March 1, 2015 - Playa Santispac

We went to check out a few of the other camping beaches near Santispac this morning on the scooter. Los Cocos, 3 km south of here, has a much smaller bay, but was pretty. We snorkeled at Playa La Burra ten years ago, but now most of the sites had full-time palapas and it didn’t look like there were any “short-timers” like us there.

We continued to Playa El Coyote, 7 km south of Santispac because our guide book says there is a trail leading to a hot spring near the water’s edge. The road leading to the south end of the camping area had a rock garden with a sign encouraging people to add their sculptures, so I did.

Some of the rock cairns were quite elaborate – check out the one made into an arch!

El Coyote has a long, easy walkable beach, and lots of folks that come for the winter season. We chatted with several people and found out that the hot springs is really only accessible by swimming to it, and it has been taken over by the seagulls and is really dirty. We passed going out to it!

They also invited us to join in their Sunday morning swim to one of the islands. We watched everyone assemble and there were more in the “support” crews than swimmers. Eight swimmers donned wet suits and fins while more than a dozen folks got in their kayaks, motor boats, sailboats, and SUPS to cheer them along! It was quite an event – one fellow blew a conch shell to gather everyone and did a little start your races type bugle, and they were off! Most of the swimmers were back-floating and everyone looked like they were having fun. That is one of the benefits of staying at one place for a long time – you really get a good sense of community.



Back at Santispac, our friends Marla and Andrew pulled in this afternoon! It was fun to see them again.

Later, Tobey and I walked the beach both directions. When we reached the east end of the beach, we passed by a permanent housing compound and came to another camping area that faces the Bahia Concepcion. There were three campers there and they had a nice view of the islands, but the beach was quite rocky.

Looking westward back at Playa Santispac in the picture below you could see it was low tide.

We spotted this egret in the hills along the eastern shore.

There were nine boats anchored in the bay today and two of them looked like this one below. They reminded us of some kind of fishing boat, or maybe a retired military vessel. It sports a Canadian flag.

Our guide book also says that at Playa Santispac, “a short walk to the west of the main beach, a trail along the base of the highway, will bring you to a natural hot spring.” We found it this afternoon, and it was hot, however … it was not exactly what we had envisioned! The water was only about a foot deep and the bottom was muddy. Not a good day for hot springs!

This evening we went to Armando’s Restaurant on the beach. They advertised they were having a pig roast tonight, followed by live music. We arrive about 4:45 and found a table. Many of them were reserved – even though we were told we didn’t need a reservation. Another couple was looking for a spot, so we asked them to join us since we had a table for 4. They were from Minnesota and it was fun chatting with them.

The restaurant made an announcement that they had reservations for 90 people and there were more than 150 here, so we weren’t sure we would get food. We were persistent and did get fed! It was $140 pesos per person ($10 USD) for the BBQ pork, potato salad, frijoles, and garlic bread. The meat and BBQ sauce were really good and we had plenty to eat.

We stuck around for a while to listen to the band, Fast Eddy and the Slow Learners. They were pretty good – played lots of music from the 60s, 70s and a little 80s. Lots of people were dancing and everyone seemed to be having fun. Even back at the RV we could hear the music for quite a while. Another good day!
RV CAMPING – CALIFORNIA BAJA SUR