Day 52. Mexico 2022. Todos Santos

My time is growing short, and although I am relishing going back to my home in Alta California, I am also thinking that I have to make a vivid memory of my time in the Baja California. Let me start by finding a suitable boat to go sailing out in the bay.

I went down to the marina and greatly admired the huge boats there, wondering who has the kind of money that it takes to keep up such behemoths. I am of course looking for something touristy, but I want to at least promise me that they unfurl the sail and not just motor around (as Kerstin would colorfully express it “those &^%$ who don’t know how to sail”). I finally settled on a 4-hour afternoon trip for tomorrow Tuesday. No sooner had I closed the deal than Baja Life Boutique Hotel called me to tell me that they had found a catamaran trip for Wednesday, so I also signed up for that one. Finally, I have signed up for a snorkeling trip in La Paz for Thursday, so I am now content that I will get to wet my toes properly in the Sea of Cortés.

The Pacific, on the other hand, is still an open question. To see if I could remedy that embarrassing situation I headed north along the west coast of Baja to visit the pueblo mágico de Todos Santos. Uptown is located on a bluff overlooking the coastal plain, and its main call to fame is the presence of the legendary Hotel California, and old style hacienda where the inner courtyard has been developed into a beautiful and luxuriant subtropical paradise. It was too early in the day to crash the bar, so instead I looked at the craft stores (the second call to fame of the town are its myriad craft stores), which got from quitchy to frightfully expensive.

Once you come down from uptown you get lost in a rabbit warren of super-trendy beach homes that turned me green with envy, but which eventually delivered me to the beach. It is a coarse-sand beach, with a very steep profile, so as you approach it there is a small half-meter high drop, and then a narrow 40 degree swash zone, where the breakers quickly dissipate their energy. They looked like very healthy breakers, and because of the steepness of the beach they looked like I could almost touch them (not good for surfing because their run was too short). I studied the pattern for a couple of minutes, and finally took off my sandals and left them on the upper beach, stepped down the small sand cliff, and worked my way down the beach. The surf seemed to have lost its energy, because I had to venture farther and farther down the slope just to keep my toes wet when … you know what is coming, don’t you? … a big swell approached and I, an experienced physical oceanographer, quickly retreated back to the cliff … and was swamped by that one-in-twenty breaker that went over the sand cliff and almost snatched my sandals! I was wet all the way to my belly button, but now I can brag that I survived the Pacific breakers!