We decided to enter Mexico via Tecate (situated a bit more inland) which is said to be the less busy bordertown compared to Tijuana. Altough we drove there on the weekend, we were more or less the only foreign people who immigrated. The paperwork – we prepared most of it in advance (see what you need at http://wikioverland.org/Mexico) – took a while because our Austrian plates were not integrated in the border control’s computer system. After some phone calls the immigration officer finally figured out how we can temporally import our car. For that we gave him the best grades on the evaluation papers which we had to sign and hand back openly – very anonymous :D

We drove down to to KM38 (the name of the wave stands for kilometers from the border) south of Rosarito skipping the Tijuana area. There we experienced the first south swell in Mexico. We stayed at Robert’s K 38 Surf Motel which provides everything you need – especially a safe parking spot for a good price. Robert (we didn’t figure out either he is an US expat or Mexican in his 80ies runs the hotel for several decades. Of course he adored our car and gave us some hindy hints for our further travels in Baja. According to him you get into the ‚less gringo Baja‘ south of Ensenada and you are in real remote and deserted Baja south of El Rosario. During a night at the bonfire we met a Californian german! speaking guy named Duke (we guessed him in his late 30ies, but actually he was in his 50s!!! – well done Duke). He immediately decided to hand his Baja Surfguide to us because he had to go back north to his family (you can read about his NOT-A-MIDLIFE-CRISIS ADVENTURE at https://greateridiot.blogspot.mx/). The fast right wave was providing only a small hard to get in take off zone which was mostly occupied by excellent travelling Californian surfers. So we tried our luck a little more on the inside which didn’t make it much easier. All in all it was a good start into surfing Mexico. We soon wanted to enter more remote Baja so we decided to head south after 2 nights. We equipped with lots of noodles and ready-made meals. Furthermore we prepared our fishing rod because actually we counted on grilling some caught fish. Driving south of Ensenada means: the narrowest roads you can imagine (there’s often not a millimeter of a shoulder causing lots of accidents with (drunk) truck drivers using both lanes (at night)), military checkpoints where your car gets (pseudo) examined , really deep potholes, crazy braking marks, lots of ruined tires, no gas stations for hours, desert like landscapes, and the more you go further south – the more and bigger cacti you will see.

Next next stop was at Cuatro Casas (between Ensenada and Rosario), a right point reefbreak. On top of the point you find some (maybe more than 4) rustic and simple houses and an even more rustic camping area with several abandoned trailers and boats. According to our newly acquired guide Cuatro Casas should be the most famous and therefore crowded spot in the area. When we arrived we experienced something totally different. We wanted to stay/camp at the Cuatro Casas Hostel which provides the best view and access to the wave + toilets and showers in comparison to the campground. After getting out of the car we couldn’t find anyone responsible beside some dogs barking at us. After a while two gringo expats (living in some of the four or more houses all year) showed up and told us that the owner is not here for a while, but a Mexican guy in charge from the neighbouring village will pass by soon to ask for our money. Later we discovered another American couple somwhere in the hostel but they left the next day. So we had the whole house completely to ourselves (except for the dogs who became friends then) for the next couple of days. The quality big but rather soft wave in front of the hostel worked best at high tide and delivered some long rides which we only had to share with the two ‚locals‘ and some other two guys staying at the campground (one of them staying not all year – just about 4 months a year, the other one visting him).

Altough Cuatro Casas already felt really remote we were excited to go into the real wild Baja south of El Rosario. We wanted to explore the Seven Sisters (seven quality points in a row only accessible by dirt roads). Our first stop should be Punta Canoas.
We had an overnight stop in El Socorrito, a gringo community with a rivermouth wave and an old airstretch (actually we couldn’t find that one). We were the only people camping at the beach. Soon an older but dynamic American lady who spends her retirement there spotted us and it seemed that she was somehow glad to meet and talk to some (young) people. Again we got advices and guidebooks about Baja which were way older than we are. After listening to the wordy stories she experienced in her good old days she invited us to her home for using the internet and the shower when she left. We weren’t quite keen of her offer…after a while she came back with some Tequila anyway and we watched the sunset above the blown out waves listening to some more stories of her.

