Febrero 20, 2013-Well this morning we left Rancho Verde for Los Cabos and lands end as far as Baja is concerned. The group will be eager to set out this morning after a very restful afternoon in the tranquil surroundings of Rancho Verde, one of our favourite spots indeed. This has been a very busy past few days since I blogged last. When we arrived it was like old home week. Our friends Bob & Melanie were already at Villa Serena with there Escapee group, great to see them on Baja again, they were with us on our first tryout RV Caravan when we were considering running the operation. Bill & Heidi from January were also there to greet us as were Fred & Rita our friends that operate RC Caravan tour for Seabridge Tours out of Germany. It was also great to see Vanda Monkman, she has returned to Baja after Barry passed away a couple of years ago after completing their last tour with Baja & Back in 2011.
Our stay in Loreto which included a trip to the Mission San Javier was a real treat, not just for those seeing it for the first time but for myself and the Van, yes the pavement is now complete right to the gates of San Javier, words cannot express how happy I am to see this.
However it does change the experience somewhat, oh well, I will live with it! Ubaldo at the Giggling Dolphin did a great job for our Baja Fiesta night dinner, great food and service, and Martin & Miguel did not disappoint, they really entertained us with their great selection of Mexican melodies.
Next up was our stop in Ciudad Constitucion at Palapa 206, how fortunate we were to have a pickup loaded with oranges pull up just as we having our body break on route. 6 pesos for regular oranges per kilo, 10 pesos for mandarins’, what a deal, just picked that day! After a shop at Super Ley we arrived at the RV Park and Mike and Nigel were there to greet us.
Nigel had his new Baja Buggy ready to go and after setting up and a cold beverage (32C or 88F), I took the first ride his the new model. Nigel’s driving skills are better than ever and the car is much faster than before. Many other also went for a ride with Nigel who will turn 13 in October.
The next day we headed off to Playa Tecolote and spent some serious beach time hanging out and having fun. Lots of excitement as well as we watched the Police take down some bad guys on the beach who thought they were just going to have a few beers and ended up in the crowbar hotel. Darryl also put his truck to work pulling out some locals young folks who sank their SUV up to the axles in the sand after a day on the beach, definitely entertaining watching them try without assistance. We had the best day you can imagine for Tecolote, little wind and warm temperatures; everyone spent time in the water, swimming, kayaking, hiking, paddle boarding or just plain floating. We capped off the day with a great Pot Luck!
Did you know?
After our tour of El Triunfo we drove thru the village of San Antonio, which had been the capital of Baja for 2 years after Loreto got hammered by a hurricane over 200 years ago San Antonio is now the site of the Paredones Amarillos, a gold mine which is being operated by Echo Bay Company, a subsidiary of the Canadian mining conglomerate Vista Gold (Argonaut Gold Inc. (TSX: AR). As I understand it the Spanish mining enterprise Concordia is also involved in the effort. This project has a lot of support within the Ejido of San Antonio which stand to become multi-millionaires with the sale of their land and of course the prospect of investment and hundreds, perhaps thousands of jobs in the region is very attractive to many. However another partner, Pediment Gold wants to use water mixed with cyanide as a means of extracting gold from ore through a dissolving process. As you can imagine this has been a very controversial project in the region particularly with Expats in Todos Santos, particularly since much of the land sits in a national ecological reserve.
