After our visit to Paricutin we no longer had any thoughts about leaving the Cuota in Michoacan and so enjoyed our drive through the hilly landscape towards our next destination, which was no less a pleasant surprise.
Northern Baja was an exciting and adventurous experience for us – especially because of all the new impressions; we did ask ourselves, however, what was supposed to be so great about the Baja. As one of the most touristic areas of Mexico we had heard of beautiful beaches, wonderful towns, exceptionally friendly people and lots of Canadian and American “Snowbirds” (those not concerned with all the negative press) who spend the entire winter in the Baja. In the north, we had seen mostly poor and homely villages, no beaches worth mentioning and some somewhat friendly but mostly cool or reserved people. Not exactly the picture that was painted for us. In the South that all changed for the better and we soon understood why the Baja is, for the most part, considered beautiful.
With blue skies and a spring like 20 °C we left Las Vegas behind us and headed for the second time in the direction of California. We took the US 95 in southern Nevada heading first for the infamous area 51. Curious, we tried very hard to see anything interesting but alas there was absolutely nothing to see except endless desert – no Aliens, UFOs, experimental Aircraft, or other strange things from all the conspiracy theories – all a big disappointment really! The only thing that even suggested at something out of the ordinary was the Alien Shop at a nearby gas station, other than that there wasn’t anything of interest to see. Since it was close to dusk we drove a bit off the road in search of an out-of-the-way spot to camp for the night in the hope of at least seeing a UFO… though sadly we saw nothing but the twinkling of the night sky above us.
We were welcomed to Ontario to perfect summer weather, ice cream, the first Tourist information center that was actually open and even higher camping prices than in Quebec.