A weekend at the beach

We still had a few days of our weekend before having to go into town (Mulege) for the work week, and we were going to do all that we could in that short amount of time. Off to the beach for us… which is an easy thing to find in Baja, being surrounded by water on three sides at all times. Instead of revisiting the same places we were at last time in Baja something different was in order.

Leaving the lagoon full of whales, we pointed Big Blue South for a few miles only to turn back to the West some 60 miles down an uncharted-to-us road to drop in to the town of Bahía Asunción – a small fishing village on the Pacific side of the peninsula. We only had a few hours before the sunset, so we quickly drove the town to see if anything caught our eye and worthy of a walk after we setup camp. Nothing really stood out, and to be honest, even the campground seemed a bit on the skeezey side. The place had a small building that served as a bathroom, shower, and library… complete with an old futon that smelled of some dead animal. Kerri thought it was cute. We stayed anyway – since it was the only place in town. It turned out alright though. After a few minutes of being parked we were enjoying the sounds of the water crashing on the beach below the van and coming to agreement that the place was actually not bad at all, minus the futon. We had beach-front property, and the place all to ourselves. The dogs even got to play on the beach a bit.

After the sun had set, we attempted to walk to the nearest restaurant – only a few blocks away – and repeatedly got lost. It didn’t help that I was feeling pretty non-confrontational and allowed Kerri to dictate our path… after she had had a cocktail (she can defend herself if she ever decides to write any blog posts. Until then…). After a mile or so walking down residential dirt roads we returned to our starting point – a Pemex gas station – where I asked a local who pointed to a building only a few yards away. Of course, there the restaurant sat, practically within arms reach. We ate, after a good amount of exercise.

We were on the move pretty early the following morning (now Sunday), on our way towards Mulege. It was a few hours of driving on Mex1, passing through San Ignacio, then through the Three Virgins volcanoes and lava field, and finally through Santa Rosalia. Our destination, another new-to-us camping location just a few miles North of Mulege, lay down 10 miles of gravel roads, but with Big Blue’s new monster-tires we were not afraid at all. We started down the road, and within just a few feet regretted it. The washboard was some of the worst I’ve been on, and the rocks were too large to up the speed to just glide over them. We turned back within a half-mile, deciding not to risk some mechanical issue for a single overnight stay.

We settled on going to a spot we both knew and enjoyed last visit, Playa Santispac, where the beach camping was second to none, and the margaritas are legendary-mean. Although we officially only had a single night to stay we ended up staying two and driving into Mulege the Tuesday morning (early) to start the work week. The one day and two nights at Santispac was spent reading, walking the beach, a short paddle around the island just off our beach, more reading, buying some tamales and shrimp from a local, eating at the beachfront restaurant (twice), and having more then our fair share of those abusive margaritas. It was all good!

When we first arrived at Santispac, Kerri – ever the ‘eat-anything’ type of person – was walking up to the office to pay for our two nights and a complete stranger invited her over to eat shrimp. The easy-to-kidnap-girl accepted the invitation and ate shrimp with strangers while I stood at the van with two dogs trying to figure out what is taking her so long. Eventually she returned to tell the tale. Later that evening, at the margarita place, she introduced me to the strangers who she ate shrimp with and they turned out to be a couple I had met the previous weekend at Campo Archelon; a slightly younger couple from Canada (so they were no threat at all!) who were on a multi-month road trip in their little red Ford Transit. We spent those two nights partying it up with this other couple (John and Jenna, BTW) and had a great time. John and Jenna were the first people outside our friends that got the full tour of Big Blue’s interior, and free Kerri-cocktails to boot.

After somehow surviving two nights with those margaritas, we left early Tuesday morning to get to the cell signal in Mulege for the work week. It was a successful weekend at the beach, for sure. I think we will do it again this weekend.

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