Before I dive into my experience at the Immigration Office, I want to share the night I had in Loreto. Like every night in Mexico, I grab tacos for dinner. I ask the taco guy where to go for nightlife. This is the last time I ask a taco maker what bars are good because the only bars they think are good are strip joints. In any event, I find a regular establishment called Mike´s Bar. As I enter, a guy tells me, I´m ¨The Witch,¨ take a seat, and welcome to my bar. He doesn´t look like a Mike to me. Maybe a Miguel or Miguelito judging by his horse jockey stature. In any event, he is very proud of his title and wants to show his power by kicking two of the three guys to my immediate right out of the bar. The one he left was slurring his Spanish and wanting to chat with me. I would compare this guy to a pound puppy when they give you the, ´my time is nearly up - please take me with you´ look. Now my Spanish is pretty poor. It´s even worse with loud music in the background but pretty hopeless when the speaker is 3 sheets. I am not making eye contact or even acknowledging that he is there, but he is running his mouth about who knows what. I leave the bar area and go to the back and sit at a private table. He gives me 5 minutes of peace then comes over to me again. I really thought this was some kind of joke, but he was for real. He was no threat, just really blacked out. The Witch asks me if I want him kicked out. I don´t mind this guy, I just don´t want to talk to him. He shakes my hand about 15 times and signs my notebook MARTIN DELA CRUZ DE LA CRUZ.
As I am going to the reception desk the next morning to get my deposit, my bike computer flies off. This is no big deal as it happens pretty regularly. However, this time it loses its memory and works only intermitently. The last mileage I recorded was 1356 to Loreto and will be without a bike computer going forward.
In any event, I make it to the immigration office and am the 3rd one there. Luckily there are 3 agents so I should be served right away. After some waiting, I try to assert myself to make sure they know what I need. I tell them what happened, filled out some paperwork, then went to the bank to pay a fine of 1200 Pesos and a tourist Visa of 246 Pesos. I get back to the office and a few more people showed up. There are the Mexicanos that come and go with hugs and kisses, then there are the American that are pulling there hair out. One lady is balling crying as she has been to the office everyday for 5 weeks trying to get her FM2. It´s clear that several of the Americans are there for the same issue as me, but we all basically have different waiting times and procedures. Some of them have been there multiple times. In total, I ended up spending about 3 hours in the office. Towards the end of my wait, I really wondered if they would keep me in there from open to close and not resolve my issue. I fill out another blank sheet of paper, sign my name on some forms written in Spanish, then get out of there. All in all, there was no reason for me to wait as the agent wasn´t working on anything. It just took him that long to pull a form out of the desk. I hinted at a bribe to speed it up or skip the bank process, but I later learned that the Loreto office had federal trouble for taking bribes and now all of the money has to be handled at the bank. It always seemed shady to pay the officer directly, but now the bank will be the one to rip off the state instead of the agent. I´m not sure it is a lesser evil. I also learned that the physically larger agent was part of a recent federal bribery sting but never lost his job. I only brought up the crying lady earlier to mention this conversation between them:
Agent: If you don´t respect me, I can´t respect you.
Crying: I have given you nothing but respect.
Agent: If you don´t respect me, I can´t respect you.
Crying: You tell me different stories each day. How can I respect you when you are inconsistent?
Agent: If you don´t respect me, I can´t respect you...
I get out of the office, but it burned so much time that I couldn´t make it to Constitucion. I stop and grab a sandwich, and in the parking lot of the restaurant, a Gringo tells me to come to his place in El Juncalito and have a shower and place to rest. Just ask for ¨No Se.¨ It´s only 10 miles so I am not getting very much closer to the goal of La Paz, but it´s also the last place to camp on the Gulf before La Paz. Juncalito is a tiny fishing pueblo where about 30 Gringos have set up semi-permanent winter camps. All of the Gringos are in their 60s or older and retired. There is no electricity and running water is intermitent. Life is good.
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| Sunrise looking toward the Port of Escondito |
I am greeted with a smoked filet of yellow tail and a Pacifico. After tall tales and tall beers, we get invited to head down to another Gringo trailer where a bunch of people are hanging out. I just entered a whole new world. This was the world of the sailor. One of the guys has been a ship builder since childbirth, another, shows me star constellations for 15 minutes and teaches me how to tell time with the stars, and another promises me a boat ride to La Paz in a day. However, the most interesting in the 6 foot leggy blonde with two children that just spent the last year and a half at sea. I hear tales of her boat, two daughters, and herself surving 50 knot winds in the open seas with 20 foot swells, having her boat sucked into a hurricane, having her boat thrown on its side then into a rocky shore, and a few others. She was also a sushi chef before a sailor, so she said that she will spear fish and skin dive to provide food for her girls. I´m a fan of sushi, but I can´t imagine the freshness of ones that are plucked out of the sea right in front of you. The stories and passion that this group has for sailing is beyond anything I have ever witnessed. We head back to my host´s pad to go to bed. I eagerly waited for dawn to see if I would be apart of a sailboat crew heading to La Paz. By virtue of this post, that didn´t happen, but it was fun to imagine it. However, I am hooked, and I have never even set foot on a sailboat. In the near future, I will get one of those and learn to take it around the world. But back to what happened, there is a CB radio broadcast where all of the people around the port listen to. The order of discussion is something like this: Weather conditions, arrivals, departures, crew, and it is closed with jokes and humor. My host calls out offering my labor, but there were no takers, so I hit the road via bicycle. Don and Brenda, thank you for bringing me into Juncalito and offering me wonderful hospitality. I don´t know how I can return the favor, but please be in touch.
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| A parting photo of Don and Brenda in Juncalito |
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| This was the last time I would see the Gulf until La Paz |
The ride to Constitucion started with major climbs heading back over the mountains into the center of Baja. I didn´t get the same winds to guide me up up the hill like a few days earlier. In fact, the winds had now shifted and were hindering my progress. After being at the peak of the mountains, I never got the fast joyride out of them. There was a slow gradual descent with a headwind. This was like sidestepping up a moutain on skis only to have all of the snow melt during the climb.
After getting out of the mountains, there was a three hour stretch where I rode in a completely straight line and the scenery never changed.
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| This guy welcomed me to Constitucion |
I will do my best to be in La Paz tomorrow, which is about 210 km.
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