Beach living...

We arrived at our friend Pat’s favorite beach and had no problem picking a spot for the two rigs a few feet from shore. It was a glorious afternoon and we quickly set up and made it out to the sand for happy hour. After a walk along the shore, meeting the other people camped here, we wandered over to Anna’s, a little restaurant about fifty feet behind us. There are actually two little café/bars right here on our beach, along with a dump station, pit toilets, and  cold showers for a small fee – all for 100 pesos a night (about $8).

We met Carlos, who, with his very good English, helps his mother, Anna, who does all the cooking and baking. He entertained us with his life story while we hung out. There were only two other people there when we arrived and after an hour or two, no one else had walked into the place. It was dark by the time we got back and we spent a little more time in our chairs stargazing before calling it a night.

We awoke to a cacophony of chatter from whence, I did not know! Once I got up and went outside I could see there were tons of seagulls squalking (this term is courtesy of Wikipedia), it seems that this is their mating season and they were at it in full force!

I began our first day here with a great yoga practice and then we blew up our rafts and floating cooler – filled it up with drinks and snacks and took off to explore the water. There were a couple of sailboats docked in the bay and we met Clay and Kelly, from one of them, when they came ashore the night before, but there was another one out there I wanted to check out. Once I got a bit from shore I took off my top to get rid of those bothersome tan lines. Clay and Kelly came out to say hi and they set off in their kayaks to go have a look at the sea lion that was frolicking about. Eventually there was movement on the other sailboat and I met Linda and Caleb. We chatted a bit and I invited them to join me for yoga in the morning on the beach, if they were so inclined. Linda hadn't been feeling well, but said she would think about it. We mentioned to all of the sailors that we were going into town the next day if they needed anything – or a ride.

Our second morning here began pretty much the same as the first, except that Linda did come ashore to join me for some yoga.  She is from New Mexico and was joining Caleb for a month on his journey south.  After yoga, Sini, Bob, Bill and I went exploring and took a hike to another bay around the corner from ours, where we found a whole other community of permanent residents who had built homes there in the middle of nowhere. We met Jim, who regaled us with tales of that side of the bay, of which, there were many - he'd been living there on and off for eighteen years with his wife and had just returned there for the first time after her death. Afterwards, we got ourselves together for a trip into town – we were picking up beer for Clay and Kelly, and Linda and Caleb bummed a ride in with us.

Street Art

Caleb has been here quite a few times and was a wealth of knowledge. When we drove into town he gave us a little history and some juicy gossip about the area.  He showed us where the bakery/internet café was, along with the launderia and where I could make inexpensive international phone calls. Bill and I got settled in at the internet café and registered online to get our Burning Man tickets, which were going on sale the following week. We also met a fellow burner, living here for the winter, who was doing the same thing. We spent some time on Facebook, checking our email and bought some fresh water, vegetables and then set out in search of Señor Geckos. It seems the guy who owns Señor Geckos used to run the café on the beach (now called Anna’s) for many years, but the woman own runs the campground decided she wanted Anna to run the café and didn't renew his lease. He moved on down the road and opened a very popular restaurant and bar. Because of this, the seasonal people here at the campground are now boycotting Anna’s. We found Señor Geckos on the way home and stopped for lunch and a beer – great bar full of expat’s, who were playing poker. He also has wifi and a cell signal which was very welcome.

We also found out that the gringos here have two "movie nights' a week - on Mondays and Thursdays and they are held at two different restaurants - Thursday nights are at an outdoor restaurant and we saw "Nebraska." Monday night was at an indoor restaurant and we saw "About Time" - both of these films were great. It was fun and gave us a little taste of the "ex-pat" lifestyle here...one I could become VERY accustomed to.

I immediately felt that this was a spot I could spend some serious time at and wanted to hang out for awhile if I could make the work thing happen in town. I was pretty successful the first day we tried, so we decided to stay awhile. By this time we were having serious problems with our batteries and starting to have some water pump issues as well. Our batteries would not hold a charge and we needed to run our genie 2-3 times a day. We've done quite a bit of boondocking with friends, at Burning Man, and in the California desert, and I always feel badly that we need to run our generator as much as we have to, but Bill is super conscientious about maintaining the integrity of our batteries and if you boondock and don't have either a big battery bank or good solar it's just part of the deal. In the past, this hasn't been an issue for any of our friends but it seems we ran our genie at a bad time for our traveling partners and they were very upset with us, so that coupled with our different schedules made it easy for them to move on. I still feel really badly that things had to end the way they did, but at this point there is nothing we can do.

Friday night the bar on the beach had a party, complete with DJ and dancing - we had a blast and met more neighbors, including a couple of gals that got so plastered we had to "walk" them back to their rig.

Our three day stop turned easily into ten - going into town every other day or so for work, laundry or banking. I woke up every morning and had my coffee sitting at the shore, watching the sun rise, then it was either yoga or a run up the mountain, before starting our day. We became better friends with Carlos and John, a guy who's spending a couple of years here. John loaned us his kayaks and we had an awesome day on the water, afterwards we had John over for some of Bill's vegan chili, while watching the sunset. 

We did extend our stay long enough to go into town on Wednesday, February 26th, to try and buy Burning Man tickets online. John told us of another restaurant in town that had wifi and we thought there might not be as many people there to afford us a better wifi connection. We got there an hour before the tickets went on sale and it took us about 45 minutes, and working with the owners, to finally get a good enough signal and we were probably one of the last people to score tickets. We heard that they sold 38,000 tickets in just under 40 minutes. If you hadn't logged in before 12:01, you didn't get them. We were very, very lucky!!

We checked out some of the other local ex-pat hangouts, like Jungla Jims, and before you knew it, it was time to leave and continue our travels south. But I am sure, we will be back...

RAY's - The place for a celebratory meal, reservations recommended!

Super friendly folks hang out here!