We Love L.A.

After our visit with Coco, we continued on the unpaved roads for a couple more hours. The landscape here is like something from science fiction. We finally hit pavement, and decided to continue on to Bahia de Los Angeles. We planned to stay one night, but it’s already turning into more.

A newish highway takes you right to this small See of Cortez town. The view from the mountains before you travel down to the town at sea level is amazing. The past few beach days have been overcast, but today was clear and the color of the water is an indescribable blue. The photos don’t do it justice.

We pulled into our beach campsite near 2 other Volkswagens. We have a theory that 2 buses usually attracts a 3rd. The next night, when one bus left, another pulled in a few hours later.

Our neighbor, Fred was a great guy. He’d pulled in about a month ago, and decided to stay through April. He has been staying in Baja for many years, going home to Las Vegas twice a year for his bi-annual doctor visits and haircut. Jason helped with a few projects on his van, and he was kind enough to give us a bottle of wine and the fresh catch of the day.

There are several regulars, some camping in their rigs and some building a semi-permanent structure to go along with their RVs and 5th wheels. It seems to be a real community. Some of the guys go fishing every day and hand out their bounty to the campers. Bode was intrigued when they pulled in and watched Baja Mike clean the fish. He also loved to eat the spotted sea bass. The trigger fish wasn’t his favorite.

Baja Mike is a pretty interesting guy. He spends several months a year down here with his dog and just fishes, drinks and whittles. He carves walking sticks that tell stories about things he remembers from the 60’s. The top of each stick has the date – this one was ’67. Wine, pot leaves, VW’s, ladies, pot leaves, etc. Good times. Did I mention that he’s married and his wife stays home while he’s down here goofing off?

There was supposed to be a turtle rescue at the camp next to us, so Bode and I walked down there. Turns out it was 4 turtles in a small pool. Perhaps they had been rescued, but the person running the place wasn’t there and there was a big communication gap with the couple there that was doing handiwork on his house.

The camp owners grand-kids were around some days, and Bode made fast friends. They knew a little English, and loved to play with Bode’s toys.  For the most part, he loved to share them.

The town of Bahia de Los Angeles is pretty small. We found a woman to do some of our laundry, ate out a few times (we recommend the torta at the loncheria near the main square,) and picked up some limited groceries at the mini-marts. Fruits, vegetables and meat seem to be hard to get in these parts. This made us even more thankful for the fresh fish.

A produce guy drives his truck full of fruits and veggies to camp every week.  Bode loved this and climbed on the back of his truck to look in at every stop he made around the camp. We stocked up with lots, and later remembered that the next day we were going to be crossing the 28th parallel. At this point there is an agriculture stop and you must not cross with any fruits or vegetables. So, we ate it all.

Bode and I went out at low tide and found hermit crabs and minnows. One morning we even saw whales spouting in the distance. Lots and lots of whales spouting. Very cool.

You can go clamming on the beach right out front too. It’s even better a little farther north at La Gringa, but we just never got around to it. The sunrise here is stellar – it makes you want to get up early. This is one of those places where time just seems to get away from you.