We landed in Cabo Frailles two nights ago. It is a wide arroyo (seasonal water channel) beside a headland that forms a good-sized beach cresent, just south of Cabo Pulmo. It is on the East Cape of the Baja tip, the coastal arc between La Paz and San Jose del Cabo that is famous for kiteboarding due to regular "El Norte" - strong winds from the north. The headland here helps break the winds, a bit. We still find the winds quite strong and variable, leading to getting stung with flying sand on the beach and facing swells on the kayak.
Okay, back to something more chronological than waxing poetic on weather patterns...knowing that this location was remote, we first drove from Todos Santos to La Paz for a full stock up of propane and supplies. Outside of La Paz is a Caligas station, one of the few places on the peninsula to refill our three 20-pound tanks. At the Walmart in La Paz, we were able to stock up on food, drink, and get puppy essentials such as a nice bed and brush for Coco.
Then on to Los Barriles to a free boondocking location we had discovered on our last trip. Los Barriles is probably about the same size as Todos Santos but has a quite different vibe as most of the expats settling there have done so to kitesurf in the El Norte. We arrived just as the day's "Lord of the Wind" competition was wrapping up for the day. Unfortunately, the kiteboarding competition was also sponsoring a huge beach party that night, with loud music and festivities going until about 4 AM. So we left asap in the morning to make the trek to Cabo Frailles.
Although only about 80 km Los Barriles, we knew this part of the journey would take about 2.5-3 hours because the last 27 km are on a washboard dirt road that we could only do about 10-15 km/h on. It's maddening driving along slower than a walking pace with the trailer bouncing crazily behind us! But it did get us to a paradise.
Cabo Pulmo is a national marine park with an off-shore coral reef famous with snorkellers and scuba divers, but the beach there is quite rocky. Cabo Frailles is another 8 km down the dirt road and opens to a fine white sand beach with a large colony of RVers camping freely through the winter, the majority being from BC! Coco took all the bouncing like a champ, actually sleeping through some of it on the floor of the truck out of the sunshine in her new bed.
We've been set up within 200 feet of the shoreline for the past couple of days, though we may move inland tomorrow as this location is very exposed to sun and wind. Coco continues to astonish us with her quick learning. She very quickly responds to coming at our whistles, which Andrew is beginning to realize is causing confusion when he starts to whistle to a song. Her confidence is growing as she wanders farther from our "home" and is willing to meet new people. Still a bit skittish around other dogs, but she's making quick progress with socializing with "her kind" too.
The most amazing thing today was her first swim. We knew we'd want to have a swimming dog but that it would take time to get a puppy acclimatized to the water. We did get her close to the shoreline in Todos Santos which was amazing given how big the waves are there. Here the waves are very tiny, but she still squealed walking too close to them. But then all of a sudden, with both Andrew and I knee-deep, she conquered her fear and strode in, jumped into the oncoming wave and start to paddle! She swam for about 10 seconds before we picked her up and helped her back to the shoreline. She wouldn't come in a second time, shivering on the beach, so we wrapped her in towels and congratulated her until she warmed back up. We figured that was stressful enough for one day so didn't try again. But for sure she'll be a strong swimmer soon!
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