Last Day at Playa Juncalito

We’ve been here a full week and had a wonderful time sailing, fishing, whale-watching, walking on the beach and spending time with friends who live here all winter and those who pass through briefly, as we do. Playa Juncalito remains one of our very favorite spots, in part because we’re not traveling with friends from home (like so many do) and the folks who “live” here all winter are so warm and welcoming to those of us who are transients.

Today Carl (our sailing and fishing buddy here at Juncalito) proposed a walk to the top of the hill above the beach. Bob has a bruised heel, so declined, but Cathryn took him up on the suggestion. It’s a short distance, and about 500 feet of elevation gain, no trail and covered with cactus, scrubby trees and bushes, and rocks both small and large. Cathryn is accustomed to grabbing onto things in the terrain to aid balance, but in this environment that’s a bad idea – almost everything except the rocks has thorns! It took only 40 minutes to gain the summit, after reaching two false summits, and the views of Playa Juncalito, Juncalito Village, Puerto Escondido, and the Sea of Cortez were spectacular. This perspective, seen in the photos, affords a better understanding of the layout of the area. Not shown in the photographs is the fact that 180 degrees behind the view is the spectacular Sierra de la Giganta, the mountains shown in the masthead at the top of this blog. What spectacular beauty we’ve enjoyed for the last week!

So our holding tanks  (from the toilet shower and sinks) registered as full today, so instead of leaving here Monday morning as planned, we’re pulling out Sunday to travel 12 miles up Mex 1 to go to the Sunday market and spend the night in an RV park in Loreto that has a dump station and , water and electrical connections, as well as laundry and internet. We plan (?) to spend next week or so on another beach near Mulege with no amenities, so best to be all watered up, charged up, with empty our tanks, clean clothes and adequate groceries. We wandered down the beach late today to say goodbye to Tom and Cindy, Carl and Chris, and the 6 Canadians who are parked alongside us, Doug and Jill and their friends from British Columbia. Northward we go!

Northward Migration

Here in Baja there is a fairly obvious ebb and flow of gringos. When we came south in mid-October we were clearly on the leading edge of the southward migration. Other RVs were rare on Mex 1, and most of our usual camping beaches were empty, which meant that we didn’t stop. We abide by the “three plus one” rule: three rigs plus ours, or we don’t stop, out of an abundance of caution regarding security. As the weeks passed, more and more snow/rain birds arrived, and by the first weeks of January things looked normal, although still at levels about 30% below last year.

Well, the flow has now reversed with the turn of the calendar from February to March. When we pulled into Playa Juncalito last Saturday there were about 10 rigs on the beach, and we had more than 100’ between us and the next nearest set of campers. Last night the beach officially achieved “full up” status with almost 2 dozen rigs, according to those who spend the winter here. In fact, we now have a large motor home about 25’ feet from us. Perhaps that’s overstating it a bit, but our friends Jill and Doug, who we last saw 10 days ago in Los Barriles showed up on the beach about 6 PM yesterday, and we invited them to park next to us. We don’t think anyone would park that close without an invitation but we’re always happy to have friends nearby.

Everyone seems to be headed north. Some, like us, plan to take an extended tour with multi-day stops along the way; others are high-tailing it home. Santa Semana, the Mexican Easter holiday, is celebrated over 10 days in early April and marks the official end of the gringo migration. Santa Semana results in everyone in Mexico taking a holiday, and from what we hear, most Mexicans end up on a beach somewhere. We’re told by folks who have been here for previous Santa Semanas that at Playa Juncalito during the holiday, the population reaches 2,500-3,000 people! And let us confirm something: it’s not that big of a beach! The Municipality of Loreto brings in porta-potties, but not enough, and as a result the sanitary conditions get pretty bad. So all the gringos plans to leave sometime in the next 3 weeks.

Poke: (AKA “I don’t eat raw fish”)

We went to dinner at Carl and Chris’s rig last night. Chris made some outstanding chicken curry, and they invited about a dozen folks from up and down the beach for happy hour followed by curry! Part of happy hour tradition is that everyone brings hors d’oeuvres, and last night folks went all out. Our favorite was the Poke. Poke is a marinade made of soya sauce, green onions and sesame oil, which is then used to marinate raw fish, Usually tuna, but in this case Yellowtail caught that morning (ask for the recipe if interested). Without inquiring what she was eating, Cathryn had several bites on a chip, raved about it, and asked for the recipe. When it was announced that it included raw fish, Bob started choking. It soon came out that Bob was laughing because Cathryn has always claimed she doesn’t eat raw fish. It then became the joke of the night, every time Cathryn dipped in one more chip!

During coffee this morning, one of last night’s dinner guests dropped by our spot and delivered a container of freshly made fish chowder, including clams and octopus, for our lunch. There obviously is quite a sense of community here at Playa Juncalito. It’s one of the reasons we like it, and we’re grateful to be so warmly welcomed. See the photo of the chowder above.

Whales Tail

Are you starting to see another pattern to the titles of our posts? Yesterday evening Terri and David from Angel Fire, New Mexico arrived at the door of the Arctic Fox to announce they had put together a trip needing 5 passengers on a panga with Fernando to go see Blue Whales, and if we wanted to go, we should meet them at Puerto Escondido at 9am this morning. We’re game! Especially since the start time wasn’t as early as yesterday’s fishing panga.

