Los Barriles (Day 2)

So, I woke up last night. "What is that @#$#$% noise?" Oh my gosh, it has to be cows walking down the main street, right out in front of the trailer park. So, being COMPLETELY convinced that this is what is was, I got up (.....and yes, made Doug get up as well) and walked out to the main gate by the street. Now, when I mean it sounded like a huge herd of cattle, that is what I mean. Imagine, many cows just walking past on the street, clip-clop, clip-clop. Plus this RV park has a cattle gate at the front!!!!!

Well, was I WRONG!!!!!!!!

Turns out it was Flying Mobula Rays, out on the water....Yup, google them. They are the smaller cousin of the Manta Ray. They fling themselves out of the water, just for fun it seems. We could NOT believe it. We walked down to the beach today, and sure enough, they they were, flinging themselves out of the water. I believe at night, there are MANY more of them. The noise went on for at least 45 minutes and it was constant. Super cool. Here is a picture, although you will just have to take my word for it.....I know, so much blue, sorry! Try to ignore it and just look for the mobulas, they are WAY out past the bouy on the right, but imagine thousands of them all doing this at the same time in the middle of the night!! Doug thinks that the name is like a circus act!! They look like they are maybe 2 to 3 feet wide.

Anyway, here is the park, as promised. Pretty nice. HUGE expat population here but everyone is really nice. spots are a bit close, but, hey, there is the sun.  

We are parked right behind this long wall on the left-hand side of this picture, right poolside! You just can't see us. It is a really l-o-n-g way around, that 50 feet or so!.

This is a beautiful beach, and there were actually people on this one, but it isn't as nice as Tecolote. There are lots of homes on this one, oh and......

Cows, yup, just loose!!!!!

The park is right down this street to the end and turn left and there you will find us and our cows!! Not sure where they all go at night but now I know for certain it isn't them clopping down the street!! It's those crazy flying mobula rays!!!! (....darn those crazy things, can't they keep the noise down??!!)

Thanks for the help with the cows today everyone! Oh, and apparently, the talk of the park is the fact that MOST people felt an earthquake (tiny one). I guess Doug & I just aren't observant enough because we were just walking back from the beach and we heard lots of people talking about it!

Tomorrow there is an art show in town so we will ride our bikes into that! Stay tuned!!

Cheers!

(No make-up still...but LOTS of sunscreen!! ) 

La Paz to Los Barriles

Well, we had our breakfast at the hotel, packed Euri up and headed out. Before we go, here are a few more pictures in La Paz at the hotel & marina. I think yesterday's were a bit over-exposed, also, had to show you the cats that hang around and my AMAZING crab picture!!

I was about 20 feet away, with a 10x optical zoom, not bad when you look close!!

So, we headed off to see where the ferry terminal & Playa Tecolote are. They are about 1/2 hour from La Paz. Unfortunately, since we are not really "self-contained" it is hard for us to stay at places like Playa Tecolote. I think we could have done 1 overnight, maybe. There are a few palapa type restaurants, a rudimentary bathroom (...pay, I think) and not much else. As pretty as a postcard!! And the water, it was almost warm when you put your feet in!! We have never felt that before! People just boondock down on the beach, a bit further right from where Doug was standing, but I believe there was only one camper there!

So, on the way back towards La Paz, we go by Pichilingue where the Baja Ferry terminal is. This is we will be getting the ferry to the mainland in a few weeks! Pretty swanky, huh?!

That's it. We drove about 2 hours to get to Los Barriles.We are at the East Cape RV Resort. I will show you the pictures tomorrow. The park is really nice. We have a bit of trouble with the electric at our site right now, so should be able to get it rectified tomorrow. We will start exploring then! Apparently, there is an art show at the local park on Sunday so we will check that out too. Oh, the other neat thing. We met some people here and the lady works at the local dentist office and says her dentist is amazing, so I may be able to get my tooth fixed (likely a crown) here. She figures it will cost about $300 US. (Thanks, Ted & Marleen, for checking for me. If this doesn't work out, I will be headed to your dentist down in San Jose del Cabo!!)

Anyway, here's from us to all of you:

Cheers!! 

La Paz (Day 2)

How to start......Well first off, Happy Birthday to Josh (our son) who is a young 27 years old today!!

Breakfast here was amazing. Sat outside and enjoyed the sun. It was really interesting to see the cats here. Everywhere else it has been primarily dogs, but I guess the waterfront is best suited to the felines! After breakfast, we walked a bit more in the marina. It was so cool to stand and look at the water by the boats and see a little puffer fish swimming along. I mean, really? Does Dora know he is out of the tank??

We decided that instead of riding our bikes, we would walk. The malecon is 5 kms long so we walked it both ways, a whopping 10 kms, plus our sidetrips up and down the other streets! Good thing we wore comfy shoes! So, here we go, come along with us:

There were very few people out on the malecon... 

Sorry about all that blue!!

Down the pier, looking back at the malecon & town.

I think this is the original pier...

Here is our celebratory drink for Josh's birthday!! (Well, we had walked 5 kms already!!)

Santa Misa

Well, that about covers it for us and La Paz. It is really a nice town. After our walk, we went down and sat near the pool to do more planning on our next spot, camping of course, in Los Barriles. We are really looking forward to seeing it. Before we leave tomorrow, we will drive out to see Playa Tecolote then come back through town to stock up on food, etc. then hit the road.

