to them and put mine down before waving me on and back to the line of cars. Hooray, no extra costs!!!!

The next 1.5 hours you sit in line waiting to get on to the boat. It's hot. Muy Calor!!! Fortunately I had an esky with some tepid coronas and some limes, a diet coke and the guitar.

After a while they motioned me forwards and I reversed the van into the boat.

After parking in between truck trailers I locked the car and they blocked the tires.

As you walk back out the passage there's a door on the right with a guard that will check your ticket and look at your carry on luggage, if you're carrying a giant bottle of water don't be suprised if he says "Grande Tequila?" "No, Grande Agua".

Take the stairs up to the Information Desk, which will be closed, and wait for another hour before people start boarding the boat. If you've got a cabin you'll need to line up to get the key, but if you just went with the seat just go and seat yourself.

Be warned that when you get the key they'll ask for a deposit, not a cash deposit but your license.

That's about it, hopefully it'll just be a straight forward drive off the boat tomorrow morning and off north to check out the right point break in Mazatlan.

Calbo Pulmo at Sunset

This was a pretty amazing sunset, and worth an entry just on it's own.

You can check out all the photo's here

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=39653&l=8d112&id=676270374

For now though, here's a quick sneak preview........

La Paz

Just a quick note............

1. Had my first run in with the Police at Zippers beach, nothing eventuated, it just looked like I was trying to break into my own car
2. Spent the last two nights on the beach, got drunk last night, sweeeeeeeet. First time since I got to Mexico.
3. Ran into Dustin (owns a surf cafe/internet cafe place in scorpion bay) in La Paz, we're crashing in his room tonight.
4. Heading to the mainland tomorrow on a 18 hour ferry ride
5. Selling the car to Bags and Vinni, I'll still be with it, but I'm handing over the papers.
   

Mexico - Cabo Pulmo

I just finished pouring out a Banalla Pacifico Beer into four hot plastic cups in Cabo Pulmo. The hot cups made the beer froth up to look more like beer-a-chino's then beers, but it's hot and the beer is good.

We've got the beach to ourselves, beautiful white sands with a coral reef and hundreds of species of fish, yet when I walked away with the beer the wind caught the top of the big bottle (it filled four beers after all) and you could here a low pitch hum rise out. All that was in my head was Homer saying.........

"Lisa, never ever stop playing in the middle of a ho-down"

It's funny that in the middle of nowhere, in perfect paradise that your mind will still cast itself back to the Simpsons............... well maybe that's just me.

I can't recall where the last place was I wrote about, but since Scorpion Bay we headed to Punta Conejo and stayed the night. It's a really nice place, with a better accessed road then what Scorpion Bay is on, plus you're a little more isolated which means fewer people and less people in the Surf.

We spent Saturday night in Cabo San Lucas. I, to the disappointment of my San Diego friends I'm sure, stayed out of the show girl clubs. In fact, we stayed out of all the nightclubs.

Cabo is loud, expensive and full of people trying to get drunk and pick up.

For some reason unbeknown to me that wasn't something at the time which I was all that keen to do.

I think I'm getting old. That's now the 3rd town that I haven't got into a bar because it was too loud and they were forcing people to drink.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still the same person that'll spend another 2 weeks in OB trying to kill my liver, but that's not nightclubs with thumping music (except if Dara is thumping out country....... again!!!). At the moment give me a beach, the van and a group of people searching for waves.

Speaking of waves, the day after we spent the night in Cabo we headed towards San Jose to check out the surf in "The Corridor". Zippers had some waves, but they were yet again more of a long boarders wave and you needed to avoid the jagged rocks that reared out of the water.

Further down in between the two Zippers surf shops was a stage with some live music (DJ only, no musicians...... and no DJ's do not count as musicians) and a surf competition was on as well.

Awesome!!!! A chance to film some waves again.

I've never actually seen a surf competition take place in 1 foot waves before, and while I'm sure they are all great surfers........... 1ft!

That night we grabbed some food, taco's of course, and bumped into our friends Victor and his son (Edwardo I think, he was always quiet). We met them at Scorpion Bay, caught up with them at Punta Conejo, followed them to Cabo, and ran into them again in San Jose at the restaurant. Victor was nice enough to buy us all a Governer Taco (shrimp with cheese grilled). Cheers Victor!!!

That night we drove around for 1/2 hour trying to find a place to stay, I was beat so I didn't really care where we stayed, as long as it was somewhere in the next 30 minutes.

After nearly getting in 2 car accidents (someone nearly rammed us at the traffic lights, had to screech the breaks and all) we arrived on the beach and found a place to bunker down for the evening. The area we were at was the local hang out for a Sunday night, so it was busy and loud. That of course meant that it took me about 10 seconds to fall asleep instead of 5.

We left San Jose and headed up the Mexico 1 towards La Paz.

We stopped in at the Tropic of Cancer and took some touristy photo's, we even found a little piece of Australia there as well (the beer cap was Tasmania).

Now, like I mentioned earlier, we're chillin on the beach in Punta Calbo.

Tomorrow, well tomorrow is another day, and I'll wait until it arrives before I start guessing what we'll be doing with it. Hopefully somewhere nearby will be getting some swell at some stage so that we can get more of a surf in. As for now I think I'm going to get the board and go for a paddle on this lake of an ocean just so I do something else today besides gorge on Taco's.

"Bed goes up, bed goes down, bed goes up, bed goes down........"

(internet connection is slow so no photo's yet...... there coming)

Scorpion Bay

This place is great, but be warned that it is a bit of a bumpy ride on the way in.

We were going alright for most of the way, but be warned that if you spend too much time looking at the Volcano with the plug in the top then you'll miss the turn off and head into La Purimisa and into San Isidro. If you do this, you've gone too far.

Instead, take the left about 5 km before the town across the battered bridge over the small amount of water flowing through the river and continue slowly along the dirt road.

Good news is that they are paving the whole road, but unfortunately only 1/3 of it has been done so it's long going for the rest.

When you get to San Juanico go through the town and turn left and follow the dirt road that runs along the coast until you see the sign for Scorpion Bay.

The place is beautiful, sunset was really nice, but don't expect it to be like mexico in the camp itself. The town is definitely mexico, but the camp is quite Americanised........ burgers, steaks, bacon and eggs etc.

Check the swell before you come, and if it says 1-2 feet it is not hawaiian style, it is quite the opposite. Bring your longboard!!!!

Sunride would struggle to catch a wave here. We're about to go for a wander into the town and check it out.

Haha, the dude that just served me a diet pepsi looks like Slimer (chris), but in about 10 years. Dude, you're going to start going grey in your beard. Even he is checking out the young girls here, it's like I've got Chris here with me.

I've left the camera in the car, so photo's will follow...... I haven't forgotten Skevos.