Baja 2009: The KLR Khronicles Part V

Read Parts I, II, III, and IV of the 2009 KLR Baja foray here!

Our planned stop for the evening (and our turnaround point) was Guerrero Negro. It’s a town just south of the 28th Parallel, which forms the border between Baja California and Baja California Sur, the two states in Baja. It’s about halfway down the Baja peninsula.

Guerrero Negro is an interesting town. It’s named for the Black Warrior (Guerrero Negro in Spanish), a sailing ship that sank off the Baja coast a long time ago. It’s one of the best spots to see the whales in Mexico (you can read about that here). The whales hang out in Laguna de Ojo Liebre (the Eye of the Jackrabbit), also known as Scammon’s Lagoon. I’ve been down there many times to see the whales, and it is one of life’s main events. That’s a strong statement, and if you’ve never seen the whales in Baja, you’ll think I’m exaggerating. If you’ve seen them, though, you’ll know I’m not. It’s a surreal and awe-inspiring experience. The whales are in town from January through March, so we wouldn’t be seeing them on this visit.

We usually stay at Malarrimo’s in Guerrero Negro. It’s a great hotel with a great restaurant. I had a cup of coffee that morning that was just perfect.

The little town of Guerrero Negro has another distinction: It’s one of the biggest salt producing regions in the world. The area has hundreds of square miles of shallow flats that the Mexicans flood with sea water. They let the water evaporate and then they bulldoze up the salt. Mitsubishi owns 49% of the production operation; the Mexican government owns the other 51%.

We stopped for fish tacos in Guerrero Negro’s Baja Mision restaurant. These were the only two dogs we saw on this trip that didn’t chase us.

Laura, our waitress in Guerrero Negro when we ate at the restaurant in the above photo.

John saw this Chinese restaurant in Guerrero Negro, which seems kind of funny. We had dinner there.

Chicken chow mein in Guerrero Negro. It was great.

I got up early the next morning and rode around for a bit, exploring Guerrero Negro. With all of the luggage off the KLR, it felt much lighter and faster. I grabbed a few shots around town. I rode through all of Guerrero Negro, including its residential areas. Another 8 or 10 dogs chased me, intending to do me serious harm. None succeeded. By this time itwas almost funny. See a dog, go like hell, hope for the best. It was grand sport.

This is a mural on Guerrero Negro’s supermarket wall.

This is one of the salt flats. When this area dries, the salt company will scrape up the salt, flood it again, and repeat the process.

As I mentioned above, Guerrero Negro was our turn-around point on this trip. Here’s a shot on the way home, in the desert headed north.

We stopped again in El Rosario, this time for a lunch at Mama Espinoza’s. This is their take on fish tacos. They were excellent.

Fish tacos at Mama Espinoza’s. Life doesn’t get any better.

Maria, our waitress in Mama Espinoza’s. There are a lot of ladies named Maria in Mexico.

After Mama Espinoza’s, we topped off at the Pemex station in El Rosario and continued north.

On the Transpeninsular Highway, south of Ensenada. I had to stop and grab a shot of this cactus path.

We rolled into Ensenada well after dark and decided to call it a day. That night we stayed in the Best Western in Ensenada’s tourist district, and it was nothing like any US Best Western. It was a really nice place. We unpacked and parked the KLRs right next to the entrance, and a guy who worked at the hotel put a rope barricade around them. We didn’t know if it was to keep people from touching the bikes, or if it was to isolate them for another reason…John’s KLR’s fuel petcock had developed a drip, and because of that, the area soon reeked of gasoline.

To be continued…

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