Christmas and New Years in Todos Santos, Mexico

Our Trip (Leucadia to Todos Santos and back)

Some things we will need to bring :

• 4 surfboards
• wetsuits
• sunscreen
• (2) 5 gallon gas cans
• (2) coolers

• lots of water
• digital camera
• Mexican Insurance
• motor oil
• surf mags (to give away)

Beautiful coastline around Saulispedes

The day of driving (San Quintin to Santa Rosalia).
Today we drove from San Quintin to just outside of Santa Rosalia on the Sea of Cortez. Beautiful desert scenery on this leg. Many Cordon cactuses (cacti ?) and much solititude. Pretty weird. I saw a Starbucks logo painted on a building down in El Rosario. Has Starbucks infiltrated this far South ? :-) If so I am stopping on the way back. :-)

Getting petrol has been not a problem and we basically top off the 40 gallon tank every 200 miles or so. We have had to pass through two military check points so far where they basically make sure you are somewhat legit and then wave you through. Having Mary drive during this interrogation seems to help speed things up , although I did remind her that she should remove her sunglasses when speaking to the Mexican military. The soldiers got a kick out of Tia since Tia means "Aunt" in Spanish. One of the soldiers asked what is your dogs name(in Spanish of course) and when we said "Tia" he laughed and said "Es tu Tia ?" or is that your Aunt ?

Right now we are camping outside of Santa Rosalia in the Desert and the wind is howling. Mary, Kaiel and Tia have all turned in early (7 PM) while I finish writing out the days exploits. Tomorrow we will make the last jaunt to Todos Santos hopefully to meet up with Phillip and Buffy.

Up early...or more accurately blown out of bed. The wind was howling all night and still strong in the morning when we woke up. Made a quick cup of coffee for myself and hot chocolate for Mary and Kaiel and jumped in the Land Cruiser by 7:30 AM. Drove this really scary mountain road and dropped down into Santa Rosalia. Glad we didn't make this drive last night.

Santa Rosalia is our first look at ther Sea of Cortez or Gulf of California (politically correct term). Not too picturesque here as the town has a dirty industrial feel to it and I think I was overcharged at the Pemex station.(make sure they reset the pumps when you get gas.)

Mulege is a lot nicer and there are a lot of green shady RV parks and camp grounds. Two guys we talked to way back in San Quintin told us that they were heading to Mulege to see the first Mission in Mexico? The trip took a real scenic turn outside of Mulege. Numerous protected cove beaches with warm water seems to be the norm here. Kaiel and I went for a swim at this little camp site called Ray's Place. Water felt really nice after two days of driving and Mary and I agreed that we like to come back and spend time exploring this area.

Beautiful cove outside Mulege	You can rent these palapas on the beach pretty cheap	Rinsing off the road grime in the Gulf of California.	Kaiel, Mary and Tia enjoy the morning sunshine
Sea of Cactus in front of sea of white caps	Modest house near Loreto	Kaiel riding shotgun

Funds were running low but luckily we found an ATM in CIUDAD CONSTITUCION. Mary asked me to pull out $200 and as I left the ATM Kaiel mentioned that I had actually only taken out $20. Ahhh to be a clueless gringo. :-) Now we are headed to La Paz and hope to hit Todos Santos by 4:30 PM for some dinner and most important, no more driving .

Well after getting lost in La Paz where the heck is the 19 South anyway? We arrived in Todos Santos. Unfortunately we had to do a bit of night time driving which I said I would not do. We stopped at a nice little restaurant in town to reward Kaiel for being such a good 10 year old traveler. Decent, but expensive food.

After dinner we tried to find Los Pedritos to meet up with Phillip and Buffy but no luck. Ended up driving 2 dirt roads to the beach that we thought were right but didn't see any sign of their VW Westfalia. Probably the fact that it was pitch dark was a factor. We did find a spot right on a secluded beach that seems to have a pretty decent right break right out in front, but then again it is now 10 PM and pretty dark so who knows what daylight will reveal. Buenos Noches.

Woke up to a beautiful beach at Los Pedritos with 2 ' trestles type waves out front.. Walked around and met some of the neighbors. Frank from Alberta was nice as were a couple of guys from San Francisco (Jim and Hans). This group from Canada have been down here a couple weeks and they still have two more weeks down here. Pretty cool.

Kaiel with decent right out front	Early morning fisherman	Tia blends in with the morning light	Morning surf check
Camp Site at Los Pedritos	Makeshift board rack	Mary on Mexican time	Kaiel with Tia pillow

Went out for a morning surf. Pretty uneventful but the water is WARM and trunks and rash guard are fine. Beach is rocky and I guess has urchins so you have to be a bit careful walking out. Pretty much just hung out on the beach all day , surfed again with Kaiel, drank beers and enjoyed the solitude. Really nice spot.

