A Trimaran drive through the Baja Peninsula

Mexico

It has been really scary to drive Highway Mex 1. With a Ford 150 pulling a 27’ Trimaran over a road that can barely fit two cars at the same time, can certainly be nerve-wracking.

We started our journey from the Border city Tecate, where I met Florian after driving hundreds of miles from Yuba City, CA. I reached the border around 3:00 PM and met Florian on the other side. We then drove from Tecate, trying to make it to Ensenada before dark. But no matter how much we wanted to hurry, it still got dark before we reached our destination.

You curse and curse at the incoming traffic, worried to be hit in such a narrow road. And the reason: a Mexican contractor who decided to put some money in his pocket instead of building those extra 3 feet on the road that give you a shoulder! So, while he probably enjoyed some vacations in Hawaii, a great number of people died in horrible accidents.

Driving from Ensenada to Guerrero Negro the ride is long and when hauling a heavy trailer, we needed to take breaks in between to avoid burning out our transmission when getting over several mountain passes.  Baja is also a mountainous country which makes the ride even more challenging. 

Passes and curves took long time and we didn’t reach Guerrero Negro on daylight. Not very pleasant. “You do not want to drive at night, period”. That’s what I have heard ever since we started our plans to come down here. But we had no choice! Finding a good pullout to overnight somewhere along the road was just impossible. So when a car came on the other side of the road, we put our blinkers on to make them slow down, and it worked! But sometimes you cannot avoid crazy truckers take their foot off the gas and so you just have to pray he will stay on his side of the road.

When I saw the lights of Guerrero Negro on the other side of the pitch dark landscape, I felt so relieved. And every mile we advanced became longer until we got there. I would’ve like to make more pictures, but survival became more important than photography

Next thing is, go to see and document the Grey  Whales that make a long journey from the north to give birth here.