Halloween 2008 at Guadalupe Canyon

Happy Halloween 2008 from Guadalupe Canyon Hot Springs
(Trip Report originally published in 2008 on Baja Nomad forums)

Baja Angel and I just got back home from a very, very nice weekend in Guadalupe Canyon with Nomad Hotschott and his esposa Val… Hotschott even brought pumpkins and carved them!

Being that Halloween was Friday and that was when we drove down, arriving just after dark… our party was Saturday night…

We got out of North County about 2:30pm Friday and that put us ahead of traffic… lucky for us! Crossed into Mexico at Tecate about 4:30…

TWO new (since our last time this way) Pemex stations are now on the road leading east from Tecate to the toll highway entrance.

We were on the Laguna Salada to see the sun set about 5:30 and the lakebed was dry and fast driving (50-60 mph).
When it got dark, I ignited my HIDs. I spent some time playing with the adjustment angle… testing a couple different ways to use them, etc. By the time we were climbing up the road from the lakebed to the canyon, it was dark. The HIDs gave out plenty of bright blue-white super light.

We arrived at our reserved camp (La Jolla B) at 6:30. Hotschott and Val had arrived a couple hours earlier and were settled in at their nearby campo, La Paloma.

As soon as our camp was set up, we were soaking in the wonderful hot spring water under a sky solid with stars!

That was Friday…

Saturday was a day of rest and relaxation… enjoying perfect weather… it was actually warmer than we expected… warm all night, too. Baja Angel and I took a short walk up to the office and beyond into the next camp.

The palms all burned now had plenty of green leaves with only their trunks blackened… All of Arturo’s camp sites are open, but the next campo up (formerly Angel’s Campo #3) still has not rebuilt their palapas or sites… from what we could see. Across the canyon were some new wood sided palapas… but no privacy, like at Arturo’s!

Photos from our previous trip, just after the fire, can be seen at http://vivabaja.com/108

Saturday evening we had dinner at the Hotschott’s camp and Steve (Hotschott) made three Jack O’ Lanterns…

More soaking then sleep… A wind came up and tried to blow things around for a few hours…

Sunday (today) morning was overcast and made packing up a cooler, nicer experience than if we had to in the full sun!

We left the canyon about 10:30 (new standard time) this morning and reached the border line at Tecate about 1 pm… The wait was 65 minutes.

There were some Baja 1000 pre-runners about and the race course is the main street in La Rumorosa! I bought $20 (240 pesos) of gas at La Rumorosa (12 pesos per dollar) for 33 liters (8.7 gallons) or $2.30/ gallon.

Great trip, very nice weather, good friends, hot springs… hard to beat!

Photos next!