This evening, we walked back out the malecon, about 10 minutes away, for fish tacos. Enough of this "high-life", it's time to be back to our real mission of exploring Mexico in our trusty VW Westfalia, Euri!!

Just a few closing pictures:

You knew it had to come, sooner or later.....brooms!!

My favorite palapa shot, saved for last for you all!!

Just in case anyone out there is wondering, still no makeup, 21 days now!!

Cheers!!

Ciudad Constitucion to La Paz

Had a great drive to La Paz. Still amazing how MUCH there is to the Baja. Everyone we have met has been helpful, kind and straightforward. We appreciate that, for sure. One thing we know, our Spanish SUCKS!!!! When the young fellow in the Pemex is trying to teach you Spanish, you definitely feel humbled!! Again, we appreciate all the help we are getting and promise to do better next time!! Here are the first shots of the morning. We awoke to cloud and fog this a.m., but by the time we got up and got to Ciudad Constitucion for coffee and a van wash,, it had cleared up:

Logo look familiar??

This young gentleman earned his money washing Euri!!

So off we went, through MORE of the Baja. Again, we never really thought about how very vast and amazing this part of the country was.  We went through a Federal Police check-point just before we got to La Paz. The officer was careful to explain who they were and that they were just checking in with travellers. He was very polite and sent us right on our way. Thanks for keeping us all safe!! Here is some of the drive:

...for my trucking friends, super nice trucks here!

Yup, there REALLY are topes, lots of them!! 

So, here is the part where we suck....we looked at the campsite in La Paz (one of very few)and decided to switch gears and treat ourselves to a hotel for two nights. When you check Expedia first and then show up at a hotel, the rate is sometimes okay. We are at the Hotel Marina for the next two nights. We figured that after 3 weeks of set up and tear down in the VW, we would actually have a regular sized bed. Boy, does it seem big! (...and we aren't counting the one room in Santa Rosalia, during the gale force wind, with the one minute hot water shower either, just in case anyone is counting!!) So, for $71 US per night including full breakfast at the restaurant on the pier, we figured what the heck!! Plus the nice porter, Alfredo put our bikes in the lock-up and will have our bikes ready for us in ther morning when we are ready! 

Here are a few pictures of the place. Just to keep it in perspective, we can hear the disco downsairs pounding and we figure that it will go on til 1 am or so, but we don't care. Again, the room is a bit worn but the grounds are really pretty and tomorrow we will ride into town on the bikes and do some poking around. Thanks for understanding!

View from our door, no balcony for this rate, but nice outside walkway!

...but still pretty nice!

...dinner of champions!

So, with the disco pounding below, we will retire for the evening. I believe if we had a wee bit bigger rig, we would probably not need the ocasional break from the set-up and tear down routine, but we LOVE our Euri so we just sometimes need to change it up a bit. We are looking forward to seeing La Paz tomorrow on the bikes. Should have lots of pictures for you.

Cheers!!  

Loreto to Ciudad Constitucion

So, stick with us and you will see how our plans can change. We decided to leave Loreto. We got a good tip on another location just south of La Paz, Los Barriles. Apparently there is a really nice park, East Cape RV Park. So, new plan is: we are just here for an overnight stop and then we move to La Paz for Wed, Thurs & Fri nights. After that we will stay in Los Bariles for the Easter week. Sounds like a gorgeous spot. We may even take some pictures to show everyone!

Anyway, here's our drive. First, we stopped for some purified water. Boy, was this place fancy. The guys even had masks on!

That's our water jug, being washed out and made sure it is worthy for the purified water.

About 10 minutes from town, there is another development called Nopolo. It is part of the Fonatur plan that the Mexican government tried to implement, part of a tourism plan. They started to build an amazing infrastucture around Loreto, to try and turn it into a Cancun type of area. Seems that "they built it....only the people never really came". There are some nice areas, but lots of abandoned areas too.

Then there are some really nice little spots, near a golf course and new hotel. We did see one sign advertising condo's for sale - $249,000 US!! Wow, pretty expensive, so we are not sure how much for these little duplexes. They were pretty cute though!

Same thing further down the road at Puerto Escondido where they put in a really nice marina, but nothing else showed up.

After this little explore, it was off to head over the Sierra de la Giganta, a really big mountain range that would eventually drop us down into the farming community area of Ciudad Constitucion. It was about 1.5 hour drive across. First, one more glimpse of the Sea of Cortez:

It is pretty much impossible to really show the expanse of this mountain range, but here it is:

Soon we arrived at Misiones RV Park in Ciudad Constitucion. It is pretty much just dirt where you park, but they have done a really nice job of the pool area. First, let's get set up, check emails, fill up the fresh, drinking water that we bought in Loreto before we left and then walk the 50 feet to the pool, with our beverages, of course!!

Anyone out there from Doug's company, M.A Stewart, please show this to Dan Hardy so he knows we are still advertising for Kitz Valves!

Nice central palapa area for everyone to use.

...and, just so you don't think it's PERFECT here, this is a shot of the bathroom, but they are clean and very useable:

We met this gentleman, David, from San Francisco. He is travelling alone with his Great Dane, named Likely, after the BC town near Williams Lake. This dog is huge and very gentle. They were also at the last campsite we were at in Loreto!

This is a shot of the palapa area where we are all sitting, working on our computers! Modern camping!

So that is it for the day. We will get up and be heading for La Paz. Should be a fun day!

Thanks for hitching a ride with us, but Doug wants to know if someone could take over driving once in awhile (besides me!!)

Cheers!!