It’s hard to make any argument against spending the rest of our time on this rather remarkable beach. I have a habit, reinforced by Rusty, of getting up shortly after dawn and at that hour no one else is afoot whether we are camped alone or in a throng. Usually we sleep with the doors open for ventilation and Rusty’s huge bed fits on the floor behind our seats so he can look out and see what’s what all night long. When he sees the gray of dawn he starts yawning loudly, my signal to get going.
I put my serape on if it’s cold, hang my FZ1000 Panasonic camera around my neck and off we go, me in Crocs and him barefoot, thorns notwithstanding.
Usually we mooch around directionless as I wait for the sun to paint some colors while he checks the ground around the van in increasingly large circles.
Then one of us picks a direction and we head out into a silent world wherever we are.
The owners son pushed off in his kayak but later told us he found no fish.
He had pointed me in the direction of a rocky path up to a viewpoint at the top of a small hill.
Overlooking Bahia Concepcion.
Rusty got bored and went down the hill.
I followed him and we meandered back across the sand to our camp. Layne was up and made tea and coffee while we contemplated a day of increasing sunshine and heat and nothing much to do. Books downloaded, word games offline, no news, no texts, no contact. It felt primal.
Rusty was still energetic so he and I climbed the hill behind the beach.
It was hot and he took refuge in the shade. I was ready to continue up but I knew the sand would burn his paws when the sun got in its stride so we walked back to the comfort of our palapa.
We were pondering our first swim of the day in mirror-flat water when the curse began. From across the water out of sight we heard Friday’s entertainment begin.Thump, thump, thump went the big bass sound. It was a music coming out of a speaker more than a mile away, out of sight around the next point. I could hear it over my earbuds that I was using to listen to a radio download.
It was unbelievably loud. We both knew I would go mad listening to that all day. A motorcyclist also didn’t the night on the beach but I don’t know how he felt about it as he had avoided making eye contact with me and I wasn’t going to intrude on the man from Massachusetts. But he left shortly after the music started.
Before we left we decided to have a last swim in this otherwise lovely place.
So there we were up to our necks in water paddling around in a leisurely fashion with nothing on our minds and trying to ignore the noise.
A pick up pulled into the beach and stopped at the palapa next to ours. We heard English sounding noises as they unloaded the cooler from the bed of the truck.
They stepped into the water and swam out to us.
They were it turned out two old friends who were taking some time off to cruise around Baja. Dean is from San Diego and Rob is from New Zealand so I got along with his sense of humor very nicely.
We swam for a while before we made our way back to shore. Rob said he had been missing having tea on this trip so of course Layne offered to brew him one of my Yorkshire Gold teabags and we ended up having a long chat about travel and boats and vans. Rob is selling his sailboat to a German couple. They were interested before Covid and now he is off to Morocco to seal the deal.
I’d never met the man but o felt this tremendous affinity for him. He really got what we were doing as he had fond of himself. Dean from San Diego was really into the van so I explained it to him at done great length. I have him here buying us all fresh clams out of a visiting pick up truck.
Layne bought us a pint of ceviche to eat later - delicious - and we sat and ate fresh raw clams with lime juice abs a little hot sauce. It was one of those moments that you don’t want to end. We talked too much and too fast because we all had stories and time was short. It was a wrench to have to drive away from this lovely men. The encounter was a highlight of Baja for us.
We took the dirt trail over the water when it was about one in the afternoon. Far later than we had intended…
Our plan was to check out Mulegé and stay at an RV park Layne had found on the iOverlander app which works somewhat even offline.
These chance encounters make travel the greatest fun and we have learned never to turn away when one presents itself. There is nothing more important than making a connection, be it ever so fleeting.
