Monday 16 January 2017

Whale watching awesomesaucer - sorry, no pics!

So, of course the day I forget to bring the camera to the beach, there is a pod of several gray whales frolicking within 50-60 ft of the shoreline. We have never seen such massive animals that close from land and it was awe-inspiring!

If anyone thinks whales are just "dumb big fish", this encounter would change their minds...there definitely was an exchange going on between the small group that gathered on the beach and the sea mammals. Over and over, a couple of the more curious whales swam back and forth along the shoreline where about six people had gathered, regularly poking their heads above the waves in an act known as "spy hopping". They were clearly checking us out, and we were close enough to clearly see their eyes. Even the dogs on the beach were part of the exchange - one large setter/retriever cross was tracking their movements back and forth across the sand and a chihuahua, in typical small dog fashion, barked up a frenzy at the beasts every time they surfaced.

Wish I had some pictures to share, but alas. Though it was also a gift to just watch in wonderment without worrying about pointing and clicking. Your imagination can do the rest.

Saturday 14 January 2017

Meet Pablo - "Freedom is a Concious Choice"

In 1985 a man in his 40's, known throughout his life as Pablo, left Northern California - a place he describes as having an annual weather pattern of "6 months of fog, then 6 months of rain" - to seek a warmer winter in Baja. He drove into Todos Santos and was immediately taken by how quiet and clean the little ocean-view hamlet was.

"Clearly Todos Santos was something different", he says.

Back then, he describes, the town had no pavement and not one new truck or car among its residents. There was no newspaper, only one phone line that could call long-distance, and two Mexican TV channels available to those who could afford to hook up a line. And of course at that time, no internet or cell phones.

"So you were totally cut off from the outside world", I comment.

"No, I was set free", he smiles.

For the next four years, he spent summers working at his boatyard in Mendocino and returned to Todos Santos for the winter. In March of 1990, he was due to drive back to California but struggled. Becoming visibly moved remembering this pivotal moment in his life, Pablo recalls how he simply decided "I'm not going".

"I was happy like I'd never been happy up there and made the decision to stay, despite the fact I had no food and no money."

Fortunately, Pablo had met a rancher who allowed him to park his truck, his home, on the property freely. But he had nothing to subsist on other than coffee and peppermint tea.

"A fast really clears the head, brings you into the present", he says.

On the fourth day with no food, a Sunday, Pablo awoke and went into town. He was struck looking at the food in the supermarket windows and decided to sit down to draw the scene. For over three hours, he sketched everything he saw around him and felt a profound peace, knowing that he would eat again. He signed the picture with his name and the day of the week in Spanish.

"Pablo Domingo was born on that day."

He sold the sketch to the owner of the supermarket for the equivalent of $7.40 US, affording him three days worth of food and a half tank of gas. The next day, he sketched the town theatre and sold it to a Canadian tourist for the same amount. Same the next day with the town church. Pablo had become a professional artist.

"Back then there were no shops catering to tourists, so anyone who wanted a souvenir could buy one from me."

Pablo was instrumental in organizing the town's first arts festival in 1991, thus branding Todos Santos as an artists colony, and supported himself through art for the next 10 years. He says there was a shared consciousness among the town's residents that this was a special place, beautiful and quiet.

"I realized I was done with what they're doing up there (the US), that there was more to life than striving to get rich."

Mexican immigration finally caught up with Pablo for earning income without a work visa and deported him. Fortunately, the timing of this coincided with his eligibility for US Social Security, allowing Pablo to return without having to make a living locally.

For the past 10 years, he's lived simply and comfortably in a "permanente" pad in the El Litro RV Park with his meticulously-kept '67 Chevy, self-made custom camper, and palapa shelter. During his tenure in Todos Santos, he has seen the town more than double in size and evolve from a quiet hamlet to a bustling tourist stop. When asked if he would ever consider leaving to find a calmer home, he ponders.

"It took me five years here before I was accepted into the local community. Now I'm too old to move", Pablo says. "I really enjoy being part of this town. Now I know the grandchildren of my original friends and they know me."

Pablo's home and art:




Wednesday 11 January 2017

A Secret Cove

An incredible 4+ hour hike today, taking us over the top of the headland overlooking the town, affording us great views of Todos Santos and the length of our favourite beach. We then crossed to the next headland to the south. Here we discovered what looked like the remnants of a old ATV track leading over the hills to the next cove, which I assumed would be the beach south of us known as "Palm Beach". However, it twisted up around and over hills landing at a small secluded deserted cove. There must have been attempts at developing this pocket as there was evidence of foundations and retaining walls partially built and abandoned. Perhaps the 2014 hurricane further eroded the road leading to this area - ? We heard sea lions calling as we approached, but didn't see them, and we able to take a cooling dip before heading home in the setting sun.




Life in Paradise

We've been in Todos Santos for two weeks, and daily life in has evolved (or perhaps more accurately, devolved) to a pleasant, stressless routine. Up with the sun to make coffee and do yesterday's dishes at our outdoor kitchen station, relax and read over breakfast. Andrew has discovered putting a teaspoon of Ovaltine in his coffee makes it taste like a "$7 Starbucks" (his words, not mine!).

