Since our car was in Puerto Escondido in Baja and we and Loomba-Loomba were in San Carlos on the mainland, we decided to make an adventure out of getting the car over to the mainland and do a Copper Canyon trip on the way back to Guaymas. This involved two different ferry trips, a bus, lots of driving, and a train.
Ferry travel is not cheap or easy in Mexico. We arrived at the 8PM ferry (Guaymas – Santa Rosalia) on Saturday
May 27th at 6PM, as required.
There had been some pretty strong northerlies for a few days and the
ferry isn’t very big so we asked if it was definitely going to sail. They said
yes so our friend, Ray, who had given us a ride from San Carlos, left. At 7:45 they decided the weather was too
bad to go – next ferry would be Monday (maybe). We took a taxi back to the boat
and decided to wait until Tuesday the 29th.
This time we had Ray ( who speaks fluent Spanish) call and make a reservation in a cabin for us for Tuesday. We arrived at 6PM. They had our reservation and we had a whole cabin to ourselves. The ferry left late, but it was a calm ride and we slept most of the way.
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Loading the ferry in Guaymas. |
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Our Cabin. |
When we arrived at 7:30 am in Santa Rosalia we thought we were probably too late for the bus to Puerto Escondio, but the bus was late so we were on our way to PE about 20 minutes after the ferry landed.
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Santa Rosalia. |
We arrived at the PE stop about noon and hiked the mile from
the highway to PE (it was 100 degrees). We picked up the car and headed to La Paz.
With a lunch stop in Constitution we arrived at Casa Buena in La Paz (a great, reasonably priced place to stay) about 5:15
on the 30th. Time for a dip in the pool and dinner at Rancho Viejo.
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Lunch stop in Constitution |
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Driving into La Paz |
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Pool at Casa Buena |
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Community Room at Casa Buena. |
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Garden at Casa Buena. |
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Our balcony at Casa Buena. |
The next day
(31st) we needed to take care of getting our ferry tickets
and a Temporary Import Permit for the car (not needed in Baja or the state of
Sonora, but we were taking the ferry to Topolabompo in the state of
Sinaloa). The ferry dock is in
Pichilingue – about 30 minutes from La Paz. Our plan was to take the Saturday (June 2) ferry because it was a night ferry which would put
us into Topolobompo in the morning and then we would drive to El Fuerte where
we would catch the Copper Canyon train.
As it turned out the schedule changed on June 2nd and there
would no longer be a night ferry.
We bought the tickets anyway and got the TIP all in one place – it was
quite easy.
Now we had a few days to hang out in La Paz, visit friends who were still there, and relax. It was a fun 3 days.
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New Jacques Cousteau sculpture on the La Paz Malecon. |
We got to the ferry at 10:30AM and it was supposed to leave
at 1PM. It didn’t leave until 3PM and we arrived in Topolabompo about 11:30PM.
By the time we found a hotel in Los Mochis it was 12:30. We drove to El Fuerte the next morning.
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The Baja ferries are bigger than the Washington State Ferries. |
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Surrounded by trucks. |
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The long hall on the ferry. |
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Outside deck with trucks below. |
Driving on this ferry was quite an experience – nothing like
the WSF system. It is mostly big trucks and hardly any cars. The trucks are
very close together and they squeeze the cars in the gaps (picture parallel
parking). To get to the upper deck
and back to the car you literally have to crawl under the trucks and over the
chains that are holding them in place.
Once we got upstairs it was quite nice. We were assigned seats in an
air-conditioned salon where movies were continually playing – most were dubbed
AND subtitled in Spanish (good way to improve our Spanish). There were nice
outside decks and a restaurant. It
was actually quite pleasant.
So that’s our ferry
adventure. Next blog entry will be our Copper Canyon adventure
san carlos taxi drivers are friendly and willing to converse with you concerning something thus you will always have somebody to speak along your journey.
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