So at 9am off we went with Fernando, the boat captain, Terri, David and Don from Montana on a 22-foot panga to chase down Blue Whales. Turns out Fernando, originally from Mexico City, but living here for 25 years working with the whales, knows everything there is to know about Blue Whales, in addition to being a good boat captain. He informs us Blues are the largest of all whales, and the Sea of Cortez is one of an extremely small number of places where they can be seen near shore. Some of them hang out here between January and March each year, and Blue Whale babies are born here in small numbers. Unlike Orcas, which have several resident pods near our home and with which we’re somewhat more familiar, Blue Whales mostly live and travel alone, except to mate, and when Mom and Baby stay together for 7-8 months. Blues are baleen whales eating only krill.

As usual, we sent a couple SPOT messages noting the GPS coordinates of our locations on the water, so if you’re interested, check out the SPOT locations in the side-bar on the right side of this blog. We went about 20 miles south just off the shore of the village of Agua Verde, a place we visited on a day trip last year, and almost immediately located a lone Blue Whale, so tracked it for a couple of hours. THAT GUY WAS BIG!!! Fernando estimated he was a somewhat small Blue, only about 80 feet, but when his back broke the surface, it looked like an 8-story building lying on its’ side. Blues have a ridiculously small dorsal fin for their overall size, and mottled blue-gray-white skin, and their blow holes look enormous! This one would surface 7-10 times about 45 seconds apart, then show a tail fluke and dive deep for the next 7-12 minutes.

After following this one, we headed north about halfway back to the Port and came across a Mom and Baby. At first they were spread apart about half a mile, but eventually came together and swam in synchrony. Even the baby, at approximately 1 month of age, was already 20 feet long – having started out at about 12 feet. Fernando says these guys drink 40 gallons of Mom’s milk daily and can gain 5-6 pounds of body weight each hour – good thing they don’t need a wardrobe!

After 6 hours on the water we were back at the Port and headed to our next “engagement” – curry dinner with Carl (our sailing and fishing buddy), his wife Chris, and a dozen of their beach friends, including Tom and Cindy with whom we shared cocktail hour night before last. Chris’s curry is a killer chicken curry – delicious, spicy and served over rice with great chutney on the side – yum! We also had fabulous Yellowtail Poke (usually made with tuna) for an appetizer, courtesy of Dwight – the first time Cathryn can recall ever enjoying raw fish!

And last but not least, as we were enjoying our curry dinner, who should show up driving their motor home down the beach looking for a new spot but Doug and Jill, the Canadian friends from Penticton who we met last winter and shared a couple of evenings with last month in Los Barriles! They parked next to our Arctic Fox, and we’re looking forward to catching up with them again tomorrow – another reunion!

Fish Tails

We drove to Juncalito Village yesterday afternoon to meet Jose, the Mexican guy with the panga (Mexican fishing boat) who takes folks out for hire. Jose already had clients signed on for today, so we (Cathryn, Bob and Carl, our sailing buddy from the beach) arranged to go with his son Manuel instead.

Manuel said he’d meet us at the boat ramp at Puerto Escondido at 6:45 a.m. We actually had to set an alarm clock to make sure we’d be on time! The morning dawned calm and beautiful, perfect conditions for fishing. Manuel brought 30 live Spanish mackerel ranging in size from 6 – 10 inches and placed them in the bait tanks at the back of the boat. He had a rod for each of us fitted with 80-pound test line. We set off in his beautifully outfitted 26-foot panga equipped with a 150 hp motor at a good clip, and arrived at our first location, Six-Mile Reef, 20 minutes later. The sun came from behind the mountains, the air warmed, and the water was still and flat. We stayed at Six Mile Reef only briefly, and none of us hooked anything. Next Manuel took us 6-7 miles further south to a site called El Marcial, a bit north of Isla San Jose. (Check out our SPOT device, in the “Were We Are) section on the left hand side of the blog.)

That’s when the action started! Fairly quickly, Carl caught a gorgeous 26-pound Yellowtail, and Bob hooked a Hammerhead Shark which Manuel cut loose when he got it to the boat. That Hammerhead was a mean-looking guy about 4 feet long. We stayed at this location for a couple of hours, occasionally moving ¼ mile or so to re-position the boat after we’d drifted. By this time we’d stripped down to shorts and t-shirts and put away our jackets (not reminiscent of your January fishing expedition on the Bogachiel, Lynn and David). Bob and Carl each caught another Hammerhead, Bob landed a 25-pound Yellowtail, and Cathryn caught a 7-pound Cabrillo. The Yellowtail are pretty good fighters, and we were surprised by how much work it took for Carl and Bob to haul them in.

Shortly after noon we headed back to Six-Mile Reef for another try, which turned out to be a bust. All 3 of us repeatedly hooked a rock (a real rock, not a Rock Fish) and Manuel was very kind and patient in getting things untangled, twice having to cut a line and give up his hooks and weights. As we’d each caught a wonderful fish to take home for dinner and had a great deal of fun in the process, we called it a day at 1:00 and headed back to the Port.

