Sunday, January 31, 2010

Baja 1/30/10





Thought I woud give you a look at our surrounding area..... this herd of cows comes by at least once a day on the beach. They stand at our 'gate' waiting for someone to open it, and they would then come through the rv park, on their way to usual haunts. If no one opens the 'gate', they move on down the way to the open beach area and work their way on. the little Airstream is for sale for $45,000. No buyers so far. The little shack is home of Exotic Kite where they give lessons on Kite surfing etc. Fishing off the beach at about sunrise is also a popular pasttime here. Mother and daughter have been many mornings. Sunrise is spectacular... and I can see I am using that word a lot! Have not actually seen these two catamarands on the water, but they are on the pubic side of beach. We've seen kyackers, pangas (open 16 ft rowboat) a board (lke surf board) with paddle that the user stands up on when paddling, rubber inflated boats of all kinds .... all on the water. When it is calm, it is a boater's paradise.
The tour that came in after Baja Winters left this morning, with the exception of one or two. We have our in-house wifi back, which I love. We went into town for dinner last night with our Baja buddies Linda and Danny. We are already saying March will come too soon!
happy trails.....
(I confess I did not check spelling this time, which may be obvious!)


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Friday, January 29, 2010

Baja El Triunfo 1/27/10





We took a grea sidetrip to two little towns, El Triunfo and San Bartolo. We also stopped at a little oasis, with a natural springs. We had a tour of the ruins of an old silver mine. I may have a photo of the stack in a background shot. We spent most of our time at El Triunfo, had lunch at a wonderful resturant. I have included a shot of the wood burning oven, which made our terrific pizzas. The church is in El Triunfo too. The photo of the bridge was taken from the rear of the resturant. El Triunfo also has a piano museum,housed in a building that is over 200 yrs old, and was once a storage shed. The gentleman in the photo at the piano gave us a short concert. It was wonderful - the piano was a huge concert piano and filled the hall with music. Quite a bonus of the side trip. As you can see, we are having some diverse activities and much fun. We want to go back to this little town as they had two nice artisans shops that we didn't hav time to see. I have a video of the piano concert I will try to post. t to post.
happy trails



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Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Baja-Las Barriles 1/24/10







Arrived yesterday in Las Barriles after a short ride from Cabo San Lucas. We are now settled in our site for the winter. Roger has the screens up, the tent and carpet down. I've included a couple of photos of our site so you get an idea of where we are. Most of the rest of the tour are only staying 3 more days here, and are in the caravan section of the park. We met the owner of this park just as he was leaving for the states. Very nice gentleman who wanted to assure us his staff knew we were there for the season and to let him know when our stay was over. We've seen only one other rv tour on this trip, and that one pulled in just as we were leaving Cabo and it was only about 9 rigs. All the Mexicans are very glad we are here as there are few tourists. I must say tho that there are quite a few gringos here in Las Barriles, one of whom gave us a good tip for lunch today!



It was windy yesterday and all the wind surfers and kite surfers were out in the bay, right in front of our rig! Today is much calmer and there is only one sailboat out now. The photo of Roger and I standing along the wall was taken at an overlook of San Jose del Cabo. Just gorgeous country, water, and beaches. We are getting brown as berries. Nights are very comfortable, and we sometimes need a real shirt at the happy hours. Las Barriles is a very small town, two main streets and some big villas along the beach front. But all the beach is accessible, and Roger took a spin out thru one of the arroyos to the beach after lunch. Got to see how the rich folks live, except that many of the places had for rent signs on them... again very few tourists here this year. Well, off to enjoy the light breezes today, who knows what tomorrow will bring....
happy trails...




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Saturday, January 23, 2010

Baja 1/21/10



















What a trip! This is the Cabo of the travel guides, the Cabo we all think of when we think of Baja. Truly, I did not have great expectations of our 'glass bottom boat' trip... I remember the same kind of boats in Hawaii, and they are just boxes in the floor of the boat. And actually, this was the same kind of boat! But, the big difference was the wonderful rest of the trip... saw the famous landmarks at 'lands end'... Baja rock, The Arches, Honeymoon Beach, Pirates Cave, the 'window from Sea of Cortez to the Pacific Ocean'. Never mind the fact that you didn't need the glass bottom of the boat, you could look right over the side of the boat to see the fish, sea bottom, and scuba divers that were right along side our boat. The day was perfect on the water, and the color so amazing, I went crazy with the camera! After the cruise, we had a 'freebie' drink at Hooters (very Mexican doncha know?) which of course led to lunch! After resting from our big adventure, we headed into Cabo for a little sightseeing and shopping. Most shops are very small little mom/pop kind of ventures, and all very tourist directed. Streets are narrow, and cars park every direction and drive like mad down the streets. We took cabs to and from the rv park, just to avoid the parking. We were all really happy with our excursion on the water and the trip to town. I haven't included my pictures of Dustin skivie dipping, but he made a great trip over the boat edge, into the sea and over to the rocks at "lands end".
happy trails...







