Cataviña: Baja California's Breathtaking Desert Paradise

Oh man, this sharp spine just went right through my shoe. Hi, we're Mel and Jay. Together with our cat Benny, we're traveling the Baja Peninsula all the way to Cabo and back. This is the story of finding the most beautiful desert in Baja, where we battle cactus spines, find ancient cave paintings, and the drone crashes. Our problem tire is reading 44, which is 5 psi less than what Jay had it at. So we've stopped on the side of the road. We're gonna give it a little pump up. This was a good investment, that's for sure. It's getting used. I'm gonna take off our TPMS thing here. But the thing with these is as soon as you start to loosen it, it lets a ton of air out. So you got to be really quick and you got to make sure they're super tight. So that could be part of the reason that we've lost some pressure. So this is actually showing 48.5, which is pretty close. I mean, that might just be the difference of me taking off the TPMS. But just to be sure, we'll top it up again. It might have been that the TPMS just hadn't updated yet. So yeah, that was at 1.5 psi. All right, but this time I am going to use this little wrench to make sure that the TPMS is on super tight. Now the guy at the tire place said this really isn't necessary, but I don't know, maybe it is. So this is why we always leave early on travel days. You never quite know what might slow you down. What do you think, Lou? Yeah? What else? Yeah, okay. So Catavenia is starting to look a little bit like a bust. This road here is not traversable with the trailer. And this is the place I had marked on iOverlander to come and camp. Now the cave paintings are just a little ways down the road that way. And I can see a parking area where there's a big tour bus. So I'm sure we could probably park there. There's a little tourist building over there and a sign kind of explaining activities. But honestly, it looks a little unfinished. So it looks like they're kind of working on turning this into a tourist attraction. According to iOverlander, there's an abandoned campground just up this road that has some nice spots to stay in. So I want to at least go and see what that looks like. Yeah, that upper road is too rough. But I'm going to check out this lower road. It's a cool area with all the rocks and the cactus. Yeah, I mean, this lower road is certainly doable. Still have not found any sign of an abandoned campground. Okay, I spoke too soon. Here's a spot that's definitely kind of marked off with rocks. It's got a fire pit. I mean it could do. It's either this or drive another two and a half hours. I don't know. We're really not sure about this one. I do feel like it would be nice to stay here for two days, rest up a bit. What do you think? I'm not comfortable going down this road. I would want you to spot it anyways. Come have a look. All right, we've opted to stay here. So at our last site, that would be our last video. You can check that up here. We had a bit of an incident with the trailer coming down a rocky kind of slope and road. And so after that, we've learned our lesson. And now I am going to spot the trailer to make sure it's not going to bottom out like it did. Slower. So far so good. This is the boulder and the tree on the other side that I am worried about. You're a couple inches from a bush. I think you're gonna make it. I want to show you the site we have picked out. Is that cactus not the most epic cactus ever? You're clear. Don't go any wider. You're into the bushes. Gosh. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Don't move. Careful managing wood piles because there could be scorpions. You are clear of the wood pile. Am I not going to hit the fire pit on the right? Not yet. So the back of the trailer should swing right. Correct. You're not going to fit here. You're going to hit that cactus. We're basically going to be shimmying ourselves with a million point turn. So this is not the angle I thought we were going to be on. But this isn't working. Well we've gone from the cold right into the hot. We're in the high desert now and it's 27-28 Celsius. We're finally set up here after quite some time to get in. But look at this awesome massive cactus right beside the trailer. You look tired. We're only traveling two hours, two and a half hours. I'm exhausted. This is ridiculous. But anyways we've got a spot now. We're here. We're set up. We're having lunch. And then I'm going to have a nap. So I'm the kind of person that likes to have at least half a tank of gas always. But now we're in the middle of the desert and we've got less than a quarter tank. In fact I'd say we have less than an eighth. It's currently estimating that we have a 60 kilometer range. And Google Maps tells me that the nearest gas station is about 120 kilometers away. So what do you do when you're in the middle of the desert? Well there are some little roadside stands that sell gas and jerrycans but we've heard that those can be a little sketchy sometimes. Thankfully in Guerrero Negro I was thinking and we filled up our own jerrycans. So each one of these is about 20 liters. So we're going to get a total of 40 liters extra. And that should take us where we want to go. It's not always easy getting this into the tank though. There we go. Just gassing up in the middle of the desert. Takes a while. Gotta get every last drop in there. All right so that's put us up over a quarter now and we have just enough to make it to the next station. So I think we better put that next jerrycan in. And when you're filling your gas watch out for crazy spiky things. Yeah that's uh I don't know where that thing came from. I think this bush. There's still a needle left in my foot. 20 liters of gas is actually a bit heavy. All right let's see what that gave us. Oh we're over half now. 210 kilometers. I mean it's not great but it'll get us where we need to go. So I'm enjoying our little abandoned campground camping area in the middle of the desert here. Two fire pits. Massive massive cactus and lots of rocks to climb on too. We're a bit sheltered from the wind. It's relatively close to the road which is right behind me but we don't get too much traffic noise since we're kind of down in this valley. This big pile of boulders here kind of blocks the noise for us. There's lots of birds around. Lots of really prickly things to get stabbed with. Oh man this sharp spine just went right through my shoe. Oh that really hurt. And the worst thing is I