Getting to Coco’s Corner was just as difficult as the last time we did it in 2015...the nice newly-paved highway stopped at the same point. While it looks like progress has been made on the preparation for the new road, they’re not letting you drive on it yet!
It was great to see Coco again, as sassy and vital as ever at 80 years old. It’s astonishing to know he has been living at this remote outpost alone for almost 28 years, and cleared the land and built his own little kingdom as a double amputee!
When we introduced our puppy to him, we explained we named her Coco after him because she has short legs too, and he laughed. When we joked that our Coco liked beer too, he opened a tin just for her and poured some into a little bowl! Thankfully she only had a few licks and walked away; we didn’t want to hurt his feelings by asking him to take it away!
In the evening we enjoyed a roaring fire thanks to wood others had discarded. Andrew was even able to do an oil change in the morning - Coco was happy to take the discarded oil - it’s what he uses in his pit toilets to stop the smell, along with diesel. It stinks too, but lesser of two evils!
Today we made slower progress than we hoped. On the other side of Coco’s the road is really difficult, and has actually been made worse by the construction teams building the “new” highway. There are paths intersecting all over the place with no signage telling you where to go. We saw many people on the “new” highway only having to turn around once it petered out. I just couldn’t understand the rationale behind these intense efforts to tame the land...the current road is not a bad path other than it needs to be paved over so there aren’t potholes and rocks jutting out. But they seem intent on building another completely different road while leaving the current one in appalling condition.
Coco had advised us the going would be smoother if we took air pressure out of our tires, and there is a tire repair shack where the MX 5 meets the MX 1 (paved) so we could re-inflate the tires. There we met Sean from Vernon (yes, Vernon, BC!) who had a new trailer and hit a pothole so hard he blew a tire and bent the axle on it! They were trying to mickey-mouse a fix for him so he could limp it to a larger town for a proper repair.
BC stands for “British Columbia” and for “Baja California”, and they night as well be the same thing. Since crossing the border, 90% of the licence plates that aren’t local are British Columbia. At Coco’s we met another couple from Vancouver Island, who we will surely meet up with again as their destination is our same home beach.
Back on the paved MX 1, we only managed to go 9 km before coming to a stand-still. Who knows what happened...but the road is crazily narrow with no shoulders...and a semi seemed to be stuck across both lanes. We finally started to move 90 minutes later.
MX 1 is the only paved road traversing the entire peninsula, and it wasn’t even built until the early 1973. Even decades later, it is still a horribly kept pathway in many parts, a thin 18 foot wide strip with no shoulders and many potholes. When we spend the majority of the winter at the southern tip, in the triangle “metropolis” of La Paz, San Jose del Cabo, and Cabo San Lucas, we forget how bad the roads are here in the wilds. It’s slow going and white-knuckle at times. But that’s the price you pay to drag your home to paradise!
And Andrew is such a good driver! He says it takes him a few days to get his teeth. The first time we came down, we almost turned around these parts. Every semi that passes you, or that you choose to pass, is a nail-biter. I can’t imagine doing this road with anything wider than our little fibreglass trailer.
Then you meet other travellers that just stun you! A few miles before our stop for the night, we passed a group of three - two on bicycles with no helmuts and one on what looked like he was pushing a scooter! An hour later they pulled into the same RV park as us. The couple is from France and they’ve been travelling on their bikes for the past six months starting in Montreal. The young fellow is from Singapore and is actually using a skateboard as locomotion, pushing a baby stoller that holds his supplies! And their plan is to travel all the way to Argentina in this fashion! I’m mostly agnostic, but will be praying for their safety!
Today we should reach Bahia Concepcion south of Mulege on the Sea of Cortez, with a string of beautiful sandy coves to set up camp on. Then we can relax for a few days before the final push to the tip of the peninsula.
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