Well its Monday and here we are at Miguel's waiting for him to get to our coach. A few things have come up for him so he may not be able to look at it till tomorrow, or . . . oh well.
Border Crossing on Sunday:
Don't do it. What were we thinking? We had a 2 1/2 hour wait in the hot sun at the Tecote border only for them to look in the fridge and send us on our way. We had thoughtfully emptied everything out that morning so we had nothing for lunch. No worries, we would be well across the border by lunch! Ha!! Not!! We spent lunch in line and I made natchos for lunch. No nice fresh salad. No vegs. no fruit. Now we know.
Food
I have had some requests for comentary on the food, well camerones and scallops - yum, what can I say. At El Coyote a vender or three came by every day with fresh caught fish, scallops and camerones - our dinner slept in the sea the night before! Can't get too much fresher than that. We were not the piggy wiggys we were the first year or even last year, we now manage to make a kilo of camerone last for a dinner and a lunch the next day. Our big find this year is carne asada. Due to Lorne's food issues most Mexican food is verboten, however we were in Costco shopping for when the kids came down and Lorne grabbed what he thought was corned beef that he could eat as the marinade did not include onions or garlic. Turned out it was not corned beef at all but the most delicious thinly cut tender beef. This is traditionally bbq'd on a charcol grill and tortellias heated to fill with the beef. Add lots of hot sauce and whatever else you want - peppers, salsa, onions and WOW! this is so good. So we went back to Costco and bought up lots of carne asada to bring home. Difficult to make it fit around all the camerone and scallops we have in the freezer tho.... I think I could probably figure out a marinade that would work to make this at home too. Oh boy a Mexican food party - get ready!
Had to have lunch today at the In and Out - think I've had enough of that now but it is very good. Its also cool to watch them peel and cut the fries right in front of you.
Homeward Stretch
So, now is the time to give me a list of any items you would like us to bring back for you from the US. If you haven't figured out how to send comments just send me an email (don't worry you are not alone! I have received many emails from others who can't figure it out either). We will be stopping at one or more of the outlet malls and a regular mall too - possibly Frys, a huge computer store in Oregon if they will give us a warranty that will be honored in Canada. Did I mention that our computer is toast? We are using Miguel's computer today and will check email before we get home if we can. Otherwise you can text message me on my cell phone.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Conception and El Coyote Beach
We stopped for eight days to kayak and hang on the beach. The Conception area is just south of Mulege and is a very large bay with about 8 quite sheltered camping access beaches and a number of small islands so if we were to find a place to kayak this should be it. We had never stayed at El Coyote before so thought we would give it a try. It was fabulous! Similar to the West Coast of Vancouver Island, the wind usually gets up about 11 am so we needed to be up and on the water early to get in a good paddle. The second day we went out we were not far from our beach when we were suddenly blasted with a big wind! and I mean big! And it wasn´t even 10 am yet! It was a bit startling for us newbies to say the least so we quickly paddled to shore, fortunately it was blowing towards land so we had the wind at our backs and not too much water in our boats, lots of whitecaps all around and breaking over our bows. My boat felt good tho and it wasn´t more sea than we could handle so that was good.
We had heard the wind can pick up quickly here but we had no idea it would be quite like this, dead calm one second and then pow! We learned these winds are called buffaloes, good name. We also discovered that a fellow named Gary broadcasts the weather for the area over the VHF (marine band) radio every morning at 8. He lives at the next beach over (El Burro) and weather is his hobby. He let us know that we now had a few days to wait for really flat water and to expect big winds (buffaloes) every day.
We spent some time hiking, there are some great hikes to do around this beach, up and over the desert hills to the next beaches and into beautiful valleys. We also hiked along the old Baja road and into a lush valley, very nice. Read a few books and soon it was time to do some serious kayaking. Last Monday dawned with the water like glass, kayaking was amazing, it was like moving over gentle shimmering folds of silk. It was so clear we were looking into a tropical aquarium with lots of interesting fish to see. The water was quite warm so I also enjoyed swimming and banging up my shins practicing wet exits. Couldn´t get Lorne it tho. We did find a fairly large red jellyfish, fortunately not while I was swimming.