We returned to Jose’s house in the village for fish-cleaning, expertly performed by Manuel. Several family members came out to watch and chat, and a couple dozen pelicans arrived hoping for handouts. Manuel was a super fishing guide – patient, helpful (he put all the bait on the hooks and sorted out any tangles we created) and happy to converse with Cathryn in Spanish and teach her some new words, though he spoke good English as well. We’d certainly highly recommend Jose and Manuel Torres in Juncalito Village to anyone looking for a good day on the water.

Given our limited refrigerator and freezer capacity, we kept enough fish for 4 nights worth of dinners, 3 of which went straight into the freezer, then passed out the rest to several of our beach neighbors, who were delighted to take them off of our hands. Bob cooked tonight’s Yellowtail in butter and garlic on the outside grill, and accompanied by a salad, it was delicious. What a fun day!

Day on the Beach

Does that title sound familiar? Get used to it, because we expect to have quite a few more of these in the next week or two. We’re loving our spot on the beach about 75 feet back from the water with waves lapping 24/7, and we’ve been particularly fortunate that today was less windy than usual, as the next few days are predicted to be too. We’re settled in, have met some of the immediate neighbors, are enjoying reading our books and walking on the beach.

At 5:00 Cindy and Tom (the couple who were the only other folks on the beach with us last October when we came through southbound) wandered down to our site for cocktails. We caught up on each other’s lives since we last saw each other 4 months ago, compared summer plans, listened to music, and Cindy and Cathryn danced on the beach. What’s wrong with our guys that they didn’t want to join us? (or perhaps a better question is: what did Cathryn and Cindy drink that Tom and Bob didn’t?) Altogether a fun reunion, and as usual, the evening wrapped up early. Baja Midnight had us in bed at 9:00, knowing we had an early start coming the next day.

Great Day on the Water!

When we were here on Playa Juncalito a year ago we met Carl and Chris, an American and English couple who live part of the year in Canada and part of the year here on the beach. Carl owns a 28-foot sailboat that stays in Juncalito year-round, and invited us to sail with him last year. That afternoon on the water was one of many reasons we fell in love with camping on Juncalito. Saturday as we first drove the road into Playa Juncalito, still towing our trailer, a truck emerged from the beach and the occupants rolled down their windows to say hello. Who should it be, but Carl with two friends! Moments later we arrived on the beach and stopped to say hello to Chris. Yesterday we were on a walk on the beach and visited with the two of them for awhile and received an invitation to sail with Carl today. So we did!

The wind was a little lighter than last year on the sailboat, perhaps 10 knots. There was not a cloud in the sky, temp about 76, and “Blue”, the boat, had a few equipment upgrades to show off – a new dinghy, and an electronic auto-tiller. We spent 4 hours cruising to the south, east and north (see our SPOT markers on the right-hand side-bar for our locations on the water), running, reaching and tacking, entering Honeymoon Bay where two large sailboats were anchored and a group of kayakers was camped. It was altogether beautiful, relaxing and fun. Carl and Chris lead an interesting life, here on the beach half the year, and in their off-grid cabin in the woods in Canada with their closest neighbors 2 1/2 miles away, so Carl has lots of stories to tell. After returning to the marina, then the beach, we joined Carl and Chris and 6 of their friends for cocktail hour – a nice bunch of Canadians who spend the winter here.

Bob Becomes a Mexican

No, he hasn’t actually applied for Mexican citizenship. Yet. He hasn’t even applied for his FM3 Visa (long-term residency) . But in an important way, he has “become a Mexican”. During our time in Baja, we’ve often laughed about the vendors who show up at our beach location or house wearing winter ski parkas and commenting on how “Muy frio!” the weather conditions are on a particular day. This is a commonly heard comment made by Mexicans filling our gas tank at gas stations, or any other time a Mexican is politely trying to make idle conversation with someone who is clearly not bi-lingual. “Como esta?” they ask. Then “Muy frio hoy!” We chuckle, as we’re usually wearing short-sleeved t-shirts and shorts/capris as these comments are made. So “Muy frio!” has become a bit of a joke in our household – said anytime our indoor/outdoor thermometer registers below 72 degrees, anytime the wind picks up and forces us to put on a jacket while we sit outside to read or drink coffee/beer, anytime we have to close the windows in the Arctic Fox to keep it “warm” inside. Lately Bob has been saying “Muy frio!” more in earnest. His blood seems to have thinned to that of a Mexican. Late this afternoon we were sitting outside during cocktail hour waiting for the sun to set and the full moon to rise, and Bob suggested that perhaps it was too cold to sit out, shaking his head and mumbling “Muy frio!” See the photo below to note his attire, and take note that the thermometer registered 70 degrees at the time. Though, in fairness, the wind was blowing about 10 knots. As usual, we expect no sympathy from our readers.

March

Wow – it’s March already! Summer can’t be TOO far behind, can it? We hear it’s been the warmest winter on record back home, people are out mowing their lawns (thank you again Matt for mowing ours), and the crocuses, daffodils and even tulips are already in bloom.

Here in Baja we note it’s actually a bit cooler because we recently moved north 300 miles. This morning as we drank our coffee outside, wearing jackets and slippers, it was only 54 degrees, a good 5 degrees cooler than we ever saw in Los Barriles. It still hits the mid-to-high 70s every day, though, so we’re happy. This afternoon we have a date to go sailing with Carl.

