Day 3 at Playa Requeson

 

Last night we both woke about 3am because the Arctic Fox was “rocking”, not due to any activity on our part. Bob, in a middle-of-the-night stupor and based on a previous weather forecast regarding “gale force winds”, worried that high water might come and swamp our campsite, leaving us stuck in the sand in the morning. We both noticed the wind was quite high and had trouble sleeping for a while. By the time we woke in the morning, all was calm, sunny, warm and mild, our middle of the night worries, as usual, for naught. Go figure.

We needed a few groceries and were eager to post to the blog and check email after 3 days without internet, so after our usual morning activities, we loaded up the truck and headed into Mulege, a nice, authentically Mexican town of 3,000 situated on a river a short distance from the coast, and about 25 miles north of our campsite. We attended to various errands, including going to the hardware store to buy WD-40, which for reasons we’ve yet to sort out, is called WB-50 here in Mexico, a fact which led to a brief challenge as Cathryn attempted to make the purchase in Spanish. Mulege still bears some of the signs of last year’s hurricane, including unreconstructed homes along the river, broken date palm trees and a general sense of disrepair, but seems to be functioning normally. We did overhear a gringo at the internet café who was consulting the café’s owner (who doubles as translator, and offers something vaguely defined as “real estate services”), about the terms and wording of a flood insurance policy he was considering buying. So folks are obviously still feeling vulnerable.

Last winter, and again this year, we occasionally heard folks mention having camped on the beach at a place called Punta Chivato. We’d also heard the rough dirt road, about 20 miles, was difficult to navigate in an RV. So we decided to drive out there today in our truck, sans the Fox. We’re always on the hunt for new places to camp on future trips to Baja. We were pleasantly surprised to find the entire road well-graded, and more than half of it in extremely good condition. The last third of the road was lined with periodic small developments of semi-fancy gringo houses and a dirt airstrip. Punta Chivato itself turned out to be a bare beach – no trees, bushes or protection from the wind – with white sand, some shells, plenty of wind, and very few campers. There was a bit of rock formation along the shoreline that afforded protection for small boats, and it seemed a few of the campers keep their boats on buoys for fishing and other water activities. We had a picnic lunch we’d brought along, walked the beach and talked briefly to a few folks. It made for a nice excursion and checked off one of the places we were interested in seeing, but the journey didn’t make us want to camp there.

After filling our four 5-gallon water jugs back in Mulege on the return trip to Playa Requeson, we went back to our trailer, had a brief siesta followed by a margarita on the beach, dinner, and spent some time sitting by our beach fire and watching the stars. Life continues to be good!