ODO: 311,651
We woke up in our cozy hidden spot, packed up and headed towards La Paz. On our way we came across a couple of Dan’s (two friends named Dan!) that needed some assistance. They had had a tragic tire/wheel/hub failure on their little boat trailer, and were stranded on the side of the road in need of a new wheel hub. There wasn’t a ton we could do for them. We helped them get the old mangled hub off and offered to babysit their boat on the side of the road to make sure it didn’t wander off while they went back to La Paz to try and find a new wheel hub and some grease, but they said they could handle it. After giving them our contact info just in case, we headed for La Paz for supplies and hopefully a nice quiet beach.
We managed a successful home Depot run (KoKo hates home Depot), so we would be able to do a couple more house projects in the coming weeks, because there are always projects… Next, to find a bakery and see about some cookies. Cookies, as we recognize them in the U.S. are hard to come by down here, and one of us gets super excited whenever we find some, which we did! As for the quiet beach camp, we found a great spot on a tiny bluff, right on the water. In fact, it was such a nice spot we stayed for two nights.
All rested up, we headed to Playa Balandra since it was only a few minutes down the road, and called Mexico’s (yes, all of Mexico’s) best beach. Our assessment was that, while being a lovely beach, best beach it is not. This is obviously a subjective judgement, and we have been realizing we are more “explore and find cool shit on the beach” kind of people. This beach was more suited to “sit or lay on the beach all day” people. From the beach, we headed back into La Paz to find out how to get on the ferry, then back to the bakery for more cookies. We are aiming for an April 5th ferry so we can catch the eclipse in Mazatlán, and lucky for us, you cant buy tickets more than two weeks in advance! Calendars marked, we headed to our most southern destination, El Pescadero, to say so long to our friends down there.
We started off with a double date to sushi, followed by a night at our favorite soon-to-be retreat/resort: Casa del Perro. This place has one of the best views in Baja, and we’re super excited for them to finish construction. We took advantage of the hospitality, and spent the next morning mounting our new stove and washing all the salty mud off the truck. We headed back down to Shaka’s for our final beers and final farewells. It wasn’t many beers since the sushi from yesterday kept everyone up all night with gastrointestinal issues.
We headed over to a nearby beach for a quick nap before we headed to our former favorite Italian restaurant for dinner. They used to be in a cool, hidden spot but have since moved to the middle of the main drag, which for some reason, makes their food taste less yummy. After a decent dinner, we headed back to the beach for the night.
Things took a bad turn in the morning. KoKo does a good job of managing her fear of dogs, which is tricky down here because there are dogs EVERYWHERE. Everyone seems to own at least one, and on top of that there are lots of strays. While heading out for her morning walk, a dog launched out of a vehicle she had already walked past, barking, snapping and lunging at her. The owner was little help, and much yelling ensued. She was pretty shaken up by the whole thing. After that fun episode, it was time to pack up and get the heck out of there.
Our next destination was a spot that is likely our favorite spot in baja, a little slice of heaven. It was quite full when we arrived, but luckily the next morning a handful of people left, so we were able to move into a great spot. Unbeknownst to us, our campsite came with two dogs, which was initially really stressful for KoKo, but ended up being pretty helpful. For whatever reason, whenever we have a campsite that comes with dogs we end up looking like bad dog owners. The dogs are always very nice and friendly, but poorly behaved. Since they aren’t our dogs, we never try to stop them from bothering people, which makes us look like jerks. What can you do?
We spent a couple days there relaxing. We swam in the bay every day, even though the water was still a little chilly. One afternoon we watched a giant pod of dolphins swim through the bay, not at the same time we were swimming. We did some touch up painting on our drawers one morning. And most relaxing of all, KoKo started doing her taxes (yes, we still have to do stuff like that on our adventure).