The Omnipresent Moon

Tonight is the full moon. We noted on Playa Juncalito today the more extreme low and high tides that come with the full moon. We note tonight that our shadows, way past dark, are long. And we note at 8pm that the full moon over the hills of Puerto Escondido with moon beams on the water looks much like it does in the spring, summer or fall over Vashon Island on a clear night in Olalla.

We’re Flakes?

After announcing that Bob was never leaving Ligui, guess what!? The next day we packed up and moved to Playa Juncalito 10 miles up the beach. We decided that potential (and that’s all it is) to get an internet signal from the nearby village, maybe some sailing if Carl was there, and the fact there would be more rigs thus providing an added measure of security when we drive away from ours for day trips, was a good trade off. While we loved our site at Ligui, and its view and privacy, it was at the far end of the beach and not visually connected to nearby rigs. While not technically violating our “3 + 1” (rigs) security rule here in Mexico, it flirted with a violation.

We were having coffee on the beach in our pj’s while we discussed the plan to move, and listened to the Net at the same time. The Net is an 8:00 am daily structured conversation transmitted over the VHS marine radio sponsored by the Hidden Port Yacht Club (of which we’re members). Some items included in the daily agenda: emergency needs or notices, weather, tides, arrivals and departures, swaps and trades, and rides and crews needed. Usually there isn’t anything under “emergencies”, but Saturday there was. It was a report on the enormous earthquake in Chile and the ensuing expectation there could be a tsunami of some size as a result. It was announced that Easter Islands had already been hit and Hawaii was “clearing places along the shoreline”. The Net report said there was the potential for a 3-foot wave in the Sea of Cortez, which would “stand up” to a greater height if it hit shore, between 10:00 am and noon. Since our campsite was perhaps two feet above the high tide line, we decided it might be a good time to get hooked up and ready to go in the event we observed the tell-tale sign of the water receding. So that’s what we did. It turns out there wasn’t anything very noticeable in the way of a wave, but it gave people something to talk about on the Net. We didn’t observe any of our fellow campers moving, but we did note that a few found yesterday morning a good time to run errands in town.

We arrived at Playa Juncalito about 1:00 and got set up in a spot near where we were last February. We said a quick hello to a couple folks we knew on the beach with promises that we’d get together “soon”, then piled into the truck and headed to town. We’d previously received an email from friends Cindy and Tom saying there was a “big party” at Del Borracho, the restaurant owned by Tom’s brother in nearby Loreto.

This annual event is held to welcome a group of 100+ Harley Davidson owners on a “run” up from Cabo. Now, if any of you have come across a scholarly article explaining what happens to some men of a “certain age” causing them to become someone we suspect they were not, when they were younger, we’d love to hear about it. It turned to be an outdoor party with three bands, a big barbecue sponsored by the restaurant, plus a couple Mexican stands selling tacos and Mexican hot dogs, along with beers for 10 pesos (80 cents) attended by several hundred folks, both gringos and Mexicans. While “big parties attended by people he doesn’t know” isn’t really Bob’s thing, and “bands playing music at very high volume” isn’t Cathryn’s, we did stay for a couple hours and enjoyed the people-watching and chatting with a few folks we know.

We were back on the beach by 5:30 and enjoyed a quiet night “at home”.

Mision San Javier

This morning we took off northbound on Mex 1 from Paya Ligui (leaving the Fox behond at our campsite) and turned off just shy of Loreto, about 18 miles later, to head up into the mountains. We'd heard on the weather report that it would be very windy today, so thought a day in the mountains was called for. Our destination was San Javier Mission, one of the early mission's built in the early 1700s.  We'd been told to expect a 20+ mile rough drive on a dirt road, and were pleased to find it was paved halfway up recently.

The "town" of San Javier is quite small, but neat and tidy, with cobblestone paved roads, white-washed buildings, a gorgeous Mission church, and surrounded by date palm groves, olive trees (including the 300-year-old spectacular olive tree shown below) and lots of water because of the springs flowing from the mountains. We wandered around the town, spoke to a couple of folks, took lots of photos, and headed back down the mountain.  After a quick stop at the grocery store in Loreto we're now at the "internet cafe" at Puerto Escondido where we joined the yacht club last Fall.  It's a beautiful spot and nice to be back. We remain happy and well.

Our New Home

Or Bob, at least threatens that he is never leaving Playa Ligui! Late this morning we moved from last night’s camp spot at the “telephone booth” to another spot about 100 feet away. The new site is also only 80 feet from the water with a great view, and has enough vegetation to provide visual privacy, and if the weather forecast for Friday is correct, some wind protection. The old spot didn’t have these last two features and had the disadvantage of being right under the “telephone booth”. The telephone booth is a location about 50 feet up an adjacent slope that is just high enough to have a direct line of sight to the town of Loreto, and according to one camper we talked to, has 5 bars of cell signal, versus 1 bar on the beach. This improved cell service has people, both Mexicans living nearby as well as campers here on Playa Ligui, coming from near and far all day and late into the evening to make their calls! Not a big deal, but when the new spot opened up later this morning, we jumped on it.

