Los Barriles to Los Cerritos

We left Los Barriles this morning to drive to Todos Santos about two hours away, then another 15 kilometers south past Pescadero to the beach at Los Cerritos on the Pacific side of the peninsula . Los Cerritos is apparently a famous Baja surfing beach, although at least this afternoon it was a fairly small break, close to shore, so not much surfing activity. We’re camped at a free beach, meaning nobody quite knows who owns the land, but whoever it is, they don’t seem to mind folks camping here. There are about 20 rigs camped nearby and each of us has between a quarter and half acre to ourselves. As you can see in the pictures, it’s wide open, so not particularly private. There are no facilities, and no water or power, but we’re self-contained this year so it’s a great spot to spend a few days. We’re about 100 yards back from the shoreline and have a nice view of the beach beyond the dunes. The sunset tonight was spectacular.

We had a minor adventure getting into our campsite today. On the approach from the highway we could already see where the RVs were parked, but the road, such as it is, is dirt and not well-defined. There are a series of tracks wandering across the half-mile of desert between the highway and the beach. Bob followed what he thought was the right road (we’ve since been told it was – last year) but about two thirds of the way there we came to a 10-foot deep gully that the truck might have made it through with 4 wheel drive, but the trailer simply wasn’t going to navigate. The road in this far had been fairly straight, but was only about a foot wider than the trailer between a barbed wire fence and a series of small trees and bushes. We spent about a half hour slowly backing out, and after having made it about halfway back to the track where we should have taken a right turn, were a bit frazzled. About this time Mo, a fellow who was camped at the beach and had been watching us struggle, drove out to where we were and showed Bob a place he could drive forward into, and once there, could turn around. Ten minutes later we were in our campsite, and 10 minutes more were sitting next to the 5th wheel having what Bob thought was a well-deserved beer. Later in the afternoon we had Mo over for a thank you beer as well. Typical of RV-ing in Baja, everybody helps out where they can.

We spent the afternoon taking a siesta, walking on the beach and cooking fish tacos for dinner made with some Dorado bought from a local fisherman for about $2.75 or 30 pesos. We plan to spend three days on the beach and visiting Todos Santos, a designated “Magic Pueblo” and a major art center for Baja. We’ll tell you more about Los Cerritos in future posts.

By the way, for those of you up north, the daytime temps have been in the high 70s, the night-time lows in the high 50s. The sun comes up about 6:15 and it gets dark just before 7pm. No other editorial comments or comparisons will be made.