Road trip: Day 29

Merry Christmas!!

When we started this trip, I was a little nervous about spending Christmas with just the two of us somewhere on the Baja.  I though it might feel lonely.  I must say, this has been a wonderful Christmas Day and I feel so blessed that we got to spend it in quiet solitude.

Tamales are a big Mexican tradition for Christmas so when the vendor pulled up this morning and we learned he had tamales, we just had to get some.




As we were packing up, Bill & Leslie and Tom and Patty stopped by to say goodbye and wish us safe travels.  It has been great meeting such wonderful people.  The people of the Baja are one of the reasons why we love it so much.  And it's not just the Mexicans, but the Americans and Canadians as well.  You meet the best people out here!

Someone decorated one of the trees at the beach.


We didn't plan on driving as far as we did today, but there was hardly anyone on the roads, so we went a little further than planned so that we can spend more time exploring the next few days.  I can't believe we only have two more full days before we have to be back in the United States.

We went through two military checkpoints today and our car was searched at both.  They didn't do major searching, but went through a few things and then sent us on our way.

Highlights from today's drive.

We stopped at the Mision Santa Rosalia de Mulege.  It was almost overwhelming to be alone on Christmas Day at a mission that was spreading the word of Christ over 250 years ago.




Palms in Mulege.


I love how they built this house around the palm tree.



A small, but beautiful cemetery in the middle of the desert, near the turnoff to Punta Chivato.


Truckload of what appeared to Americans delivering Christmas gifts to kids in San Ignacio.


Crossed out of Baja California Sur into Baja California.



Tumbleweed snowman!


Osprey nest



Changing landscapes









Sunset as we arrived in El Rosario.



We are staying at a small hotel next door to Mama Espinosa's.  We enjoyed a mix of both American (turkey and mashed potatoes) and Mexican (tamales) Christmas traditions at Mama Espinosa's for dinner.

We pray that everyone enjoyed the blessings of Christmas as much as we did.  We love you all and wish you a very Merry Christmas!!


Road trip: Day 28

It's Christmas Eve and we watched a beautiful sunrise.  I heard there were snow flurries back home and while that would be nice, I'm certainly not complaining.




We had to drive into Mulege this morning so that we could use the internet to cancel or reservation in San Ignacio.  While there, we did a few errands in town which included picking up a kilo of fresh hot tortillas.  Yum!



We stopped at Playa Santispac to pick up lunch and did a little Christmas shopping.  We each got a sarape and a bracelet.  We contributed to the economy and Christmas shopping was finished in about 10 minutes.  That's my kind of shopping.


The rest of the afternoon was spent sitting outside visiting.  We know that we only have a few more days of warm weather and then we'll be too far north to still be wearing shorts so we're trying to soak it all in so it stays in our bones till spring.

This evening, there was happy hour, where everyone brought an appetizer and visited in celebration of Christmas Eve.  Earlier in the day, they had lined the beach with luminaries and at dusk they lit them and it was stunning.





A little while later we enjoyed a fireworks show put on by one of the campers.  He said it was his gift to all the campers and apparently he does it every year for both Christmas and New Years.


We ended the night by sitting around the campfire with Bill and Leslie and Jay and Barb.




What a wonderful way to spend Christmas Eve!

Road trip: Day 27

Neither of us slept well last night.  Between the sound of the cars and the howling winds, it was pretty noisy.  And then this morning the roosters made sure that we were up bright and early. We were kind of dragging, but we packed up and headed out.

You can see just how windy it was by the flags.  This was taken from the window in our bedroom.



Driving to Bahia de Concepcion, we passed numerous cars all loaded up.   Looks like everyone in Mexico is headed to grandma's for the Christmas.

Taqueria Karen in Ciudad Constitucion.  We didn't stop this time, but we've eaten here before and it's really good.


Statue in the center of town in Ciudad Insurgentes.


"Car" parked for the day while his owner is working.


