Mexagain
November 2005
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If you haven’t figured it out by now, we love Mexico. So what did we decide to do for Thanksgiving this year? We decided we would head back down from Southern California into Baja for a “short” month or so of Mexican adventure. We headed down on the 15th of November 2005 or so and didn’t end up returning to the U.S. until mid December in order to meet up with the Waterkotte clan for the big Christmas/New Years cruise (to be covered in another post).
Our first stop was in Santa Rosalillita, a place we grew fond of last year. While we didn’t score the best surf, we sure had a ball hanging out and talking to the guys from the local Militar post as well as meeting some fellow travelers. First we met a neat family from Port Orchard Washington who was living on their sailboat, the Ohana Kai. They were home schooling their boys in the morning while exploring and surfing in the afternoons. The morning they set sail southbound for mainland Mexico we met two nice Canadian guys, Matt and Nathan. Matt and Nathan were from Vancouver Island and were just starting into Baja for a few months of surfing and exploring. Matt’s dog Tuna and Bruce hit it off right away. We ended up traveling with Matt and Nathan for the next 10 days or so as neither of us had set plans and were both looking for the same things. After the surf shut down at Rosalillita we all decided to go to Alejandro’s for a while. We ended up camping their and surfing for the next several days including Thanksgiving. Matt, Nathan, Sarah and I feasted on a meal of fresh clams that we snorkeled for, ceviche Nathan made from fresh fish and great local veggies.
Over the next couple weeks, we read books, surfed, hiked, practiced our Spanish and enjoyed each other and our new friends. The Canadians taught us how to make a sauna which was something totally new to us. Sweating in the 112 degree steam then running into the ocean at night while the bioluminescent filled waters erupted with color and our laughter was truly magical. Physically, it felt like taking a shower from the inside out. After Thanksgiving the surf improved with the arrival of some northwest swells. Sarah had several of her breakthrough days as she continues to paddle for bigger waves and gets more aggressive and confident on her board. Matt was shooting pictures one afternoon and happened to catch some shots of Eric, thanks Matt! We made another new friend at Alejandro’s named David. He was such a unique and special guy it is really hard to describe how much getting to know him changed us. David is a jack of all trades, fluent Spanish speaker, joker, surfer, and truly a kind hearted soul. He was building all sorts of things while we were there including a little snack shack and a new palapa to replace the old blue one that burned down sometime in late September or October. David took Eric under his wing and let him tag along and help with all of the various projects. In fact, David, Eric, Jorge and Martin built the newest palapa from ground up in about 3 days. When we were ready to head north, David asked us if he could catch a ride with us which we couldn’t refuse.
On our day and a half journey north, David shared many Spanish lessons with us and all sorts of little Mexico secrets. We dropped him off in Ensenada so that he could catch the bus to San Diego and we could head northeast through the Baja wine country to Canon de Guadalupe. The route we took from Ensenada to Laguna Salada was truly amazing. As we left the rolling hills of the Baja “Zona de Vino”, we were greeted by a growing number of beautiful granite boulders and walls. East of Tecate, these boulders turned into mighty granite peaks and deep winding canyons. When we finally arrived at the dry lake bed called Laguna Salada, we were excited to get off the pavement again and make our way toward the famous Canon de Guadalupe. Driving on the lake bed was wild, the dirt was so smooth that you could go 70 mph while creating a dust trail at least a mile long billowing in the rear view mirror. Quickly though, the road turned from wide open dry lake bed to granite lined river wash rock crawling. The first 10 miles of the road in took us only about 10 minutes while the last 2 miles took over an hour. We put our bogging skills to the test and slowly worked our way through the obstacle course together as light faded. We were so proud of our van and ourselves when we arrived at the nearly empty campground. The place blew our minds! Our own secluded campsite amongst the giant granite boulders was enough, but when we saw that the campsite came with its own perfectly clean and perfectly warm hot springs pool our jaws dropped. This was such a perfect way to end our month of pre Christmas Mexican adventures. We highly recommend this hot springs paradise as it is practically in the U.S. it is so far north, making it a possible weekend get-a-way for those of you living in Southern California or Arizona.
We pulled into Tempe Arizona with time to spare before the big Waterkotte Christmas/New Years cruise to mainland Mexico which was set to leave on December 23. We will tell more about that in our next post. So long for now – Eric, Sarah and Bruce