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Thursday, January 21, 2010

Baja 1/18-19/10
























Sketches from the road. Picking, eating and sketching fruit and veggies that I had picked in the field was a complete circle of life kind of thing..lol
Included a photo of Roger "driving the Baja".... very narrow roads, lots of big trucks. Ciudad de Constitution is not a very tourist friendly town, but the owner of the rv park was great. He arranged a folk dance group to come in for us and put on wonderful dinner too. The photo of our rig is on the beach at Tecolote beach, south of La Paz. We all loved this beach. I have a shot looking down the beach, with the palapas with their shade. Almost everyone chose to stay at the beach rather than check out La Paz, which is very 'city and touristy' = expensive! With our friends Rhonda and Bruce we made a 'shade arbor' with the canopys. Night of the 19th we had a surprise birthday party for one of the tour gals. Arpad made traditional Hungarian stew, Linda made a cake, and others chipped in side dishes. Food was really great and Marnie was SO surprised! My last uploaded picture is of Roger and Bruce wading in the sea. The color and clearness of the water is just amazing. Now we are in Cabo San Lucas for 5 days. Today is taken up with laundry (that follows us everywhere) and maybe a glass bottom boat tour. We also plan a trip to Costco to see how they do it in Mexico. Nice to have wifi again....
meanwhile, happy trails..




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Saturday, January 16, 2010

Baja San Javier 1/15/10
















We are in Loreto today and took a 'field trip' to San Javier. It is a very small mountain town with an ancient mission, built by the padres about 1699. Many of the town's building have thatched roofs, and our resturant was open air, with just a wonderful palm roof. The weather was perfect. The streets are cobblestone and most of the walls I saw were hand set with no mortar. Very impressive. After our lunch and walk through the one street town, we visited the 8 hector farm of the huband of the woman who ran the resturant. What an experience. We picked peas, cucumber, tangerines and onions right out of the field. I got lucky and picked up the one Mexican Gold grapefruit that was available. Fresh cilantro and limes were also available to us. Yummy!
The mission is being restored so I did not take pictures inside.
The road up to San Javier is half paved, and the last half is dirt, rocky road. I think it is about 26 miles but took us well over an hour to get there. We followed streams part of the way, with water actually crossing the road a couple of times. This water allows for some wonderful oasis type areas, with fruit and palm trees. The farmer told us the tree in the photo was planted by the padres and is over 300 years old. It is an olive tree, and they cut parts of it down to make barrels. It is truely magnificent, with huge twisted trunk and arms reaching out a great distance. The top photo is of one of many fine roosters the farmer had. He raises them too, and I took lots of photos as they are so colorful. We had a fabulous day! Roger loved the drive as he was in 4-wheel drive part of the time, and we were bouncing along in the Jeep!


happy trails...







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Friday, January 15, 2010

Sanispac Beach/Sea of Cortez 1/13/-1/14/10






























Santispac beach is at least a mile wide, and have several loops extending it. We are at the far left in the photo, and this is our caravan (all 17 I think of us) plus a couple of other folks who were there. We spent two wonderful days here. The sunrises were absolutely gorgeous! And sunrise doesn't come until about 7 a.m. so I got to see them too. This was a dry camp, which was no problem for us.
Folks drove into Mulege' in the afternoon to do laundry, shop and have lunch; we follow our wagonmaster John around like a clutch of ducklings.. he know where the good places are! We dropped off our laundry to pick them up second day, all done and folded... this for the price I would pay to wash and dry myself in AZ. Claudia's Laundaria is the pink builting with the wrought iron rails above. I bought two embroidered shirts, Mexican style... can't wait to wear them. The church in the photo was built in the 1700's and is still in use today.
The river in the photo flows down from the mountains above Mulege'. If I got my info right, last season's hurricane rain flooded this river and wiped out many cottages along it. The water came to within one foot of the bridge in the photo. They are rebuilding the area, but you can still see many downed palm trees and piles of 'stuff' still in the works. Roger took a couple of photos of me painting and I also have a photo up of the pelicans who visited. First night there was a big bon fire on the beach. Wagonmaster Dusty helped some folks dig up clams and roast them on the beach. This was just the most wonderful 2 days. Warm weather, and perfect setting. We did have some high winds in the evening and later that night, but like Brigadoon, only at night!
We wanted an adventure and we certainly are having one. We are now in Loreto, and getting into the park was a real challenge for our leaders, who had not been informed of the major construction going on.... however, our group is so patient, and relaxed, we just lined up like good rv-ers, and waited for instructions! I bought a kilo of lobster tails, and a kilo of HUGE shrimp here in the park today. I will seek out my gourmet chef friend, and find out what to do with the lobster tails.... and feast! I can handle the shrimp....
happy trails.... more adventures to come....