Playa Cerritos, Todos Santos
We return to LaPaz for a few hours of shopping before heading back towards the pacific.
Many items have slowly been adding to our list of needs, ideas and luxuries over the last few weeks of mostly off the grid camping. We check several items off the list and move others to the top for another day, and then tackle the typical fresh items (water, tortillas, fish and steak), have another unspeakably good fish taco-before departing for Todos Santos and the pacific. We have heard a lot about this artsy town and are excited to see it for ourselves. 75 km later, driving through town proves that everything we've read is true. Lots of galleries and shops, and while it clearly caters to the gringos the town has withheld much of its mexican charm. The streets are still rough and the architecture is gorgeous- rough laid brick and mortar mixed with stucco and thatch roofs. We will definitely come back to explore further but its getting late and we need to find a place to camp before dark (there's the rule to think about after all).
We pass through town and go a few km down the road, then pull off towards a hotel we've read about hoping it might allow camping. No camping here, but the hotel is chill and swanky and we can't help but snap a few photos while looking out over the grounds. They offer us a beer, but when we hear the gringo resort prices we decide to keep going. Even a zen bar with a view just isn't worth the few extra dollars when we can have one from the view of the beach outside our doors at a fraction of the price later on. On the way out we see an employee about to walk back to town so we offer him a lift and learn bit about the area en route. He apparently camps every year with a large group of surfers from canada and the states who convene on a local beach and stay through the winter. We are thinking this might be a good group to meet up with, and decide to seek out that beach in the morning. We also decide to meet up with him for a beer and ceviche on his day off later this week.
Back to the highway, we drop off our passenger, and 2km further south is playa cerritos- which we have only heard good things about in terms of both beach and surf. We turn towards the ocean, navigate the dirt road and finally pull into the parking lot of a restaurant overlooking the bay. What should we see (in addition to a beautiful beach and ocean) but waves. Big, beautiful, barreling waves that are setting up nicely and begging for us to ride them to shore. We first check in at the restaurant to see if we can camp anywhere nearby (of course, the answer is "right outside") and then unstrap the boards and hit the water.
3.5 weeks into baja and the boards come off the rack for the first time. Didn't see that coming, but we were certainly happy to finally put a few hours on them and it isn't a horrible way to watch a sunset. The waves were big and powerful. It also doesn't hurt that the sunset here is amazing- changing colors as it drops behind a coral cliff and the giant spanish style hacienda the sits atop it. We clearly still have some work to do in getting used to riding the shorter boards, but had a great session, and exhausted return to the bus to sleep in the empty dirt lot. Were it not for the noise of the generator (and the lack of access to any baños) we picture staying here a long long time.
