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Blue skies, white sands, colorful Mexican sales stuff softly sold by beach boys and girls to a few hundreds of Americans thus gringos, some tens of Canadians, and a handful of Mexicans who can afford vacationing on Baja’s southernmost Land’s End.
Add a few beautiful rocks standing out the Pacific Ocean, hang a few parasailers, pelicans and frigate birds in the sky, throw in a nice natural bridge on the back of Playa de Amor and Playa de Divorce, put a few Mexican sailors in a dozen boats to bring those wealthy tourists for a fistful of dollars snorkeling or diving among the sea lions and more exotic subtropical fish, a mere hundred meters from nice hotels annex bars annex restaurants with loud musica and good food, and don’t forget a temperature of 30 degrees Celsius, where already soon in the afternoon and every night the young and the rich start partying: this must be Cabo San Juan.
This is not to our liking and hence we move to the (still) quiet little town of San Jose del Cabo where the new marina is taking shape. Another hotspot for the happy few. Houses between Todos Santos and San Jose start around 1 million and end upwards of 25 million dollars, and for those who have some pennies left for a superyacht, preferably with pool, jacuzzi and why not a private helicopter onboard, this marina will be their Monaco. Talking of small money, indeed! Those with a small or big or very superamerican campingcar are not really welcome here, even not when you trail a boat or quad or golfcart around: campinggrounds are no longer to be found here, being sacrificed to the god of greed ( a bit turned down cause of the economic crisis: when it rains in the USA it storms in the Mexican economy).
You read this 2 weeks later : we finally got a decent campground with wifi. It is already close to Eastern, and thus here THE party and holidayweek ‘semana santa’. From the deep south (1750km from Tijuana and the real world) we gradually rounded the southeast, having spotted a marvelous bay where we stood 3 nights on an (almost) private beach with the silence of mother nature around us, including cacti, tropical fish, conchas and white sand part of NaturePark Campo Pulmo, at Playa EL Arboleto. But again, don’t walk 10 meters or you are on private land, ready for more millionaires, including wealthy Mexicanos (1 or 2 percent of the population can afford Hummers, yachts, villas, pools, or dolce far niente, even when not yet retired)!
In nearly 3 weeks we discovered semi-desert, volcano-landscapes, nice bays, 1 good road north-south and some gravel and worse ‘roads’, a few vacas and cabras amongst quivertrees and cacti, unfortunately no grey nor blue whales and no tequila (yet), but also some real capucinos and … mission-churches (after Cortes ‘discovered’ the Californias around 1525, and after his soldiers got rid of most Indians, Jesuits and later Dominicans have been quite busy here ruining the remaining Indian culture and people, also thanks to the free import of European diseases- at the same time forcing the remaining (already mixed blood) to construct nice churches every 200km till deep in Arizona), and find the Baja Californians quite nice, friendly and … catholic: even before the Holy Week churches were full, even in the 3rd or 4th mass of the Sunday. Good for the Pope. At the same time the agreeable Spanish ‘rambla’-like paseo has – at least at the richer towns- been supplemented by a loud showing off of hotcars, quads and pickups blasting out their favorite music and trying to impress local beauties and competitors: ah those machos!
The military controls/checkpoints gave same mixed feeling as in Sri Lanka, except that here it is for drugs and (still) no revolution/uproar (elections in July though). Both Hillary 1 week ago and Obama in 2 weeks from now when visiting Mexico promised more help: electronic surveillance by drones, military assistance, and thus also giving more Americans the all-is-OK-feeling for tourism to revive and drugs import to be weakened.
The first close encounter with the Mexican police just 1km after the border pursuing us and with loud sirens making us pullover, first seeking to give us 2 fines (1 for speeding and 1 for not having stopped at an unseen ALTO-sign) finally ended up friendly showing us the way to Immigracion for our Tourist cards, then even more friendly chasing an unfortunate US car who happened to be doubling in line for the border back into his homeland: he surely got 1 fine, we escaped without 1 peso fine!
The latino temperament, weather, food etc we like, and a good thing, too cause starting September we’ll be amidst them for nearly 3 years driving all the way down to Ushuaia.
But first now again upnorth, since our insurance and car can still remain till 1.10 in the USA and we still want to do the parks of the west, and the parks of NW Canada.
Next mail form the USA, bye bye
10-04-2009 om 20:24
geschreven door lucas
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