In the realm of insanity

If you want to do the Baja and continue on, you’ll need to contend with Baja Ferries. Here follows our experience with them. Nothing exaggerated for effect. It really was this ridiculous.

There is a website for Baja Ferries and apparently at some point in the past it worked well enough that you could purchase tickets online. At the time of our travel, it directed all ticket inquiries to a phone number [I’m on the site now and, most infuriatingly, it seems to now allow customers to make purchases online]. This was fine; we would call and figure it out. Except they didn’t pick up the phone either. While in Loreto, I made a few attempts and got nowhere. Which is how we ended up at their physical office in La Paz ten days or so before we intended to travel.

But this is not the frustrating, overly complicated, outdated bit. Because we are travelling with Gidget it’s probably best that we talked with a person directly. Things get complicated with pets on the ferry, so arriving at the teller was not the worst outcome. As it is a thirteen hour journey, overnight, we were prepared to pay for a cabin, only a few of which are allotted as ‘pet friendly.’ This, we decided, was the way to go. If not, Gidget would spend the journey locked up in her crate (yes, we hauled our rarely used metal crate all the way from home), in a pet area that we might have permission to access at some point in the crossing.

There were other pet complications. To get this far we had some things taken care of: Gidget had had her rabies shot within the year. Now she needed a wellness check (cheap and easy to acquire by walking into a vet and booking an appointment, just leave yourself the time). We were also given two options on how we would even get her on the boat. Either in the crate with me as I drove on, or walking on with Sarah, in which case she would need a muzzle.

That’s right – drivers get separated from their passengers! This wasn’t all a surprise to us. We had done our very best to get all the information we could about this experience, but actually living the silliness is another thing. Whether it’s the confusing and arbitrary rules of loading/unloading, the extra checks (like we’re crossing an international border), the weird late night entertainment, or the bonus fee when they weighed and measured our vehicle… so many twists and turns, it’s really hard to capture them all!

So we arrived at the office and had to take a later date to get the cabin we wanted. You pay for your car, each traveller, the cabin, and pets. For us, it came to 800 something dollars. And I get it. It’s a big journey, but the cost hits you all the same.

Here’s a quick summary of how our day went:

• Check out of our place and spend/waste a couple hours until we are meant to arrive at 4pm, three hours before scheduled departure.
• Arrive and join a line forming at a security check.
• Line starts moving. Guard inspects our vehicle, I open the back for him, looking for I don’t know what.
• We get on a scale and pay something like a 200 peso port tariff.
• We move ahead, park and enter a building to get our tickets. Note: we have what appear to be tickets already, but they are not the necessary day of passage tickets.
• This is where Sarah and I part ways: she joins a queue for foot passengers with her bag (more security and scanning) and I drive boldly forward for I don’t know what. Note: you can’t just bring on whatever you want, especially as a driver. Food is a no-no. Get yourself a small bag with everything you need for one night and leave the rest in your car.
• Important interjection: except for the first line, all of this is very loose. As this is across an expansive port area, you could easily drive past a step and so need to be on the lookout.
• I get lucky and am waved to drive on. At the same time, I spot Sarah walking aboard with other passengers. She enters up the same ramp as the vehicles, just off to one side, before being ushered up stairs to the passenger levels. While I’m fussing with the car, she is able to get entry to our cabin and the lay of the land.
• Even though this is a passenger ferry, the primary customer is freight. It’s too expensive and too stupid to drive everything down the length of the peninsula (see this post for reference). This means that you’re driving up while they are trying to pack in as many cargo boxes as possible. There are forklift thingies directed by staff in jumpsuits and again you have to be bold and plunge ahead.
• They had me back into a pack of other smaller vehicles on the top level, tight so that I could only just squeeze out the door. A lady guiding me in was getting irritated until she realized I could not understand her Spanish.
• I navigated the busy deck and rejoined Sarah upstairs.
• If all goes well, there’s a good chunk of time between loading and the boat going anywhere. This is partially by design: your ticket comes with dinner that you’ll be called to around 6 so that it’s wrapped up by 7. Bring a good book and get comfortable with the idea of an early night.
• Supper is cafeteria-style. It’s a good amount to eat but that’s about all you can say about it. For some reason, they keep trying to sell snacks on into the night – nachos and pizza and the like.
• Around 9, there is a ‘variety show’ (I guess that’s what you would call it) in the same cafeteria space. This, we would have sat and watched. The physical gags were a fun distraction but we didn’t get any of the verbal jokes.
• We went to bed and had a fine sleep. Our room had a shower, but we did not partake. I got up at 6:15 or so with hopes of seeing the sunrise (there is an ok deck area). It was amazing to me that you could be on a ferry, in the middle of a crossing, at what is the coolest part of the night, and feel warm. The hottest day of the year, midday, is cold back home. Sadly, the view was mostly blocked by the rest of the ship, but it was pleasant all the same.
• There is coffee and a sweet bun sometime around 8.
• Again, passenger and driver are separated. I went to stand on the outside deck while Sarah went to the cafeteria. While there, they disembarked in bunches according to some system that was never made fully clear.
• I should add here that Gidget was sequestered to the cabin for the duration of the trip, except for this extended unboarding when she was allowed to be with me on the outer decks.
• At last, I made my way to the vehicle deck on a hunch and squeezed out from my spot. Thankfully, Sarah was out on the street waiting for me/hoping I would come by. Job done.

No one should choose to do this journey, but I suppose if you happen to be down this way it’s a very zany bit of local culture. In the end, all worked out, despite how lost we felt. It was a unique experience, albeit a convoluted and pricey one.