Most days, we make a picnic lunch and head to the beach around 11 AM for more reading, some exercise, whale-spotting, and napping. Home by 4 for a shower, a few cold cervezas while playing cards, make dinner and watch TV on our laptop using DVDs we bought at the Friends of the Library book sale. Right now we're in the thick of "Mad Men".

There are always small housekeeping tasks to do each day, with the most vexing concerns of keeping sand out of the bed and tangles out of our hair, both hopelessly losing battles. We could take dirty clothes to a local laundromat but find it just as easy to occasionally swish buckets of laundry in our empty garbage can and hang items on a line to dry in the sun. Over the past week, Andrew tackled the huge task of cleaning all the mud and grime off the truck and trailer so they are now spotless. Hopefully we'll escape any further rain and mud bogs until March or later!

Now that all the food stocks from home have been completely depleted, we take small shopping forays into the local markets every other day or so to get a few veggies or some bread or whatever is needed that day to cobble together a meal. Or we treat ourselves to a meal out - pork tacos at the local stand, chiles rellenos at Miguel's, or a hamburger at our favourite expat hang-out Shut Up Franks, where we can also use the Wi-Fi to post these blogs and catch up on the outside world.

This being our third time here, we almost feel like locals and it must show - we've been asked for directions and help from lost gringos several times! Though we are still discovering new joys and finds. We honestly feel this could end up being our regular winter home - with the weather, beach and amenities we want, easy to reach, and affordable long-term - once we've exhausted our "travel itch". Will probably stay here another week and are deciding the next stop after that.



Friday 6 January 2017

Recipe Bonus!

Who says a travel blog can't include recipes?

My absolute favourite breakie down here is concoction loosely based on a recipe called "Crackling Bacon Corn Cakes" using some of the ingredients I've mentioned in previous posts. To make super-easy, delicious, sweet-savoury-spicy Chorizo Corn Cakes, simply mix:

- a portion of your just-add-water pancake mix (usually 1 cup mix with 3/4 cup aqua)
- A small tin of canned corn, or half a regular-sized
- About 1/2 cup shredded Oaxaca cheese
- 1/2 cup chorizo that has been sauted with 1/2 cup diced onion

Then cook in a frying pan like regular pancakes and enjoy hot with maple syrup. Sounds weird but, trust me, so yummy. Of course you can make at home using any kind of sausage or bacon instead of the chorizo, and cheddar.



Noise and the City (not Sexy)

If you plan to camp within a traditional small Baja town, you will have to possess a certain level of noise tolerance. Here, there are no noise bylaws...and sometimes I suspect it is a lark for local villagers to create as much noise as humanly possible.

First, Mexicans seem to actually really LIKE that maniacal mariachi music full of plaintive Spanish crooning and bouncing tuba. It is played loudly throughout neighbourhoods on a unnervingly sporadic schedule, originating seemingly from nowhere. You could be awoken on a random Tuesday morning or kept up on a late Thursday evening. It must be fun for whoever is hosting the party.

Dogs. Most Mexi-mutts are docile to the extreme during the heat of the day, but something about 4 AM causes them to erupt in barking and howling festivals. Maybe it's the over-enthusiastic roosters crowing...another lovely bit of noise pollution. They all seem timed to go off well before actual dawn. It's a symphony of yelps and cocka-doodle-doos to greet your morning.

Akin to an ice cream truck gone mad, many Mexican services announce their presence with trumpeting horns and blaring loudspeakers. So anyone in a 5-mile radius in need of propane or water will know to come rushing out to meet the truck still blocks away.

So, how to deal with the cacophony? The upside to this aural insanity is that your only actual tasks for any given day are to stumble out of bed, make coffee, pack lunch and head to the beach ;-)

Monday 2 January 2017

An Ode to the Playa

Todos Santos is not considered a beach town, primarily because the town itself is located a kilometre inland and the paths to the beach a bit tough to navigate. This suits me just fine, because it means the swaths of golden sand are virtually empty every day. While swarms of daytrippers from Cabo wander around the town's quaint shops, celebrated art galleries, and the Hotel California, the beach we go to is only visited by a few "in the know".

It is my ideal kind of beach - no, make that my IDEAL beach - the perfect combination of many factors. First, the sand. It's all golden tiny spheres...soft, yet sturdy. Not talc fine. No bits of shell fragments, seaweed, or anything sharp. You can walk comfortably bare feet for miles without having to watch your step while your feet are treated to a sand pedicure. The sand is suitably deep and wide, and backed by palms and cacti-covered hills.

The slope of the sand creates endlessly mesmerizing thunderous waves, which subside enough at regular intervals to wade into and bob like a cork in the clear blue water. In sections, the waves have shaped dunes and valleys that create magical cross-currents and ebbs where the ocean meets the land. An area of boulders is heavily eroded into fantastical shapes with crevices that spill like mini waterfalls and rivers with each crash.

