We spent a week at Playa San Carlos in January. It was the beginning of our six month winter journey around Mexico and it was also the place where we learned to enjoy cold water swimming thanks to the gentle encouragement of fellow van traveler Ron from Iowa. In that week we were hardly alone as there were perhaps a dozen other RVs parked among the bushes on the beach.
Now as we close in on Memorial Day we are alone on the beach during week days. In the evenings one or two cars come out to enjoy a sunset at the beach after work and on weekends Sundays are packed, the sole day off in Mexico.
The cultural differences between “gabachos” (a not entirely polite term for foreigners) and Mexicans are highlighted on Sundays. Mexicans don’t have the same view of personal space as we northerners do. They celebrate time off with ear splitting music and if their neighbors are playing a different genre, never mind song, that’s okay. You can hear thumping tubas rappers and seductive ballads all together in one unholy racket on a Mexican beach on Sunday. Fun eh, gabacho?
Mexicans don’t do it to be annoying or to invade your space or send you a message. It’s simply a celebration of life and their families. You will see vast elaborate picnics with three or four generations sprawled on a blanket. If you see a couple walking along a beach by themselves chances are they are gringos. Not always but most often. If you see a couple with children they are Mexicans. Obviously I’m generalizing to make a point. But the way Layne and I travel and camp at the beach is weirdly unnatural to family oriented Mexicans. This is not a country that sees school shootings. Children are cherished.
We respect the local traditions on Sundays because they have one day to be at ease and we have seven. We plan our weeks around where we will be on weekends and we prefer to be traveling if possible. I hate noise especially when I’m in nature and I struggle with my gringo moments when bird song is smothered by boom boxes.
But here’s the great thing about these Mexican wild camps, you are free. I don’t just mean there’s no charge to camp, but you are free to live as you please. Play music, be silent, do yoga, walk your dog off leash? No problem. Rusty doesn’t even wear his collar here: he’s nekkid!
So with freedom comes responsibility as we have been taught. Except that freedom doesn’t quite get the respect it deserves in these places. The question is: can you handle it? Freedom is often quite messy.
If you can handle loud music once a week can you handle trash distribution all over the place? We in the north have been trained to twitch any time we see someone dumping trash in our presence. It’s second nature after a life time of recycling, composting, and the “reduce reuse and limit packaging” training. Can you suppress your own gringo moments in the face of this?
Or this, a classic home made porta potty abandoned and up ended in a parking area?
If this abandoned land contested by rival developers were in the US it would be fenced locked and liability laws would require everyone be kept out. In Mexico it is a public access area with no facilities, no fees and no promises of future accessibility. If you hurt yourself here there’s no one to sue and no one to blame but yourself. You need to be a grown up if you want to beach camp in wild Mexico.
In the US this might be a state beach with paved parking, with fees, rules and rangers to enforce them. There would be trash cans and toilets but in Mexico a sheet, some buckets and toilet paper scattered to the four winds does well enough. If you wonder why we don’t park in the shade now you know.
This isn’t Bureau of Land Management camping either. There are no 14 day limits. Come back next year and the land dispute may be settled and the property may be locked and guarded. Or it may be just as it is today.
When we plan wild camping anywhere we always try and sort out a back up plan in case the target destination doesn’t work for any reason. If this place were closed we have a nearby truck stop we can use for the night, for instance.
Often iOverlander user reports will mention trash at the site and sometimes our estimate of trash disagrees with previous visitors comments. In any event I expect to do a little clean up if we are staying somewhere wild. To that end I have my grabber from my time in the rehab hospital.
The orange bag is our waterproof trash bin. If we are wild camping for a while we put our trash bags in the smell proof, fly proof orange container for proper dumping later. I have also added trash I’ve picked up around our camp site. You could fill a dumpster with the trash here so we can only grab what we can. In winter when there are a lot of campers all on trash pick up for their own spaces, the place is much cleaner in our experience.
It is possible to keep your space clean.
As long as you are patient and appreciate these free open spaces for what they are: yours to enjoy as you please courtesy of your easy going, if cheerfully noisy Mexican hosts.
And after next Sunday it will all revert to its normal state. If we are here I’ll be out with my grabber.
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