have no idea what it was from so I don't know what to watch out for. Aha I found it because I nearly stepped on it again looking for what I stepped on. Just to give you an idea of size I think it was a tiny little baby version of this which I believe is a cholla of some sort. I have to say when we pulled up I wasn't quite sure about this place. We got our campsite though and I am really really loving this spot. I wish that we could stay way longer than two nights. We slept so well. It was nice and dark. There's lots and lots of flowering bushes. Lots of birds. Oh my gosh there's a toad. Can you see this little toad? Hello friend. That is amazing. A little desert toad. Like just pure magic and we've got it all to ourselves. I'm going to do something today that I've been putting off because I'm a little nervous about doing it. My laptop's fans I've heard have been working much harder than they should be so I'm sure with all of the sandy dusty places that we've been that those fans have gotten dusty. Now I can blow in and kind of blow some of the dust out but really you've got to open it up to get all of the dust out. I'm a little bit nervous of doing that on the road just because if something goes wrong I don't have a lot of options to fix it. But at the same time the laptop overheating is not good for it either. So yeah just look at that dust. That is not good at all. Well there we go. That was quick and easy and now I don't have to worry about it for the rest of the trip. This is exciting. Mel's back from town. I made it. That grocery store in there is actually really decent. You can take that. There's cheese in there that needs to go directly in the fridge. And then lunch. Oh it smells so good. I had like raced back here as fast as I could because the whole truck smells like lunch. So in Catavinia there's a little cafe called La Enremada and it was really well rated on google maps. So we thought we'd buy lunch and look at this. Okay so takeout option. You can do takeout or dine in. I got for obviously the takeout because we're here. It's not the most takeout friendly vessels to carry the food but it smells so good. I can't wait to see this. So oh boy. So these are the queso tacos. Comes with beans and a little bit of salad. I got chicken in mine. And then Jay's got chimichangas which look pretty. Oh that looks even better. You always get the good stuff. You always order right. I got this dessert. Churros? It's banana bread or banana cake. Nice. Look it smells good. Yeah. So all of that came to 300 pesos. That's not bad. Doesn't seem too bad. What's that like 15 bucks? US? Yeah. For lunch for two. Cool. And the best part is we don't have to do dishes. Well that was quite satisfying wasn't it? It was delicious. We were just talking about how much we like this place but when we first arrived Mo was like oh I'm not sure. Oh it seems maybe sketchy. I don't know if we should stay here at all. Maybe we should just move on. And I was like you know what let's just give it a minute. And now what do you think? I love this spot. It's just beautiful. There's so there's so much like so many things to draw inspiration from here. I really like it and I kind of want to stay longer but I don't know that our black and gray tanks will allow us to do that. All right time to check out the main attraction. Now there used to be this big dome structure here but I guess in recent years it has crumbled into nothingness. Yeah now there's just not a whole lot left of it. But apparently at one point this was a cool place to come out and party. Seems a little hazardous now with all the twisted metal and concrete sticking out. That is a big cactus behind me. Looks like the cave is just at the top of a small hill up there. There's a big American tour group from California coming through. I got some advice to duck on my way in. Apparently there's some low hanging rocks so I'll watch out for that. Well how's that for timing? I think the tour group is just on their way right now so got the caves all to myself. Pinura Rupestra. Cave paintings I presume. They were not kidding about watching your head. That's uh low. So I'm told by the tour group these paintings are over 4,000 years old and they're still very bright colors. That's pretty crazy to think. Like what was going on here 4,000 years ago? It's hard to think about what the world's going to look like in 40 years let alone 400 or 4,000. Might have to start heading back soon though. It is hot. Seeing these little black bees everywhere too. They're huge. So this was pretty cool to come and see but I'm gonna be honest I was kind of thinking the cave would be a lot bigger and have a lot more paintings. Well this is kind of a cool spot. I'm perched up on a rock kind of looking over the park. I think it might be a decent spot to put up the drone. Oh I'm so ticked. Tried to land the drone on a little bit too much of a slope. About like that maybe? Anyways it was too much for it and I just kind of skipped on down and then fell off of a crevasse. That one right up there. I feel like it should be right in here somewhere but I don't see it. Oh actually I'm blind. A tree caught it. It's like literally right there. Hopefully that tree softened the blow a little bit. It's not looking too bad. Those floppy propellers are kind of good. I think they prevent a lot of propeller damage. All right time to head back to the trailer and check out the scope of the damage. Yeah it was a good walk. Met up with some Swiss people and I crashed the drone. No you didn't. I did. Like really bad. Not really badly. Did you lose it? No I have it. Does it still work? I haven't tried it yet. Here's the drone that crashed. Oh yeah this one has a little bit of a scuff. This one has a little bit of a scuff. That's a little banged up. I think we'll give it a shot. Seems all right. I don't think I broke it. All right we are off and I cannot believe that we had this place. This gorgeous place to ourselves. And our next stop is a little place called El Rosario. So let's go. So this is all... Did you just hit that cactus? I just brazed it slightly. Ouch. It didn't poke. Oh good. And our next stop is a little... Try again. You had one line honey. One thing to say. I can't do it. All right. Make sure you don't miss the next video by liking subscribing and turning on notifications. Oh and don't forget to check out our website and sign up for our weekly email blast. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you in the next one.