We got on the ferry to La Paz! And we were lucky enough to get the last available cabin. To get on the ferry you buy a ticket for your car which includes the driver’s fare, then you buy a passenger ticket for each person in your group. You can choose to sleep in any of the public spaces for free or you can get a cabin for another set price. Thank goodness we were able to get a cabin

because poor Dave spent the night in the bathroom puking and pooping for hours. The next morning he was feeling OK and was able to handle the debarking process which takes quite a while. Phew! I did not want to drive the van off the ferry, nor would they let me as the ticket wasn’t in my name.

After going through customs, the kids and I met Dave outside the ferry terminal. The whole process of meeting drivers is very confusing, but we found each other and we hit the road north with no delays. Dave took last week off work for “Spring Break” so he needed to put some work hours in. With that in mind we drove four hours up to Loreto and stayed at a resort for a couple of days. While there we had some laundry done, did some last minute shopping and enjoyed our last few days in Mexico. Loreto is a cute little town that has Mexico’s Pueblo Mágico designation so it was fun to explore it a little

bit. We also had an amazing authentic Mexican meal at Mi Loreto.

On Wednesday we got up early so we could put some miles in. We weren’t sure how far we’d go, but we were hoping to cross the border on Friday as Semana Santa begins on Saturday. Semana Santa is the week leading up to Easter and kids have a two week school break and most families head to the beach to party. Our kids were rock star travelers that day and we ended up driving over 650 km to northern Baja. At that point we were only four hours from the border.

When we were ready to camp we turned down a road toward the beach and pulled up to a gate outside a property full of garbage. A guy came over and told us we could camp there for $100 pesos ($5 USD). We paid him and drove up over a little hill and found a gorgeous, pristine beach on the Sea of Cortez called Papa Fernandez. We all agreed that it felt good to be camping again and are sad that our adventure is about to come to an end. No one is really ready to leave Mexico.

The next day we had a leisurely morning and then drove towards San Felipe for our last night in Mexico. We had lunch in San Felipe and tried to find a Banjercito to return our vehicle import permit, but they didn’t have an office there. Cars coming into Baja don’t need to get an import permit, but cars driving on the mainland do. When we caught the ferry the first time we had to get one, which was one of the harder things we had to navigate during our time here. You have to pay a fee to get it and also leave a $300 USD deposit. You have 180 days to return your sticker and get your deposit back and you have to do it before you leave the country. Since we couldn’t return it in San Felipe we drove south out of town to find a place to camp. Beach camping this close to the border is a little more challenging as gringos have built houses up and down the beaches. We ended up finding an abandoned RV resort that the caretaker charged us $200 pesos to camp at. We met a really nice lady from the Yukon there that is about to head north with her husband and her 93 year old mother. They keep a trailer there and come down for the winters. We asked her what happened to the resort and she said that in the 90’s it was the nicest place around but a hurricane came inland from the Pacific in 2002(?) and took out the electricity. Then the US economy collapsed and the

owners never were able to get it cleaned up and repaired. It was kind of creepy and the kids weren’t too happy to camp there but I didn’t want to go any further south since we were crossing the border the next day.

After talking to Trish from the Yukon we decided to cross at a smaller border crossing called San Luis Rio Colorado. She told us it was better than crossing at Mexicali and since we were headed east to Phoenix, it made sense. It took us a while to figure out how to return the car import sticker, but once we did we got in the long line of cars and waited our turn to cross. While we were waiting I was looking for info to make sure we were in the right lane and ended up reading a bunch of articles on people getting busted for drug smuggling. All of them were caught by canine teams. Why in the world would you try to smuggle drugs across the border. It seems crazy to me! When our turn came we handed them

our passports and they ran a dog around the van a couple times and then they waived us through. Just like that we were back in the States!

At lunch in Yuma we all remarked on how weird it felt to be back. Miles was happy to see a menu in English. Ollie ordered his meal in Spanish and I was converting dollars to pesos. Culture shock! We then drove to Phoenix where we were excited to be staying with Dave’s brother Joe and his wife Stephanie who we haven’t seen in long time. As a bonus we also got to see Dave’s cousin Ashley and meet her husband Chris.

Now we’ll wind our way home via the desert Southwest and be back in McCall before you know it.