Baja advice?
I'm going to Mexico! First time in the country, first big ride on the KRL!
Plan A - Enter at Yuma 12/31, take five days exploring/traveling to Cabo, rest butt, regroup, five days exploring/traveling back.
I have a couple different Baja GPS maps, a very nice $10 paper map and I've heard of Mike's Sky Ranch. Beyond that, I'm clueless!
I'll be googling madly but welcome any advice about the following, or about all the stuff I don't even know I should ask:
Mexican insurance - that's bike insurance, right? Available from my agent?
Vehicle entry fee - didn't I hear a few years back that you had to post some sort of deposit to take a vehicle into Mexico?
Banditos - I'm sure this is mostly bull**** but I HAVE heard credible reports that there are nasty people operating in the vicinity of the border. My logic is to use a smaller port of entry - (Yuma/San Luis) and head straight south for 50 or 100 miles before I start "wandering."
Camping - No clue, except I want to!
Water - I'm assuming "Montezuma's Revenge" is inevitable. I can't imagine carrying enough water to not require local restocking. Is there bottled water at Pemex stations? Should I take some sort of purification tool or is that overkill? Will the stuff out of the tap kill me or just make me "runny."
Tires - I'm inclined to put on knobbies and just suffer on the pavement, knowing how helpless I'll be on some sandy unmarked trail if I do it the other way around. But I'm also open to suggestions.
Documents - Passport/DL,bike registration and insurance card/copy of the title/medical records/emergency contact...all of it photocopied in color and stored in two places. Anything else?
Rented satellite phone - Seems like a logical safety measure and a way to check on the kids! Do they really work anywhere?
MY WIFE'S LIST
Medical evacuation insurance - Anybody have any experience? If I fall down/go boom, it WOULD be nice to have the Lear jet touch down and whisk me to a nice hospital in San Diego, but I imagine it's not that simple and I assume it's WAAAAAY expensive.
GPS locator - She insists I should have one of those little "push the button, alert the authorities" GPS devices and I'm arguing that (1.) If I'm able to "push the button" I can use the satellite phone and (2) the likelihood that there really ARE authorities who would give a S*** in the wilds of Baja are pretty slim. Any experience?
It's a long list but my forum experience has been that there are a lot of people here eager to help a newbie. Thanks in advance...Vamanos Amigos!