Turns out this was the place we were suppose to meet Phillip but it was pretty much destroyed by the recent Hurricane in September. The remnants of the RV park are still here ; electrical outlets, parking stalls, bathrooms, restaurant palapa but it is all covered with sand and overgrowth.

This was a restauarant on the beach	Picture 200 RVs parked here.	Sketching the scenery	Dawn at our camp site
	Finding some shade	Sea of driftwood

Later we went drove around the Todos Santos area and found some other really nice homes and beaches. A lot of Americans have built beautiful homes down here. Everyone seems pretty friendly

We let Kaiel do some dune jumping at this beautiful beach to the South and he had a great time. Drove back into Todos Santos where we found 'Hotel California' of the Eagles fame. Pretty trippy inside so check the pics.
We were able to find an Internet cafe (Los Adobes) in Todos Santos and hooked up the laptop to check email. Turns out Phillip had been here and according to their email they were staying at "La Casa De Cyrene" just down the beach. We managed to find it. (3rd tope past Los Pedritos) but according to Cyrene they had checked out and were heading north.... Bummer.

Met a nice guy from San Clemente (Jeff) who cooked Kaiel a nice steak. (he won't get that from us) so he was pretty stoked and had to battle Tia over posession. Made a nice camp fire and talked to Jeff about surf etc and then turned in. Jeff had driven down here solo in a big Ford van and was going to meet his girlfriend in Cabo who was flying in for New Years. He had surfed "The Wall" at Santa Rosalilita on the way down and blew out two tires getting out there.

Serious air	Help!!!		Baja getaway
'Living it up at the Hotel California'.	Inside Hotel California	Los Adobes in Todos Santos. Coffee/Bar with Internet hookup	Pre-hurricane this used to be a bar on the beach. Jeff was grilling steaks in it when we met him.

Another nice day relaxing at Los Pedritos outside of Todos Santos. Met some more of the neighbors. One guy from Laguna has this insane van setup that he rigged up himself for month long trips down here. Awning, winch to lower boats off the roof and a shower complete with shower curtain that he extends off the back. Said goodbye to the two guys from San Francisco Jim and Hans who said "we'll be back" . :-) They told us how different it was at Los Pedritos prior to the hurricane when the RV park was in full swing. Hurricane was a bit of a mixed blessing. Solitude on one hand but no shower, electric hookups or restaurant on the other.

Checked out some more of the hurricane damage with Mary and Kaiel including the van buried on the beach that only recently been uncovered this week.. Surf was pretty small today and the wind came up early . Surfed out front early and then took Kaiel out a little later.

Well, time for a beer and dinner. Plan for tomorrow is to surf early and then head back up to the Loreto or Mulege to camp there.
Looks like we may get a bit of rain tonite.

Mary and Kaiel meet the neighbors

Last night was pretty funny. The German guy from Laguna Beach who has the tricked out Baja van invited us over to watch "Liar Liar" at his camp . He has this little TV/VCR running off his 3 battery setup in his van.

Anyway woke up to small glassy waves, quick surf, goodbye to our friends we met and on the road again. Long drive up Baja from Todos Santos to just outside of Mulege. We found these pretty cool palapas on the beach for $5 a night and it seems really quiet for New Years. Unfortunately we ended up driving in the dark (again) for about a 1/2 hour but still managed to find this place. The trick to driving at night in Southern Baja is to find a big semi-truck and just sit behind him. Makes the roads a lot easier. We made a great dinner of shrimp(cooked in a pot on the camp fire) burritos and everyone turned in about 9:30 PM.

Happy New Year !!!

Happy New Year. turns out we were camping right next to the spot that we had been looking for.Broke camp by 8AM and drove down a nice coastal dirt road where we found a nice swimming beach. Took Tia out for a swim and she did really good being a "land" dog and all.

Back on the road in an attempt to make El Rosario by nightfall . We failed....and are now sitting in the beatuful desert outside Catavina with huge Cordon cactus all around.
We had actually planned to stay at La Pinta in Catavina (a government run hotel chain) but the hotel was filled up. Pretty weird when you consider rooms were $70 + a night.

Mary has figured out how to cook rice, beans, shrimp and tortillas on the open camp fire. Pretty cool., She said she feels like a pioneer. We are enjoying delicous shrimp, rice and bean burritos by the camp fire. Life is good.

Woke up in the Desert outside of Cataviņa . Freezing in the morning so we started a fire and ate a quick breakfast. On the road by 7:30 AM.

Kaiel and I surfed outside of El Rosario (before El Socorro) for a couple hours. Plenty of size and noone out. Kaiel had some really great waves. Waves were really long but a little slow. On the road by 12:30 PM.

Border wait was hideous (1 1/2 hours.) San Diego was raining but the freeways were pretty empty when we crossed at 7 PM.

Great trip. ready to head back :-)