Gas crisis

Santa Rosalia, BCS, Mexico

Mexico - you've got to love it!

The bus trip back down the peninsula was the usual adventure. We left San Diego on Greyhound around 11AM, bound for the Mexican border and the Tijuana bus depot.  All went smoothly.  They let us out just outside of the border and took our luggage off; then when I inquired about how we were to proceed through the border they told us to put our bag back on the bus and get back on ourselves - I guess they just sort of figure you should somehow know all this.  Then, at the border, we were stopped by the US Border Patrol who looked us all over carefully, complete with a large drug-sniffing dog that went up and down the isle and took a particular liking to me, before letting us go on to the Mexican customs and immigration.  There, one person on the bus was delegated to go push the "go, no-go" button for the whole bus - he got a green light.  So, since we did not have to actually have our baggage unloaded for inspection, all we had to do was pay one dollar apiece as a bribe to the baggage handlers to get them off the bus and the next thing you know we were in Mexico.  At no time did anyone want to see any documentation of any kind from anyone.

At the Tijuana bus terminal, we got seats on the 16:05 bus to Santa Rosalia.  The bus predictably left about a half hour late but made up for it by being a much nicer bus than we had on the way north.  We cruised down the highway for the first hour and a half to Ensenada in comfort.  In Ensenada however, things changed for the worse.

For reasons not made clear to us, after sitting in the small Ensenada bus station parking lot with the engine idling for about 15 minutes, the driver came back and turned the engine off and he, along with any other official looking persons, disappeared for about 2 hours, leaving us all sitting there wondering what was up.

Eventually the next bus on this route caught up to us, as they had left about 2 hours after us from Tijuana.  Again with no explanation of why, we had to get off the bus, find our luggage and board the later bus for the remainder of the journey.  Seating could have been a bit tricky as we had been on a pretty full bus to begin with and there were passenger already on the new bus, but fortunately the new bus had lots more seats, primarily because it did not have near as much leg room.  Thus we continued on overnight for another 15 hours of relative discomfort, trying to get some sleep on the, at times, non-existent road.  We arrived in Santa Rosalia around 10AM, a little shaken but generally in good health.

Santa Rosalia had not changed much in our absence - it was still as hot and muggy as we remembered - it was overcast when we arrived which actually made it a bit more bearable.  One noticeable difference was the smaller number of boats in the marinas and at anchor - it appears that more and more people are heading north, although there still does not seem to be any real rush.  There are no threatening hurricanes in the near forecast at this time.

Marina Santa Rosalia Office

We have decided it is time for us to move on as well.  So we have spent the last couple of days going to every tienda (small store), super-mercado (slightly larger store), fruteria (produce market), convenience store, and the government subsidized ISSSTE store,. to try and re-provision for the next couple of months.

Our plan was to leave tomorrow, Monday, but the navy has thrown a bit of a spanner in the works.  The harbour here is created by a couple of large breakwaters built from slag from the old copper mine.  The Pemex fuel station has been built on top of one of these breakwaters with a convenient stairway down to a short dock provided to tie up to when refueling.

Apparently there is some dispute over the ownership of the dock.  The navy feels that they own the breakwater and thus all structures attached thereto.  To prove their point, they have parked a couple of navy boats semi-permanently at the fuel dock, preventing anyone else from using it.  This presents somewhat of a problem for us as we need to refuel before we head any further north.  Talking to some of the other cruisers that have been here a while, they seem to think that the navy boats will leave tomorrow or shortly thereafter, as they have to do their regular patrols.  Meanwhile, we sit and wait and wonder when we will actually get out of here.  Welcome to Mexico!

{GMST}27|20.415|N|112|15.93|W|Santa Rosalia, BCS, Mexico|Santa Rosalia, BCS, Mexico{GEND}