The next day we followed the route described in Duke’s surfguide which wished us good look and a deep clearance for the dirt road. After !!8!! hours of driving in awesome landscapes (moon like landscapes + thousends of cacti) on a !!really!! rough track (at some point even Lukas had to admit that he’s not feeling too comfortable driving anymore) for !!60!! km we arrived at a small fishing base at the coast. The fisherman who come to work there for some weeks (living in some wooden huts only equipped with matraces on the floor) welcomed us with freshly caught sushi crabs which were super tasty!! The waves were clean but really small so we decided to go to most consistent and ‚crowded‘ spot of the Seven Sisters – the Wall the next day. After our offroad experience the day before we asked the fishermen about the ‚road‘ conditions on the coastal way south. Not wanting to drive some days for about 200 kilometers and not wanting to risk getting caught in deep sand in nomansland or having some other problem with the car we decided to go back to the main road and then go south. They showed us a better dirt road where we saw some wild horses and even more cacti than the day before.

Arriving at the Wall, we found a big bay with a soft and small to medium size endless wave and two other cars. One car was owned by a young fisherman from Alaska who drove down all the way to surf. He was about to drive back the next day to fish and earn some more money to be able to come back then for surf again. The other trailer seemed more settled and was owned by a landlord like American from California (as far as this position is even necessary here). Lukas got woken up by a fisherman the next morning who sold us some tasty fresh king prawns. Luckily, because although we were trying really hard we still didn’t catch any seafood (while we were watching pelicans and dolphins catching fish all day). A small south swell delivered empty superlong soft rides (Lukas surfed the longest wave he had ever ridden) for the next couple of days. So we spent some lonely relaxed time surfing, reading, watching passing coyotes in the evenings, and trying to catch a fish. One time I even had to share a wave with a seal (I am glad I pictured it, because Lukas didn’t believe me at all).

As the swell faded away we read about Sea of Cortez, a beautiful snorkeling and fishing paradise with calm waters, on the other side of the peninsula. Confident to catch some fish there we quickly (~7h drive) went to a bay called Bahía Concepción. We found several beaches with different amounts of crowds there and settled in (of course lonely) at Playa Escondida. We spent our time camping at the beach fishing and snorkeling. After trying out several methods (night-fishing, spear-fishing, surfboard-fishing) we could finally catch a small one. Since just one small fish wouldn’t fill our tummies we decided to use it as bait but without any further success. While snorkeling we saw lots of rockfish and some stingrays (we maybe could have caught the stingrays lying calmly on the seafloor easier with our self-made spear but in the end we decided for noodles again). According to a Mexican guy in cowboy boots who passed by we should go to the lonely island in front of our beach because there we would catch some fish for sure. Equipped with our gear we paddled out to the island to do so. We fought through thick seagrass, which turned out to be equipped with some stinging nettel things which caused a hard itching skin eruption for the next 24 hours – the only thing we took back from the island fishing trip. Fed up of instand meals and noodles looked for a restaurant in the evening. We crashed an expats-retiree party and suddenly a guy started to talk to us in a language which sounded quite familiar – Tirolean Dialect. It was Franz from Wattens (spending his winters down here) who left Austria after his studies back then to work in the US. He invited us to his home the next day but unfortunately we already planned to go to La Paz the next morning to arrange the ferry to mainland Mexico (Sorry Franz, maybe next time!!).

After one night going out in La Paz we took the ferry to Mazatlan, Sinaloa. Only the owner of the car was allowed to drive onto the ship so Lukas drove off and I stayed back at the main entrance. Boarding time arrived and I was still waiting for Lukas because of course he had my ticket with him. I didn’t know whether he knew that and tried to come back or not. We couldn’t call each other because we just have one sim card which was in his phone at the moment. I explained the sitation to the staff and they started to radio to the boat to find a guy with a car looking for his friend – but without success. The clock was ticking and I already thought about buying another ticket when Lukas and my ticket suddenly showed up (he was not allowed to leave the ship again first, so he had to do lots of arguing and explaining to convince the staff). In the end we fortunately could go on the ferry trip together. After a comfortable night in a private cabin (we did the upgrade onboard after starting the overnight trip in the loud and uncomfortable saloon first) we arrived in Mazatlan the next day around midday.

We straight drove out of the bad reputated state of Sinaloa and went to the relaxed beach town of Sayulita to have some days of ‚vacation‘ after our exciting and exhausting adventures the last weeks.

