A Hard Day at the Office

Ah yes, another hard day at the office. . .our word for the beach. This area of the Baja is notorious for it's wind - in fact they had their big kiteboarding festival this past weekend, so when by 10:30am today the wind hadn't started gusting yet, we figured that today would be a "beach day". Kim and Brian had discovered a great beach about 30 minutes up the road (we will get to that in a minute) and we decided to pack up the wagon and head on up there. Now the road - every time we travel on the gravel roads here, I know that Brian is just itching to take a grader to it. We did one road yesterday that was 30 km of wash board. Some of these roads make the Demspter Highway look like a small piece of driving paradise! To get into Los Barilles, we have to cross 2 arroyos (big flood ways) at which point the pavement and 2 lanes end and the sand/dirt road that quickly expands into a 3 1/2 lanes begin. It is always a crap shoot as to where people are going to be driving - one would think that it would be fairly standard - stay to the left, but nothing is normal down here :-)

Today after about 20 minutes of large rock ridden, narrow winding road, we landed on a gorgeous beach with not a soul on it. We unloaded our crap (we travel with a lot of stuff - chairs, umbrella, cooler, towels, snorkel gear, etc.) we all planted our asses in the sand for an afternoon of work. And by work I mean, 20 minutes on the front, flip and 20 minutes on the back, followed by some water time and possibly a walk. Or in my case, putting my chair at the waters edge and reading my book.

On this trip we have instituted a new way of decision making that seems to be working fairly well, however Kim hasn't gone yet and that is that each day a person is responsible for making the decisions on where we go, what we eat and if we hot tub or not. Yesterday was my turn - we went to the beach in La Ribera, I made chicken soft tacos for supper and we hot tubbed. Today was Brian's turn and we went to the beach, I made bass with tequila, garlic and pepper with a nectarine salsa and we hot tubbed. Tomorrow is Kim's day to decide. We have already agreed that there will be a time limit on decisions or we could be at home all day before she decides. One thing to note is that in exchange for lodgings, I have offered to cook. :-)

We are almost at a full moon which is making for some spectacular evenings in the hot tub. Also being out in Cabo, we get amazing views of the stars. Now my friend JB, I am sure your star vistas are a bit better being in the desert and all, but coming from Calgary and all the light pollution, it is great to be able to see all of the stars nice and bright. I marvel at them every night before I got to sleep.

Oh - one last thing - it truly is a small world. Brian has NWT plates on the jeep, so this guy wandered up while we were sitting there. I had my iPod on when he introduced himself and when I got the sense that the conversation was going to go on for a while, I turned over and took off my iPod. Lo and behold, it was Gord Rozon - a consultant that I had worked with about 6 years ago up in the Mackenzie when I was working in the Beaufort. Him and his wife have a place just south of the beach that we were visiting. I think he has the right idea - semi-retired, able to work from there with the odd trip thrown in to places like Asia. . .sounds like a plan to me!