Back to Baja, 2022

We’ve been keeping pretty quiet for the last month, settling in to beach life. We left our Washington property at the end of September and took a week to drive south to El Centro, CA to meet up with our friends from Kelowna (they sold their house in Upper Mission, packed up 3 boys aged 14, 12 & 9, and the dog into a 24’ travel trailer) We spent a few days in El Centro and experienced the craziest dust storm - even the locals had never seen before. I literally flew out the door holding on to the door handle… wish I had video of that, it was comical!

With our friends following, it took us nearly 2 weeks to drive down Baja, stopping along the way and only driving about 4 hours a day. It was actually a good pace as the road was in pretty bad condition from Hurricane Kay - just 10 days prior to us crossing the border.

Now we are here at the beach in Los Barriles. We made reservations way back in May, and because we arrived in mid October, were able to secure a beach front spot for the winter.

It’s a pretty narrow slot, not much room to sit outside our door but there is a palapa just a few yards in front that we’ve taken over with our chairs and table - great place for morning coffee and Happy Hour. We’re also protected by a big bush on the windward side that we are thankful for as the winds can get howling here in the winter months. On windy days the kite boarders and windsurfers all flock to the beach in front of us and go around in circles to entertain us. Mornings are usually calm for walking on the beach and swimming - which is more our speed of activity.

The second week we were here on the beach, one morning we noticed birds circling, then realized their breakfast was baby turtles that had just hatched! The nest was directly in front of us on the beach so we started digging down and pulling up the babies and helped them out to the ocean. Just down from us the Turtle Conservation Society has a nursery and often we’ll see them setting the baby turtles on the shore - when the birds are flying you know breakfast is being served. Last year we went on a guided Turtle Release with us only being observers, we did get to hold them, but this time was a definite bonus digging them up and helping them survive!

Our friends that we traveled with sold their trailer and moved to Puerto Vallarta a few weeks ago, so that leaves us with meeting our new neighbors as more Snowbirds are arriving weekly and setting up camp. It’s still pretty quiet, which we don’t mind as it gives me time to complete my level 2 health coaching certificate, and Gary focusing on our investments and the economy.

Los Barriles is a cute town and just a 5 minute drive from us. We found a great fresh fruit & vegetable market with local prices and a huge selection, the butcher shop sources everything local and the seafood guy comes into town twice a week and sells fresh fish out of coolers in the back of his truck. What a nice change from Cabo and the very expensive Farmers Markets (because they can charge more) and relying on Costco, Walmart & Fresko for our groceries. Cabo is about 1.5 hours south and we’ll still go in for Costco runs and to see Ryan, Christina & Isabella but this pace of life at the beach is preferable to the busy city life that Cabo has become.

No Bad Beach Days (for real now!)

until next time.... j&g