Baja California with the Z's - Days 21 & 22: A Lazy Day followed by an "Adventurous" Displacement to Punta Bufeo

Tuesday, March 14

This would be our last day in this campsite north of Bahia de Los Angeles (BLA).

It was beautifully sunny and warm with mild winds for the most part.  The day's major activity for me was a ride on Yagi, my TW200, for a last look at some of the nearby beaches before I put her on the front rack in preparation for the Wednesday's planned displacement.

 

We will not be going further south in Baja California.  We've seen and experienced what we wanted to and are not certain things would be much more different further south.  Well, I'm sure they're more crowded of course on the south and west coast but that's not our thing is it?

Wednesday, March 15

We left the campsite before 8:30 AM I believe and went first to Dagget's campground to get water.  ($10 each).  Chris filled up Stewie, their Overlander, first and then they went to get groceries while I filled up Uma's tanks.

I then went and found the local propane refill point and they were able to provide me with propane for Uma's onboard tank!  29 Liters for 580 pesos.

We rendezvous'ed back up after I got the propane and headed out of town and a sometimes white knuckled drive on Federal Highway 1.  It's two lanes are narrow and there's basically no shoulders to the road.

We were stuck for a bit behind a truck that shouldn't have been on the road, it's wheels where not aligned, front to back, and he couldn't go fast because of that.  We finally managed to pass him and then the stack of impatient cars behind us did the usual passing on a solid yellow centerline to get past us.

We stopped at Noon at the Nuevo Chalapa restaurant and had us a good and filling lunch.  After that, we got onto Federal Highway 5, with it's beautiful shoulders on the road, and cruised towards Gonzaga Bay.

Our first "adventure" was shortly before the southern entrance road to Papa Hernandez's restaurant.  Chris pulled over shortly after leaving the highway and I pulled up to see what was going on.  Turns out, they had a flat tire!

Fortunately and amazingly, the onboard tire inflation system kept enough air pressure in the tire to allow Chris to pull Stewie over safely from the highway.  The tire went immediately flat once they stopped, the hole probably being held open at that point.

So lucky it didn't happen on Highway 1, there's NO shoulder to the road and damn near no pullouts!

photo courtesy of Lori Z.

photo courtesy of Lori Z.

photo courtesy of Lori Z.

I'd always wondered how difficult it'd be to change out the big 47" tires on Stewie, today I learned how it is done.  

Using the torque converter to break the lug nuts loose

then we used my electric impact wrench to remove the lug nuts

photo courtesy of Lori Z.

photo courtesy of Lori Z.

Before we could put the spare tire in place, we had to dig a small depression in order for Chris to fit the tire onto the lug nuts.

photo courtesy of Lori Z.

Tired but safe and uninjured.

It took about an hour to do the tire change, pretty good in my opinion given the heavy weight of the tires and all the lug nuts involved!

Here's part of the work involved with changing out a flat tire on the Overlander:

We then got back onto the highway and by 4PM we were at Punta Bufeo's beach area.

I managed to get Uma stuck in the loose sand once again as I drove her to position her behind Stewie next to the beach.  Doh!  This was our second "adventure".

We were tired and there wasn't much debate and only one digging attempt before we resorted to Stewie pulling Uma out of the sand once again using a tow rope!

This is, I believe, Isla San Luis, which we believe to be an old volcano:

photo courtesy of Lori Z.

photo courtesy of Lori Z.

We'll rest tomorrow and the Z's must make some decisions re where and which replacement tire(s) to get.  Those decisions will then drive our schedule I believe.