Wanted tacos for lunch.  The menu at this place just wasn't quite what we had in mind!


Next stop was much better.   As you can see Brett was thoroughly enjoying his lunch.



We got to Bahia de Concepcion and our plan was just to spend one night here as we had booked a room for Christmas Eve in San Ignacio.  Well, you know how plans go.  Bill and Leslie made a convincing argument to stay here another night so that we can enjoy some of the holiday festivities. The weather here is beautiful so it didn't take much arm twisting to get us to change our minds so we'll be here for two nights.

Some pretty views from today's drive.









Road trip: Day 26

Had to leave Cabo today, but it's not good-bye, but rather see you later.


Our first stop was Wal-Mart.  We don't have cell coverage except in the Los Cabos and La Paz areas so we decided we should get a Mexican cell phone just in case of emergency.

Next stop was to see our friends, Joel and Louise, who are currently living in San Jose del Cabo.  What can we say about Joel and Louise except that we hope to be like them when we grow up.  They have traveled just about everywhere and always have fun stories to share.  You can check out some of their past travels at goodmansjourney.com.



We hadn't seen Joel and Louise since they came through Tennessee back in 2009 so we had a lot of catching up to do.  I don't know how it came up but Brett mentioned The Way of St. James Pilgrimage (you may recall the movie, The Way, a few years ago with Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez) and they told us they are planning on doing that in the Spring of 2015.  Why does that not surprise us? Now how can we figure how to take a few months off next year and join them??

After a wonderful, but too short of a visit, we had to get on the road.  Our plan was to camp in Los Barrilles.  When we got there it was really windy so we kept  on driving.  We wanted to check out the Music Museum in El Triunfo, but forgot it was Sunday so it was closed.  With it's population of 347, there's no camping or lodging, so we decided to head to La Paz.

We stopped at Tropic of Cancer.  Brett's pointing to where we started from and where we are now.


We ended up in El Cien, just north of La Paz. It's a little cool and very windy, so we had dinner and got a room.

Our room is nice, albeit very close to the road.  The owner told us it would be noisy and we expected the road noise but we didn't expect to hear the guy next door opening his soda can.  These are some mighty thin walls!  Now, we're listening to him laugh as he watches TV!!

Just now as I was writing this, I heard a funny noise on the wall next to me.  I found a lizard eating a cricket!  I dropped my phone (I'm doing the entire blog on my phone, since I don't have a computer with me), and jumped up asking Brett where my phone was so I could take a picture.  He thinks I'm losing it.  And I might be.  Must be time to go to bed.

Our digs for the night.









Road trip: Day 25

Another beautiful day in paradise!  Spent the day swimming and enjoying the sunshine.  We start our trip back up the Baja tomorrow so we're trying to soak up as much of this warm weather as we can.



Brett remembered this morning that he had a gift certificate to a spa from a prior trip and we hadn't used it yet.  Lucky me!  He booked me a massage for the afternoon.

Thank you Lilly and Brett for the wonderful massage!


Evening is when Cabo really comes alive so we spent our last night wandering through town and taking it all in.  I so wish that I could post smells on the blog as pictures just don't do it justice.

Getting a snack


Bacon wrapped hotdogs anyone?



Those are some big tamale pots!!


Enrique is an OCP, one of the guys that talk you into doing timeshare presentations.  He recognized us on the street as we had talked with him earlier in the week.  We asked him to take us to his favorite place for street tacos.  He certainly didn't disappoint.  The al pastor tacos were the best we've ever had.  No question, we'll have to remember this place.



One of Brett's favorite things is to walk the marina, so we headed there for dessert.  A goal of mine for 2014 is to learn to make flan.  Not any old flan, but amazing flan.  Brett loves flan.  And he has eaten a LOT of it.  I don't know why I never thought about making it.  From scratch that is.  I've made it from the Jell-O box, but I don't think that counts.

Sights from our stroll around the marina.