Best Laid Plans

Things often don’t go the way we expect in Mexico. For that matter, anytime we travel anywhere. That’s part of the fun of it – staying flexible and going where matters take us.

We arrived in Cabo Pulmo mid-day yesterday after an easy drive until the last 6 miles which were a gravel wash-board road – never fun, but particularly not when pulling a trailer! The “campground on the beach” described in our book turned out to be a gorgeous stretch of white sand beach completely surrounded by a barbed-wire fence and locked gate with only one camper inside. We parked the rig on the road, wandered into the campground on foot, and approached the loan camper to ask a few questions. He was cold and surly, and shrugged his shoulders when asked about any security or safety concerns camping here. He clearly didn’t want us to join him in the campground. Since the situation also violated our Three-Plus-One Rule (we won’t camp alone; only in places where there are at least three other campers, and we make four) we decided to head to a different spot back in La Ribera on the paved portion of the road. This campground isn’t on the beach – it’s about a 10-minute walk away – but has the usual modern amenities of bathrooms, full hook-ups and Wi-fi (sorta). There are 5 other campers here. We walked the beach in the afternoon for an hour and a half and will drive back to Cabo Pulmo today sans trailer for some snorkeling in the turquoise water above the only coral reef on the west coast of the Americas.