Pla ya Ligui has it all. A great beach, privacy, a nice running route and still close to Puerto Escondo (10 kilometers up the road) for internet access, water and laundry, and Loreto (25 kilometers) which has groceries and all the urban amenities we need. If you fellow travels we’ve met on the road stop by, we’re at the extreme south end of the beach, and as of this writing, there’s lots of space to park nearby.

Here is a picture of the beach and the Sea of Cortez from our bedroom window.

We haven’t made up our mind about moving up the road 10 kilometers to Playa Juncalito where we’d planned to stay. This place is great, but Playa Juncalito has some great people we met during earlier visits. We may see if we can still connect with them as non-resident visitors. Obviously we’ve proved that our plan at any moment is subject to change.

We spent most of today as a “beach day”. After going for a run on which we were joined by the woman from an adjacent campsite, we lazed around reading books and went beach-walking, in addition to our move from one campsite to the other. We saw half a dozen small pods of dolphins pass near the shore, watched a young couple snorkeling for clams just off the beach, and chatted briefly with a few folks who wandered through. The moon is almost full, so we sat outside until after 8:00 pm. It was warm, and the moon was so bright we could see our shadows. Life is good!

We Were Wrong

We said our Plans rarely last much past the second day. Would you believe 6 hours? We ended the day at Playa Ligui on the Sea of Cortez, about 10 miles south of Playa Juncalito, where we previously planned to arrive Friday! Total miles traveled for the day: 314, more than we ever want to cover in one day in Baja. What happened? Well, we got to Lopez Mateos on Bahia Magdalena on the Pacific side about 2:00 p.m., an hour or so later than expected because of an event that occurred in Ciudad Constitucion we’ll tell you about later.

Lopez Mateos was just like the Church’s camp book said: boondocking on the Embarcadero (jetty) where the pangas leave for whale-watching trips. We’ve learned over time that the Churches bend over backward to be non-judgmental in describing locations. I guess they recognize that what works for some doesn’t for others, so they give “just the facts” and let you make your own judgment. In this case our judgment was: unappealing and unattractive. We walked around for half an hour and decided we’d keep going, so we did.

We’ve talked about staying at Playa Ligui on previous trips through this stretch of road, but never quite got there. We decided that by leaving Lopez Mateos, we were ahead of schedule on our planned itinerary, so we’d check it out. Turns out it’s quite nice! The camp spots are quite dispersed so it’s probably 100 feet or more to the next closest camper, and we’re right on the beach. It’s windy tonight, so we may find we prefer to move to a site further back in the trees tomorrow if it remains windy.

We’ve settled in to our campsite, had a margarita by ourselves while watching the sunset, moon rise and wave break on the beach, and just finished a bowl of soup for dinner. The long drive today will probably result in our calling it an early night.

Note to Self: New Tires Before Alaska

When we pulled into a Pemex station this afternoon for fuel in Cuidad Constitution, the men at the station immediately started pointing to the passenger side of the 5^th wheel with a look of alarm on their faces. It turns out the forward tire on the trailer was extremely flat. Closer examination showed it was another sidewall failure, rather than a puncture. Bob has read that when new trailers are delivered, their tires are usually not that great. Well, it looks like a sidewall failure after only 5,000 miles supports that statement.

We were lucky there was a llantera (tire repair shop, only dealing in repairs and used tires) next to the gas station, and they were able to take off the flat tire and replace it with the spare in about 10 minutes, and charged us a whopping 20 pesos (about $1.50). Ciudad Constitution is a town of about 35,000 so it’s large enough to have at least two stores which sell new tires. The second one had the right size, although it wasn’t quite the right weight rating, but beggars can’t be choosers, and it’s about 600 miles before we get to the next town of equal or larger size. So we had them put the new tire on the spare rack and were on our way. Total time from when we pulled into the gas station to the time we left the second store with our new tire was exactly one 1 hour. Seems like that problem worked out very well.

We’re planning to drive the Al-Can Highway to Anchorage in May-June after we get home from Baja. We’d already decided on new tires for the truck after a sidewall failure in La Ribera a month ago, but now it looks like we’ll need 8 new tires instead of 4! Guess we’ll have to do some research.

Last Night in Los Barriles

 

Our friend/neighbor/landlady Russett invited us to dinner at her casita for our last meal before departure. She made a delicious dinner and had a guest she wanted us to meet. Laurel, a 26-year-old woman from Ashland, OR arrived in Los Barriles today on her bike! This was her last stop, after biking from San Diego, before boarding a plane tomorrow to return home. Russett had never met Laurel before, but got connected to her by email through a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend. Laurel and a girlfriend of hers had been planning the trip together for 10 months, and on the third day of the trip, just before they were to cross the border into Mexico, the friend backed out, citing feelings of discomfort about safety issues. Laurel was dismayed, naturally, but being a stalwart type, spent a week staying in a friend’s apartment in San Diego, placed an ad on Craigslist saying she was looking for a bicycle traveling companion, and shortly found a man about her age who agreed to make the trip with her. So they spent 3+ weeks riding down Mex 1 from Tijuana to La Paz together, and had a wonderful time! The man got on a ferry in La Paz to go to Mazatlan and continue his journey into South America. It was an interesting evening hearing about Laurels’ adventures. After we finished doing dishes, Russett left her casita to Laurel for the night (she has only one bed in her studio-size house) and came back to our house with her dog Sweetie to spend the night in our second bedroom. An enjoyable evening for our last night in Los Barriles. We’re sad to be saying goodbye to Russett!