Our first stop in Central California was Santa Cruz, which is a really nice surftown with a chilled flair, around Monterey Bay. After tipping our toes into the really cold waters there (and reading about the great white sharks in these waters – we don’t feel strong enough for an escape paddle yet) we headed south on the scenic Pacific Highway 1 to Big Sur, a stretch of the coastline which offers a beautiful, rugged, and green landscape. The drive in this area somehow reminded us of our former surftrips in Northern Spain. Wild camping is highly forbidden here in California (like a lot of other stuff too) but the many nice beach state parks provide camping for around 35-45 dollars (plus an additional 7 dollars for the firewood bc collecting is – guess what – forbidden). The first place we stayed at was Plascett Creek, a charming, small nice green place, hidden in the woods with a wave just across the street. Bad weather and still supercold water let us leave soon the next day. Next stop was Morro Bay, a long beachbreak but the mushy waves didn’t look to good. The fame of the car (we‘ are having that conversation at least twice a day : toyota landcruiser, type PZJ75, shipped from europe, built 1991) brought us the recommendation to try Pismo, where the small NW swell organized nicely and brought us our first pier surfing in our lifes. The water is still really cold there so that our feet got frozen after one hour in the water. So looking for warmer temperatures, at least outside of the water we headed to Refugio, an amazing state beach park campground in a beautiful small bay with a pointbreak where unfortunately the small NW swell hardly made it around the corner. Around the corner there is Santa Barbara, where we accidently crashed into a student’s spring break party like you know it from the movies but our partying there was not movie like at all because we skipped it due to not finding a driver.
We found the first descent waves in Rincon (one of the world’s most famous right pointbreaks) and got to feel what we already knew/have feared: Lacking of paddle power means lying like a dead fish in the water and getting washed away by currents (at least at the beginning). The ‚paddle training‘ in the inside of the bay still got us to know the power and length of this perfect wave. So we knew what was the plan for the next days: As much paddling as possible and no/little poser pics so that we will be fit for bigger surf in Mexiko. After one hot day at Carpinteria State Park Lukas decided to go for his first summer haircut for many years. He trusted my cutting skills and was satisfied with the result. Unfortunately he didn’t consider the colder weather we were about to get the following days. Next stop was Leo Corillo State Park some miles east of Malibu because we needed to wait for two parcels (european/international gas bottle adapter + water tank – the newly mounted one from Lukas had a leak from mounting back home) to arrive in LA. This stretch of beautiful coastline is often used as film set, as the pictures show. We found a good working pointbreak at the North end of Zuma Beach named Trincon. The access is little hidden between private properties (beach front houses you can buy for about 10 million dollars to live next door to some star from Hollywood). The first day was the biggest/best (training – so no pictures of us) but the following ones still delivered some xs, fun, and quite long rides (pictures of us). Surfing there we had some in water visits with dolphins and seals – they are hunted by baby great white sharks (still ~2-3m), starting to come from Baja California into colder waters that time of the year, but we were not too afraid because there weren’t any incidents recently and actually it was just the start of the season :) .
Usually people make reservations for the State Park Campsites way in advance but actually we never did because of assumed off-season and flexibility. That’s why we also sometimes had to move (especially during some busy weekends) and escape to some other places like e.g. Point Mugu, a rustical and stretched out parking lot like campground situated directly at the beach which offered us great sundown dinners.
Finally the parcels arrived in LA and we found a mechanic in San Clemente who did the mounting (which is accordingly to Lukas somehow a bit tricky). We spent the night there and ended up in a karaoke bar where we got the gringo baja hints (waves, fishing, etc) written down on receipts from local surfers.
Next stop was San Elijo State Park near Encinitas where we surfed the reef in front of the Campsite providing mushy waves and made our last preparations before entering Mexico (car insurance, paperworks, food supply,…).
Beside paddling and surfing the last and mostly small NW pulses of the spring season in mostly Southern California we were improving our billard skills in half empty sportsbars – due to low season and cold temperatures (~15°C dd /~7°C dn) and preparing our skin for Mexico’s sun getting our first sunburns.
Our last stop before Mexico was San Diego and we are really looking forward to leave the State Park Campgrounds and the big American Camping Car Houses and going to remote Baja. We plan to enter Mexico via Tecate (it’s said to be much less busy than Tijuana) heading back west to the Pacific coast around Ensenada.