Driving Tijuana-El Rosario-San Lucas Cove

Made it through Tijuana and Ensenada pretty quickly, and the hectic cities start to turn into smaller agricultural towns. Lots of vineyards, and farms that appeared to be growing a type of prickly pear cactus as well as acres and acres of greenhouses.
The highway narrows down to it’s legendary clearance-by-mere-inches status and we wind our way up and down a couple of steep and windy mountain passes. Notice the abundance of clearance on each side of the truck below. What happens if he meets himself coming the other way???
The poor Tacoma is just absolutely maxed out, and as we come down the last hill into El Rosario, Steve is pushing the brake pedal harder and harder and pumping and pushing some more…..and we just glide right on by the Pemex, swing semi-casually around the 90 degree corner in the center of town and roll to a stop after a couple of speed bumps slow us down. I get out to figure out what's going on and I can’t even touch the front wheels because they are so hot. Needless to say, we adopt a new downhill method that involves slowing at the top of the hill and using lower gears to keep an appropriate bailout speed on the way down! Less than a month ago, I had replaced the stock brakes with PowerSlot high performance rotors and ceramic pads – and that honestly may have saved us from a fiery death at that big turn in the center of town. Suddenly I don’t feel so bad for spending $250 on brakes…..

We arrive in El Rosario by 5:30p and stay overnight at The Baja Cactus, which came highly recommended by the BajaNomad Forum members – and I can see why! Antonio is in the middle of a remodel (aren’t all buildings in Baja…) and we stayed in one of the recently finished new rooms. Fantastic rock and tile work throughout; We’re talking posh for anywhere, not just Mexico, and all for $40.


After a semi-restful night due to some unplanned Spanish osmosis from the room next door, we leave for Santa Rosalia bright and early. The desert cacti of Catavina are really cool and for the first time it feels like we’re in the ‘real Baja’.


Crossed the BCS border in Guerrero Negro (fyi, it takes exactly 15.99 gallons of gas from El Rosario in a fully loaded Tacoma) at 11:45a and got checked for the tourist cards by Immigration.
Got through the other military checkpoints quickly (they were only checking Northbound traffic) and with 1585 miles on the odometer, rolled into San Lucas Cove at 2:45p.