The next morning, we left Campestre Maranatha for Ciudad Constitucion where we stayed at Palapa 206, it turns out this place is owned by Mike and his Mexican wife. Mike is an Englishman from near Weymouth in Dorset. There was also a Motel at the campsite, and rooms could be rented by the hour 😉, wink, wink…….all the in and out made me laugh, like we didn’t know what was going on!
Later in the day a Mexican couple form Sonora, Juan Carlos & Lupita camped next to us, we had a couple of fun nights with these two as we communicated in some broken English and very, very broken Spanish.
Juan Carlos built his rig himself and did a very good job modifying his truck to accommodate the camper and many other accessories.
The following day Jim, Sue & Rosie joined us for dinner, then in the evening we all celebrated Stewart’s birthday with cake provided by Juan Carlos & Lupita, complete with flamethrower.
Next morning, we set off with Juan Carlos & Lupita to Adolfo Lopez Mateos as we were all heading in the same direction.
We camped for the night at the visitors Plaza carpark where we had dinner in one of the restaurants and relaxed for the evening. .
Next morning, about 8:30am, we arranged to go whale watching with a local fisherman in his Panga, he took us out to the channel were the Pacific Ocean meets the inland waterway where we found some whales. The whales travel from Alaska to the Baja to give birth to their young in the protected bays. They spend the winter here allowing the calves to grow bigger and stronger before heading back to Alaska where they will face Killer Whales along their journey north.
Around 11am we set off for San Juanico, with a detour to La Purisima which at one time had a population of 4000 people but now is mostly a ghost town. We came here expecting to find a Mission only to discover it had been destroyed a long time ago. The people here were not very friendly, this is the first time we have encountered this in the months we have spent on the Baja. We tried to have lunch at a restaurant there but they had no beef, fish, beer or even Coca Cola, maybe they were just excuses not to serve the strangers in town?
There were some murals in town that appear to give a history of the town.
We decided to continued on to San Juanico, where we camped for three nights on the bluffs overlooking the bay and Pacific Ocean. We took walks into town, beach and along the bluffs, one of the days the weather was not warm to say the least, this was one of the coldest days we had experienced on the Baja. There were also quite a few surfers taking advantage of waves here as it is one of the longest righthand breaks in the world. This time of year, the waves are not that big but I was informed that this is part of the challenge as the smaller waves are harder to ride. In the high surfing season this place is packed with around 300 campers. There were also some nice sunsets.
Lupita insisted on making traditional Mexican meals for us, and we had a good laugh when she made us tacos one of the days. Catherine watched Lupita cook, in hopes of making repeat meals. Then Lupita asked if we wanted tacos dorado, which we thought were fish tacos! But seems tacos dorado are a style of taco, prepared then lighted fried to crisp the tortilla. We both laughed, because when we were in La Paz we went to a taco place and wanted fish tacos, and knowing dorado was a fish asked for dorado, we got the fried tacos, which we had not expected, but now we know why, LOL. Lupita also made chimichangas for us with all the little toppings, so very good. More about our culinary experiences in the days to come.
We camped next to Chris & Monique who were in their converted ambulance which Chris had built-out the inside himself, also having a four-wheel drive conversion done by ‘U-Joint’.
We all left the same day, Chris & Monique continued up the Pacific coast to Laguna San Ignacio while we were going across the peninsular to the Sea of Cortez. We hope to see them again up the road somewhere.
Next: The Sea of Cortez.