The first few days I was buttoned up tight in my life jacket and thinking we really should have our skirts on, Lorne of course had his jacket on but not zipped and was totally opposed to the skirts as it was really quite warm. By day 3 Lorne´s lifejacket was strapped to his deck and by day 4 so was mine! We really didn´t go any further off shore than what we could easily swim and the water is warm so, we dressed for immersion - swimming suits!
ElCoyote is the beach that our friends from Santispac, Chet and Marida have moved to so we had a few good visits with them. They built a new, almost identical palapa and moved their whole kitchen and stairway over from Santispac. They don´t own the land but pay $10 per day all year for the privledge of renting the land, plus they have services that they didn´t have at Santispac - water and sewer - so they are reasonably happy and settled now. It was quite devastating to them when they arrived at Santispac this year to be told they had to move off the beach by the end of January. Six of their friends from Santispac have also moved over to this beach. Santispac looks quite different now with almost all the palapas gone. Apparently it has been bought by someone who plans to put in a resort... A Baja dream or??
We are now in Guerro Negro, working our way north. The desert today was in bloom and so aromatic it was wonderful! My plant book tells me the flowers were lupins, a type of poppy and an incense flower. We´ve bought a big load of camerones and scallops to take home, the freezer is full! We´ve also got a few bags of delicious San Ignacio dates and a container of their yummy honey too. We should be in LA by next Monday where we will visit Miguel to have him give the GMC a once over before heading home. Depending on how things go we should be home by next weekend.
Time to cook - as once again I am not doing the driving on Baja!
We had heard the wind can pick up quickly here but we had no idea it would be quite like this, dead calm one second and then pow! We learned these winds are called buffaloes, good name. We also discovered that a fellow named Gary broadcasts the weather for the area over the VHF (marine band) radio every morning at 8. He lives at the next beach over (El Burro) and weather is his hobby. He let us know that we now had a few days to wait for really flat water and to expect big winds (buffaloes) every day.
We spent some time hiking, there are some great hikes to do around this beach, up and over the desert hills to the next beaches and into beautiful valleys. We also hiked along the old Baja road and into a lush valley, very nice. Read a few books and soon it was time to do some serious kayaking. Last Monday dawned with the water like glass, kayaking was amazing, it was like moving over gentle shimmering folds of silk. It was so clear we were looking into a tropical aquarium with lots of interesting fish to see. The water was quite warm so I also enjoyed swimming and banging up my shins practicing wet exits. Couldn´t get Lorne it tho. We did find a fairly large red jellyfish, fortunately not while I was swimming.
The first few days I was buttoned up tight in my life jacket and thinking we really should have our skirts on, Lorne of course had his jacket on but not zipped and was totally opposed to the skirts as it was really quite warm. By day 3 Lorne´s lifejacket was strapped to his deck and by day 4 so was mine! We really didn´t go any further off shore than what we could easily swim and the water is warm so, we dressed for immersion - swimming suits!
ElCoyote is the beach that our friends from Santispac, Chet and Marida have moved to so we had a few good visits with them. They built a new, almost identical palapa and moved their whole kitchen and stairway over from Santispac. They don´t own the land but pay $10 per day all year for the privledge of renting the land, plus they have services that they didn´t have at Santispac - water and sewer - so they are reasonably happy and settled now. It was quite devastating to them when they arrived at Santispac this year to be told they had to move off the beach by the end of January. Six of their friends from Santispac have also moved over to this beach. Santispac looks quite different now with almost all the palapas gone. Apparently it has been bought by someone who plans to put in a resort... A Baja dream or??
We are now in Guerro Negro, working our way north. The desert today was in bloom and so aromatic it was wonderful! My plant book tells me the flowers were lupins, a type of poppy and an incense flower. We´ve bought a big load of camerones and scallops to take home, the freezer is full! We´ve also got a few bags of delicious San Ignacio dates and a container of their yummy honey too. We should be in LA by next Monday where we will visit Miguel to have him give the GMC a once over before heading home. Depending on how things go we should be home by next weekend.
Time to cook - as once again I am not doing the driving on Baja!
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