We’re On The Road Again!

Our 6 weeks in East Cape is over, and we’re on the road again. We had a wonderful time exploring the southern cape of Baja but are ready to find more new places and revisit some of our favorite spots on the peninsula. We have a general plan for the next month heading back to the border, and a more detailed plan for the first two weeks. But we know from experience the plans don’t usually stay fixed much past the second day, when a little more time looking at the map or a conversation with another traveler means a new plan is made. We do know we won’t have internet as often or as easily available as it has been for the last few weeks, so we’ll go back to using our SPOT device (see sidebar for an explanation of what this is and how it works), so you can keep track of us if you’re interested.

The Plan

We’ll leave Los Barriles Wednesday morning and make a long push up to Lopez Mateos on Bahia Magdalena (“Mag Bay” for short) on the Pacific coast. Mag Bay is one of three well-know whale watching destinations during the winter breeding season here in Baja, and we plan to spend at least one day going out on a panga to see some whales. On Friday we expect to head back across the peninsula to the Sea of Cortez side to return to one of our favorite places, Playa Juncalito. We plan to stay there a week, then move on to Loreto in time to participate in the Sunday market the following weekend. After Loreto, we’ll continue north up the coast about 80 miles to Bahia Concepcion. We haven’t decided where we’ll stay there, but expect to spend another week on the beach. From that point the plan gets a little fuzzy, but then it doesn’t really matter, does it?

Captured! Ponytail Doug

Ponytail Doug, our resident Baja Sur IT guy, came yesterday afternoon to give Bob one last tutorial on how to program our Access Points (more on this in a minute) while we’re on the road. This time we only spent about 25% of the time on IT stuff and 75% of the time on Doug’s interesting history – or at least the publishable parts. We learned that in addition to his time operating an ISP company, he also spent time building plastic tubs for washing microchips, building motorized bicycles, building and flying racing airplanes, and building hydrogen fuel cells for cars. You’d be tempted to think these were some tall tales, if he didn’t accompany his narrative with a series of website visits which referenced his work and products. Made us think: you mean we spent all that time doing the SAME thing for 30 years while he was doing all this?! We also finally caught him on camera! Here’s Doug!

Who, by the way, turns 50 today AND became a great-grandfather 2 days ago!

So, what’s an “access point”? Well, to tell you the truth we don’t know, but we have two of them! One is hooked to our antenna, which we have a name for. Can you guess?

The first access point is used to conduct a survey of locally available wireless signals that the antenna, which is supposed to have a one-half mile or more reach, is picking up. The hope would be that at least one signal would be unsecured and usable for internet access. Alternatively, if none of the signals is unsecured then hopefully we can get access to the password, in places like RV parks where there is a signal. We often find the Wi-fi signals at RV parks only serve part of the area; the hope is the larger antennae will improve the signal strength and allow us to sit in our RV and use the internet whether we’re on a beach or in an RV park. Unfortunately this process is not as simple as it is with your laptop. Instead it entails multiple steps in obscure places on your computer, buried deep in various tabs, typing in long complex numbers like 192.168.123.12 and then changing that number to 192.68.1.46. For those who know Bob, you know that he is a generalist by nature, and all this detail work is not his forte. But we both suffer from IAD (internet addiction disorder), so he is trying to focus.

If the configuration of Access Point 1 works, you then connect it via ethernet cord to Access Point 2, which converts the signal to wi-fi so we can both use our laptops in the 5^th wheel at the same time. As you know from reading our blog, we’ve spent lots of time (and we’re not going to talk about the amount of money) acquiring good internet service. We think this is going to work for this trip, but we sure wish we could come across an affordable and reliable method of accessing the internet that works in both the U.S. and in Mexico. It’s the latter that makes it hard, but Mexico is such a wonderful place that the hassle is a small price to pay.

Sidewalks

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Bob’s career background leads him to look at the way things are constructed. Why else would someone spend time thinking about sidewalks?

In the larger Mexican towns and cities, sidewalks are almost always provided. But it appears that it is up to each property owner fronting a sidewalk to decide how wide it is, how far above the grade of the road it is, and if and where curb cuts are included. This results in walking along and finding a two-foot drop between one section of side walk and the next, or having driveway ramps that feel like you’re traversing a steep hillside. And while concrete seems to be the standard construction material, the degree and kind of finish seems to be a creative one, not a standardized decision. Here are a couple of photos of some of the sidewalks we’ve run across.

It all makes walking a bit of an adventure. We constantly find ourselves trying to maintain an upright position as we walk along looking at the sights. We wonder if this is one of the reasons the pace of life in Mexican towns is a bit slower than up north – it’s got to be, or you’ll trip and break your neck!

I Have Round Corners

While this could be a post about Bob’s shape after seven weeks of Artemisa’s morning deliveries of tamales, empanadas, burritos and enchiladas, it’s not. It’s about Microsoft Live Writer.

For those of you who have your own blog, let us recommend you take a look at Microsoft’s Live Writer software. Bob just found it and think it’s the best thing since Google Blogger. You can use it with any blog software, and it posts directly to your blog, but it is SO much easier. Just one of the little things it can do is post pictures with round corners – now is that cool or what?

