12/7/24-Saturday- Day 1 “Viva la Mexico”

   This morning we woke up at 5:30 somewhere in the desert between Yuma, AZ and Calexico, CA. After some final early morning preparations we dropped the top on our camper and made the 45 minute drive to the Mexicali East border crossing. Not surprisingly we were pulled into a parking spot for secondary inspection. The guards were extremely professional, courteous and friendly. While one of the guards climbed up into the camper for a quick 5 minute inspection a couple of the others took quite an interest in Duke and Annie in the back seat. We were promptly waved through with no issues and thanks to our friends who had crossed in the week or so prior we easily found a parking space to begin the paperwork for both our FMM’s (Mexicos version of a tourist visa valid for up to 180 days) as well as the Temporary Import Permit (TIP) for our truck and camper. This was once again a very easy process and within 30 minutes we had all of our paperwork in hand and soon found ourselves in the chaos that is driving in Mexico. 

    We quickly made our way through the hectic streets of Mexicali with the goal of putting plenty of kilometers between us and the border before stopping. We drove about 2 hours south to the town of San Felipe before stopping for fuel, pesos, and some much anticipated tacos! After fueling up we found a birria taco stand for lunch and it did not disappoint! We even had the pleasure of watching a small parade go by while enjoying our meal. This is something I absolutely love about Mexico, they frequently have parades and celebrations and while they are not huge productions, you can tell that the locals take pride in them as they make their way through the streets. Once we finished our meal we began looking for potential campsites for the evening. 

    Not wanting to push too far we settled on a potential site about 45 kilometers south of town. The dirt track leading to our potential campsite was quite faint and a bit difficult to find initially. We started down the dusty track away from the highway and into the desert hoping to reach the coastline and eventually we did. Unfortunately we found quite a bit of soft sand along with a stiff breeze blowing in from the sea so we decided to back track a bit into the desert in hopes of finding relief from the wind. While certainly more protected than the coastline, our chosen campsite still had a good breeze blowing through, at least until the sun went down. We settled into camp by 1:30 or so, a very welcome shift from our recent pace of travel. We are both ready for the slower pace of Baja! We each enjoyed much needed showers and turned in quite early.