.....Ten trips traveling down Baja has taught us to be very patient. The straight forward to the point approach is pretty much unheard of, especially when it comes to making arrangements to travel on the ferry to the mainland. It is simply not the case of jumping in a vehicle, getting in the lineup and boarding a ferry. We were planning to board the ferry on February 14. On January 4, the Johnsons and us drove to La Paz to make our reservations for the truck and passengers. We did not know that we could not make reservations before two weeks before departure.....it took a trip to the ferry terminal at Pichilingue and the ticket office in La Paz to confirm that no reservations could be made until at least February 1. Why? The answer is simple. They needed to know the weather conditions. So on February 1, Ben, Lynette and I drove to San Jose del Cabo to obtain our tickets. Oops, another snag. We could purchase our tickets but we could only get reservations for the way over. But, at least we got the tickets. The cost for four passengers, one truck and one stateroom (4 bunks) came to $1000.00 USD.

.....On February 13 we drove our trucks with our 5th wheels to La Paz. We stored our truck and 5th wheel and Ben's 5th wheel at a storage facility near the airport at La Paz. After we made those arrangements we headed out to the ferry terminal to obtain the truck permit. All foreign vehicles entering mainland Mexico have to obtain a permit. We arrived at the ferry terminal at 3:35. Five minutes after the office that issued the permits had closed! We were told to return the next day at 10:00 a.m. And then the fun began. The permit office is located at the front of the terminal across from the parking lot. To get to it you had to step over the concrete barricades that separated the parking lot from the traffic lane that led to the ferry. We had no problem getting the permit but we did have loads of problems trying to figure out how to get to the traffic lane. We drove out of the ferry terminal parking lot, down two blocks to a huge compound. There was lots of activity there. Trucks and cars were lined up so we got into line. Makes sense.....We stayed in the line up for awhile before we realized that we were in the line up for the ferry that had just arrived from the mainland and the vehicles were going through the military inspection! We asked several military officers where the lane was for Topolabampo (ferry destination). We kept getting directed to the inspection line up. After several trips in and out of the compound and in and out of line ups which made the federales very suspicious of us, we finally discovered the correct road that took us around the ferry terminal and into the line up. This was about 11 a.m. The ferry was not leaving until 3:30! We were told that the ferry would start to board at 1:00 p.m. It was quite the free show to witness the loading procedures. Some trucks were backed in while others drove straight on. There were so many trucks loaded that we did not think there would be room for us. When our turn to board arrived it seemed we went down four levels to the bowels of the boat. We had to climb a steel ladder to reach the deck above us. The vehicles were packed in like sardines. Not much room to squeeze by. We were surprised with the passenger decks. There was a nice dining room. Our ticket included one meal each, consisting of chicken, rice, beans and corn tortillas. There were reclining chairs in the lounge. Lynette and I played cards most of the way. We arrived at 9:30 that evening. And then more fun began. We unloaded and went straight to the ticket office to confirm our return reservations for February 28. Finally at 10:30 we were on our way with our return reservations in our hands.