Hearing tales of border madness, we hit Calexico fairly early, and happily found the whole road leading to the border lined with brokers selling auto insurance and money changers. How easy! Sitting in an air con office we get a goodly 3 months for US$114, which is just as well really as there isn't a border! No passport control, no papers, nothing. All most odd. How do we get our TIP and FMT? Even the guard was vague when I asked him, and he waved us through, saying something about a second border.

With confusion from the PieRats and having slight new country jitters, we carry on through Mexicali and down the east coast of Baja towards the inland road cutting across the peninsula.

Despite its reputation as an extension of the US and so no official paperwork required, it most definitely had a different feel, especially at the military and police checkpoints lining our route. When you get to your first checkpoint in a new country, especially one staffed by young men with big guns, all thoughts turn to the usual horror stories of travellers being fleeced due to some real (or imagined) infraction. It turns out these lads were more interested in the contents of our topbox, and when they saw the flour tortillas sitting on the top, they were most impressed with our taste in Mexican food, being gringos and all.

Bike drop number 5 came at the turning to Mikes Sky Ranch, a famed overlanders stopping point. The track was deep sand and two-up on a laden 1991 Africa Twin made for crazy riding.  After a skillfull hold of the bike by James,  we decided that the 30 odd km down this track in blazing heat just wasn't going to be worth it. Imogen hopped off and James turned the bike, yup, doing a u-turn in sand just ain't going to happen, but it made for a soft landing!

Baja is an amazing part of North America, a country of crazy, long and seemingly endless roads through desert and scrub, and then you cross some imaginary cactus barrier and the scenery changes to all those classic images you have in your head of tall saguaro cacti reaching heavenwards and as far as the eye can see.

We rode south, stopping for a few days R&R at a secret beach, just palapas and the sea. It seemed a bit of a haven for travellers and bikers, so we had a great time chilling, swimming and talking nonsense over ridiculously strong margaritas.

Moving on to La Paz to get the boat to  Mazatlan and our documents for the mainland gave us one of the more frustrating moments of our trip. We got to the immigration office at 3.10 on Friday, but of course, they close at 3pm for the weekend. Imogen asked a guard if it was the only office for the tourist card, yup, come back on Monday was the reply, so we spent the weekend in Todos Santos, which just so happened to be having its annual fiesta, huzzah! Cue much eating, drinking and dancing.

We headed back to La Paz on the Monday, into the office to be greeted by blank faces: "What tourist card? No, not here". After much discussion, we were given directions to a different immigration office, back the way we came. Off we trot, get our number (think Beetlejuice) and wait. Our turn comes "Can we get our documents please?" only to be given the rather soul destroying answer that no, the rules have recently changed and they don't issue the papers any more and we have to go back to the US border. Gahhh.

The officer suggested that we fly to Tijuana and back, so we head to the airport. Imogen: "Can we fly to Tijuana and back in one day?" Ans: "No". Imogen: "OK, can we flying to Tijuana today and back tomorrow?" Ans: "No, next flight is tomorrow". Imogen hits head on desk...

We were due to meet cousin Heather in Puerto Vallarta on the mainland in 6 days, Baja is 1500km long, then the long route through Sinaloa and Sonora, through the desert and drug growing areas. Tune in soon to see how the Pierats fare on this crazy (and current illegal alien status) stage of their journey.