Small Town Famous: Live Music is Best

Liverpool had the Beatles, SoCal had the Beach Boys and Los Barriles has Alex and Miguel, aka Depue/de Hoyos. Last night we went to a local fundraiser for a nascent local recycling program. The feature act was a duo that plays regularly here in town.

Alex is a self-described fiddle player (a violin, really), who seems to have a bit of a case of restless leg, head and shoulders, and Miguel plays the guitar. Alex is the inspired one, given to wild and sometimes amusing flourishes; Miguel is the master mechanic, and both are very good and justly famous in their context. It truly goes to prove that live music is best. If you’d like to listen to some of their music, go to http://www.myspace.com/depuedehoyos .

The concert took place at East Cape RV Park, around the swimming pool, under the stars and palm trees. We think it was probably the biggest event of the year for Los Barriles, with an estimated 250-300 people in attendance. During the show a group of “mature” women provided some dancing back-up for about 10 minutes . . . before they got too tired. Another dancer performed a Mexican dance in the background, and Miguel clearly wore her out too. During the intermission a group of Mexican girls from La Paz performed a series of Hawaiian dances. They were quite good, although it was rather incongruent with our surroundings, and they each needed to lose about 25 pounds before they’d become a threat to the women you see at luaus in Hawaii. It was altogether a fun evening of “small town famous” activities. We bought a bottle of wine and sat in our camp chairs under the stars wearing shorts and short sleeves watching all the action until almost 10:00 pm. A truly late night for us.

A Call for Help!

OK, don’t get excited folks, this isn’t a life or death issue – or maybe it is -- it does concern food! We noted that Valerie commented on our post about Mexican cooking, saying she and Lance would volunteer to help eat tamales if Cathryn makes them at home. That got us thinking: where do we get a couple of the ingredients we know we can’t find at Albertson’s in Gig Harbor? Bob did a little internet surfing, looking for Mexican groceries in the Seattle area, and didn’t come up with much. There seems to be a combined grocery/restaurant near Starbucks at the Market, another combo like this on Smith Street in Kent, and some vague references to the South Park and White Center areas. Oh, and several, of course, if you’re willing to drive to Yakima!

Does anyone know where you can get chiles guajillo (the dried red ones that are about 4-6” long), and hojas tamales or corn husk leaves? These are a couple of the specialized ingredients for tamales. The rest we can improvise – especially hoping to come up with a healthier alternative to the lard used here in Mexico. Wonder how canola or olive oil would do? We’d also like to find Machaca, and good, authentic chorizo, and real enchilada sauces. Anybody who supplies us with a good source gets invited to dinner in Olalla for tamales!

Mysteries re Driving in Mexico

Last winter we spent 6 weeks driving the Baja Peninsula, and so far we’ve spent 12 weeks here this winter. It was only very recently we came to understand one of the mysteries of driving in Baja. Fairly frequently the vehicle in front of us, going our same direction, would slow down and turn on its 4-way flashers. A couple minutes later, they’d turn off the flashers and pick up their speed. More commonly, we’d notice an oncoming vehicle flashing its headlights at us, or driving with its 4-way flashers on, and always wondered why. One day recently we saw this happen more frequently than usual and FINALLY correlated it to something else going on simultaneously: the presence of cows immediately adjacent to or on the highway! We’ve mentioned before the lanes on the Mex 1 highway are narrow (9’) and have no shoulders, and cattle free-graze throughout the Baja. So it’s common to come around a curve in the roadway to find a single cow, or a dozen, grazing right next to the lane of traffic, and then see one or more simply step into the highway. We hear many cattle, and cars, die every year due to collisions between the two. So now we know, and when we see oncoming cars flashing their headlights or 4-way flashers, we’ll slow down in the future and watch for cattle!

You may recall we had two days of heavy rain earlier this month. One of those days we had a drive to the airport planned to pick up Lynn and David. As we left our house in the morning it was raining hard, so Russett warned us to be attentive as we come around curves in the highway, as we may come upon a Mexican car and driver going 10 mph, and of course we’d want to avoid a rear-ending accident. Since Mexicans don’t normally drive so slowly on the highway, we inquired as to the reason for this behavior. It turns out the Baja sunshine and heat combine to destroy windshield wiper blades quite rapidly. And because many years only see two days of rain all year long, poorer Mexicans don’t consider an investment in new wiper blades every few months to be necessary. So, when the rare rain does come, they drive down the roads and highway without windshield wiper blades, necessitating very slow speeds when it’s raining hard, as they can’t see out their windshield!

Finally, the mystery regarding why Mexicans mark road obstacles the way they do – that one we still haven’t figured out! Check out this photo depicting the marking of a utility access hole in  the center of a nearby road – ha!

Last trip to San Antonio

We finally made it back to the Centro de Cultura in San Antonio to pick up Cathryn’s pottery. MaryZonia fired them in the kiln earlier this week. We arrived to find Xochitl, the older sister, at the Center rather than MaryZonia, and she was interested in some more computer help from Bob. Having anticipated that possibility, Bob brought his laptop, along with a contribution of 100 blank CDs so they can make copies of things in their work. Bob and Xochitl spent a couple hours hunched over their laptops with Bob demonstrating various things she was interested in learning. He also made a copy of a reportedly fabulous DVD called “Corazon Vaquero” (Heart of the Cowboy”) that is supposed to be a documentary about the life of cowboys who live on the Ranchos in Baja and still do everything “the old way”. We haven’t watched it yet, but have been told by several people that it will astonish us.

