Playa Santispac, Bahia Concepcion
Playa Santispac (and the little palapa we have called our own) may just be home for a while…We pull up next to the palapa with the most shade and go directly for the water to cool off after another long day of driving. we notice that the beach also has a few other people…and wonder if we might actually have run into some other travelers. The bicyclists to our right packed up and took off before we got out of the water and could introduce ourselves, but the trailer to our left turns out to be our first neighbor!
John is from FL, has been on this very beach for at least 6weeks and assures us its the best place in the region. Based upon our first hour we couldn't possibly argue with him. As it turns out, John happens to also be a sailor, ex bus-owner and mechanic, lifelong traveller and scuba dive instructor. We have plenty to chat about, and enjoy happy hour under the palapa while learning of John's plans to lease a little piece of property on the other end of the beach and settle permanently.
Later in the evening we get another set of neighbors as their tire goes flat just at the entrance to the beach and John hurries out to help them with tools and a cold beer. Im thinking if you were to break down in a foreign country this guy has to be one of the best possible people you could break down beside… The couple decides to stop for the night and join John for dinner. They are french, but he lives in SanFran and she in Quebec so we talk about their trip and make some recommendations as they head north. They lit up when Jen mentioned her days at Salomon and having been to Annecy, their home town. Hopefully we will see them again as they return south to Cabo.
Our evening is absolutely perfect. The water is bathwater warm and calm, the beach is soft and sandy and the breeze cools us off nicely. We have dinner watching the sunset and even have a moonlit revival of the old con ropas/sin ropes discussion from our wedding…
We wake up in the middle of the night to a light show of lighting over one of the islands and again when the storm is upon us, shaking and rattling the bus. It didn't bring much in the way of rain but did cool off the hot night air and make sleeping the rest of the night slightly more comfortable.
Our second day here brought more of the same…relaxing on the beach and dipping in to cool off a few times an hour, saying goodbye to our french neighbors, more conversation with John and watching another storm roll in and then hit us dead on. The storm was ferocious and felt like a 20 minute hurricane before returning to peaceful bliss. The frigates lined up by the hundreds facing into the wind…I'm assuming they're waiting on bugs get blown their way by the gusting wind. Pretty cool.
Our daily meals are made even better by a local salsa we picked up in our last stop that is crazy hot and jen swears is "life-changing". I think it also might have something to do with sunrises and sunsets... We have occasional visitors from locals selling wares from jewelry and clothing to fresh water and boat rides (clearly we are getting closer to tourist-baja). Seems like staying here might mean we actually never have to leave (except to update the blog), and we told one of the vendors that our only needs are another bottle of tequila and a cigar... so that we are ready for the new Reddy-Carpenter baby celebration.
He assures us he will keep an eye out for both- and we wait, wondering if Brent and Dee are new parents again yet…and wondering how we make our daily life look a little something more like this.
