Mulegé Meets Blade Runner

It seems I always have to start out with a plan. Then as these reports progress it becomes obvious we are useless at sticking to our plans. So why bother? Because I’m trying to make sense of it all, that’s why. 

We ended up in an actual oasis as far from salt water as you can get and it goes by the name of San Ignacio. This was not the plan! Decidedly not but it happened like this and it ended very well.  

It was Friday afternoon and we were exiled from Playa Armenta when the music cranked up so loud we couldn’t think. We decided to check out the next town called Mulegé ( the emphasis weirdly  is on the last e). This was a sailing area I read about in my youth, places where people traveled to get away from the  25 million California residents then crowding the Golden State. There are 42 million today. 

We weaved along Highway 1 clinging to the cliffs above the Sea of Cortez, lovely views that filled us with hope for a good Sandy place to stop at water’s edge. 

When we happened across a nice quiet beach the plan was we would check it out. There were beaches but they weren’t quiet. Businesses were besieged and we could see restaurants on the beach, tour boats, fishing trips and lines of parked cars and RVs. We could have been in Southern California had the US been endowed with such tropical blue waters and white sands. 

We were a tad grumpy by the time we reached Moo-lay-HAY! a river town up a creek away from tidal waters. They call it Heroica in honor of its role supposedly in advancing one of Mexico’s glorious but inconclusive revolutions. 

Weirdly Mulegé reminded me a bit of Bisbee, the last town in Arizona before our border crossing at Naco. It’s a dusty, potentially pretty little town built on terraced streets that rise up out of the river bed. 

Our first order of business was laundry, a do-it-yourself place recommended on iOverlander. ( If you are planning a road trip I hope it’s obvious by now this is the American app everyone uses). 

You will notice signs in English everywhere. When Rusty and I took a walk I check the realtor’s window. 

Don’t be shy if you are interested. It’s low season so who knows what deals are possible…We’re nomads and certainly not ready to settle down. 

The laundry job set me straight. I had had an unfortunate moment a couple of nights previously when I had thrown open the back doors of the van to take a pee without disturbing Layne and had forgotten I’d set aside my second pillow which fell to the ground and rolled away and got slightly in the way. Enough I wanted to throw it away but Layne swore it could be saved and so it was. Laundry done was a huge relief to me in a sense. I can be an idiot, peeing on a pillow is a spectacular new low. Van life. Sigh. At least it was on the ground at the time and I didn’t wet the bed. 

Mulegé as Bisbee: 

We checked out the nearest RV park but it was really ghastly. Dried dirt, no shade and depressingly empty. We drove through and couldn’t decide if it would have been better if full of life. 

“Something will come up!” We said sounding more hopeful than sensible. We set out for Santa Rosalia with eyes on the beaches. We had bought a few bits of fruit in Mulegé and added five gallons of drinking water to our tank so we were ready for anything. 

We were not ready for Santa Rosalia. 

Oddly enough Layne who was navigating like a demon had not found a single campground in this town, the last spot before Highway 1 turned inland toward San Ignacio. 

The best iOverlander could offer was street parking at the public library. That sounded bogus to us but we would see. Along the way from Mulegé we found nothing worth stopping for along the highway. 

Santa Rosalia it turns out is a 19th century mining town founded by European absentee business owners to exploit the minerals of the area. And it looks like a miner’s nightmare to this day, all steel and soot and the most torn up section of highway I have seen in Mexico. No exaggeration. 

We could not wait to escape this dystopian nightmare of mining wealth. We’re tourists dammit!  

The sun was heading to the horizon and it would be dark in two hours. San Ignacio and it’s campgrounds of unknown quality were  90 minutes away. Nothing else for it but to drive! 

We headed out into the desert hoping to find something halfway decent in San Ignacio. As it happens we found something lovely.