There are tiny crabs in the sand but otherwise the shore is devoid of anything that could sting, maim or just gross you out. I have a profound hate of slime and vegetation in the water, but there is none of that here. Being that there is so little development around and the currents so strong, there is no sewage-y cloudiness in the water that can occur at popular beaches. Offshore I can watch for whales breaching, pelicans sailing and dolphins jumping.

I guess there are as many types of beaches as there are beachgoers. This is not for the jet set people-watcher, or the family with toddlers who want to test their toes, or for the water sports fanatic (though a few km north the breaks are suitable for surfing). But for me - lazy, book-reading, memorized by the rhythms of nature me - it's absolute heaven.




Sunday 1 January 2017

Cooking with Mexican Ingredients

One of the aspects I most love about RV travel vs staying in resorts and eating in restaurants is the ability to cook our own meals with local ingredients. And Mexico has so many delicious, authentic food staples difficult, if not impossible, to find in Canada. Hereto, a list of my faves:

1. Chorizo - sold in thin plastic tubes, this is unlike the hard sausage-like chorizo found in Canadian delis. This chorizo is more of a highly-spiced meat paste that you squeeze into fry and add flavour to a host of other ingredients - into refried beans or scrambled eggs for breakfast burritos or an addition to ground beef for tacos.
2. Oaxaca cheese - similar to the string mozzarella popular as a kids snack, this white cheese comes in a twisted rope ball and melts to ooey-gooey awesomeness.
3. Fresh made tortillas - every town has a local maker (or several) that deliver still-warm flour tortillas to the markets each morning. They are light years away from the wraps that have become staples in Canadian grocery stores - they have a higher fat content and are often scorched from the baking stone, making them yummy enough just to eat by themselves.
4. Chile peppers - even the smallest Baja super mini (corner store) carries a variety of peppers - mild poblano for making chiles rellenos, jalapeƱo or serrano for salsa and more. While I'm not good with hot food and still finding my feet cooking with them, the dizzying array of options is worth exploring.
5. Seafood - the Baja is a seafood lovers banquet. It's possible to easily acquire freshly-caught scallops, shrimp, tuna, lobster, marlin, dorado...the list goes on, for a pittance.

YUM!



Essentials for the Savvy Camper

   1. Ice cube bags - Best. Invention. Ever. Before using, they take up no space in the cupboard, and once full, you don't need to worry about keeping them level in the freezer. And the ice will never shrink or go stale as they're sealed airtime.
    2. Lime squeezer - Margaritas anyone? 'nuff said.
    3. Thermal mugs - keeps your coffee hot in the morning and beer cold in the evening. Unless you're like Andrew and you prefer to drink beer from the tin, then you're using a thermal sleeve.
    4. Unbreakable wine glasses - obviously
    5. Complete pancake mix - without an oven, one can suffer from baking withdrawal on the road. Bring some "just add water" pancake mix along and suddenly you can make a plethora of sweet and savoury "baked" goods in your frying pan.
    6. Solar shower - not only for its intended purpose, a solar shower doubles as an extra water container when you need to stock up and heats up your dish water without taxing the hot water tank or propane.
    7. Bucket - you never realize how handy the age-old simple pail is until you're living simply. Let your imagination run wild with that.
    8. Inverter with solar panels - just because we're off-grid doesn't mean we're animals - we must keep our Sonicare and electric hair trimmer charged, and are binge-watching "Mad Men".
    9. Scented candles - for when the interior of the RV gets, as my friend Sharon says, "foosty".
    10. Battery-operated flameless candles - for when its too windy outside for the real thing.
    11. Bleach - a teaspoon per 10 gallons will kill enough of the Mexican bugs to use the local water safely for cleaning purposes.
    12. French press (or Bodum) - the easiest way to make delicious coffee with nothing more complicated than a kettle.
    13. Baby wipes - there will be many a day you won't have access to a shower, and nothing is more conveniently refreshing than a cleansing wipe sans scents and chemicals in the (ahem) parts you need it the most.

And what you DON'T need:

You won't need any Vitamin C or D supplements as you'll be enjoying a lot of fresh lime margaritas in the sunshine. If you need a microwave, hair dryer, air conditioning, Kuerig, wide-screen TV, or a generator to power any such nonsense, can I respectfully suggest you just stay home.




First Beach Day on the Whale Freeway

It was warm as we set off for our first full beach day in Todos Santos, our beach backpack chairs loaded with lunch, water, and rubber exercise bands. It's a 10-minute walk from El Litro RV park over dusty backroads and trails (that wouldn't be considered legal roads in Canada for anything other than dirt bikes) to the ocean. Along the way we pass a range of Mexican housing - from dilapidated makeshift shelters to million-dollar sea view boutique hotels, vacation rentals and private homes. At the end, we're greeted by the same pounding surf and blissfully empty miles of deep white sand we fell in love with two years ago.

Determined to not lose the hard-fought level of fitness I've earned over the past several months at Orange Theory Fitness, we used our bands to work through a series of body weight exercises before relaxing on our beach chairs to read (Marla) and nap (Andrew). The whales were active today - we saw more than a dozen breach and fluke their tails - as they made their way north or south (?) wherever they were going. Even saw a few flying skates or manta rays sail through the air. All in a hard day's work before returning to our portable home for happy hour!