Xochitl delivered to Cathryn her fired pottery along with a “report card” from MaryZonia which Bob photographed and will post. For those of you who read Spanish, you’ll see why Cathryn has a big smile on her face in the photo with Xochitl! Just as our kids use lots of short-hand when text messaging, Mexicans apparently use the letter “K” to replace the word “que” (pronounced the same way) when writing informally, as you’ll see in the handwritten note from MaryZonia.

A Mexican Teacher

If you’ve been following our blog, you read recently about Artemisa, a woman who comes around in her car 4-5 days each week to our house, selling burritos, tamales, empanadas, chiles rellenos or gorditos – delicious Mexican food, hot out of her oven. Bob developed a particular fondness for Artemisa’s tamales, so suggested Cathryn should learn how to make them. Sure enough, Cathryn was intrigued by the idea, so asked Artemisa if she’d be willing to teach her. Artemisa provided a grocery list of ingredients (some of which were complete mysteries to us), and we bought them yesterday with the assistance of a couple employees at the local grocery.

Today was Tamale Lesson Day. Artemisa arrived at 3:00 on foot, as her car broke down yesterday, unbeknownst to us. She walked the 3 kilometers to get here! Artemisa proceeded to demonstrate the entire process of making tamales, and when our kitchen failed to produce all the necessary kitchen-ware (no blender!) we sent Bob next door to Russett’s house to borrow hers. Right in the middle of making tamales, two gringos showed up unexpectedly to look at our house, which is currently for sale. We apologized for the condition of the house, both the kitchen which was undergoing tamale making, as well as the rest of the house which is undergoing sorting and packing for our planned departure on Wednesday. Artemisa and Cathryn communicated using Cathryn’s less-than-fully-adequate Spanish, with her referring to the fabulous Spanish-English dictionary Ryan gave her two Christmases ago as needed. It took 2 ½ hours to make the tamales (22 in the end), but Bob was thrilled as they were more delicious than the ones we normally buy from Artemisa, as they were more generously filled with chicken and vegetables. Artemisa explained the difference between “casa tamales” (those made for eating at home) and those that are made for sale, the former of which are more “gordo” (fat) with meat and veggies. On a normal day, Artemisa, with some help from her 12 and 14-year-old daughters, makes 240 tamales to sell out of her car, driving house-to-house and blowing her car horn to let clients know she’s arrived. Cathryn thought the process and afternoon were great fun and looks forward to searching for the proper ingredients back home so she can try making tamales on her own.

After cleaning up and eating a few tamales, Cathryn drove Artemisa back to her home. On the way, Artemisa paid us an enormous compliment/honor by inviting us to attend her daughter’s Quinceanera next December if we’re back in Baja. This is a coming-of-age ceremony that is common in Mexican culture, very formal and not unlike a wedding in terms of importance, formality and expense. Cathryn felt a bit teary over the honor of the invitation and wishes she thought it were likely we could attend – which we don’t. Unfortunately we’re unlikely to keep in touch with Artemisa as she doesn’t have email, and other methods are unlikely to be used. Our current thinking is we’ll go to mainland Mexico next winter instead of Baja, but as always, “Vamos a Ver” (or “we’ll see!”)

Baja’s Tallest Palm Trees

Groves of Date Palm trees are fairly common here in Baja wherever there is surface water such as a lagoon or river. Well, the palms in this photo of downtown Los Barriles are clearly among the tallest in Baja. OK, on closer examination (click on the photo to enlarge it) you’ll see that this is actually an attempt to disguise cell towers. We’ve see cell towers disguised as fir trees, flag poles, church steeples, and yes, even palm trees in the States, but didn’t expect this sort of “luxury” to be incorporated here, where only about half the streets are paved.

So a more general question: do these disquises make you feel better about cell towers? Personally we’d rather some talented industrial designer came up with a cell tower design that was functional and attractive. Engineers do it for bridges, why not cell towers?

Happy 20th Birthday to Kate Hutson!!!

 Kate is Cathryn’s niece, sister Anne’s daughter, the youngest of the 9 Rice grandchildren and the last to leave her teen years behind. She’s a sophomore at Texas A&M University. We hope you have a wonderful day, Kate! How does it make you feel, Dad and Mom, to have 9 grandchildren all of whom have entered their third (or fourth) decade of life??? The birthday girl is the one on the right, and her other Texas Rice-grandchild girl cousin, Stephanie Shaffer is on the left, photo taken at cousin Jeff’s wedding last summer.

Bob Had Breakfast With the Girls

We mentioned previously that Russett’s friends from Boise, Idaho, her Book Group from the years she lived there, are in town for 10 days. This morning they invited us to join them for breakfast at Verdugo’s, a restaurant on the beach where everything on the menu is $5.00 – includes your coffee and juice. So, accompanied by 7 women, off Bob went for breakfast! The food was good, view was spectacular, and the company, of course, was lots of fun! Russett’s friends are a lively, funny, adventurous bunch.