El Tabo sits on a promontory of rocky outcrops splashed by foamy Pacific rollers. At the turn of the century about 7,000 people lived in this middle class beach town but since then they apparently haven’t taken a census.
There’s one reason to come here and it’s Pablo Neruda’s house. For some reason they don’t allow photography inside the house so that’s not for us, but his home brought us here to see what he saw in this area. We took a drive by and parked so while I walked Rusty Layne took a nap.
Because Layne took a nap I was saved from watching another souvenir come into my life from the stands set up to offload dust catchers on the passing tourists.
And there were lots.
I got a whiff of Carmel by the Sea from perhaps 75 years ago, when the poets and writers gathered on the foggy coast of Big Sur and the Monterey Peninsula.
It’s low season and these summer escapes were all unoccupied. The restaurant owner told us the home owners don’t want to pave the streets to keep the quaint flavor of Isla Negra, “black island” so named by Neruda for the black rocks off the beach.
Check out the cypress trees and these homes which look to me like they were plucked out of California.
I doubt you could park here in summer but we found plenty of room for our 21 foot Promaster. So we did.
The weather is coastal Pacific, gray clouds in the morning with some sun in the afternoon with a cool onshore breeze. It’s quite lovely.
We took a camp spot in El Bosque (“the forest”) but there was no one in the office and no other visible campers. The gate was open so we took a spot and waited for someone to come by.
Meanwhile Rusty and I strolled across the highway and took to the sand. We left an empty campground. Pretty weird huh?
A nice Starlink signal and we have our own toilet which was good as the campground toilets are awful. A good place to dump our porta potty but you wouldn’t want to sit in them.
With a little love and dollars this place could be first rate but there we are.
So there we were Rusty and I on this lovely strand with two couples at the other end and none around here. Amazing.
The time came Rusty said it’s time to go home and off he trotted. He waited for me by the sidewalk so I leashed him for safety and went home to my Kindle dinner and bed.
The office:
A crazy campground.
And the owner came by, a tall white surfer dude whom I’ve seen on every California beach I’ve visited. We paid $16, a ridiculous amount for a campground without services essentially especially as he warned us to take in our Starlink before we went to bed. “People walk by on the sidewalk,” he said. So not much security either!
Oh but that California vibe that reminds me of home. Not Key West, our previous home…
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