Day 29 San Luis Gonzaga to San Felipe

We rose with the sun, ready for another day of adventure. I walked the dogs down the beach and saw an older man and his wife fishing. They saw me and waved. Janice made breakfast and cooked up the meat I thought was thick bacon when we bought it at the supermercado in Lareto yesterday. It didn't have a label and we held up the line while the cashier went to get a price sticker. When she returned 10 minutes later there were at least 10 people waiting in line, including some soldiers carrying big guns. There was another security person to the side of us holding a big gun. I thought we were about to start an international incident. I joked in Spanish with the two ladies bagging our groceries "Ella es mi esposa y mi jefe". Anyway... the thick bacon wasn't really bacon. It was really fat and greasy. After trying a few bites, I cut up the rest for the dogs knowing that it was quite likely I would encounter some type of Montazumas Revenge for holding up the line.

Our campground was very primitive and we camped at the end of the beach and it felt like we had the whole ocean to ourselves so we didn't mind sharing a portion of the beach with the fisher people and didn't charge them $160 pesos. 😉 

The people who live near the camp entrance have lots of kids. Nobody speaks English but we got by using my pidgeon Spanish.

We packed up and headed out toward San Felipe, 2 hours away. Hwy 5, is a fairly new paved road and compared to the long stretch of Hwy 1 north of Guerrero Negro that the Mexican Airforce uses as a bombing range, this road was marveloso. I put on the cruise control and put my feet on the dashboard, safely guiding the motorhome with my left pinky finger.

Hwy 5 coming into San Felipe has a lot of campgrounds and beach communities with land for sale signs aimed to attract Gringos who want to escape here from the U.S. People drive too fast and it feels like it caters to Gringos. While we are white, Americans, I don't consider us to be Gringos being in Baja for a month. To me, a Gringo is the prototypical "ugly American" inconsiderate, stressed, impatient, with a sense of entitlement, with no desire to learn about and from the people of the country. 

We found a campground where we could camp on the beach. We took the end spot so we wouldn't have anyone on one side. A Mexican family took the spot on the otherside. They appear to be having a quincenera as they have 5-6 teenage girls. They put up two tents and the Dad seemed to struggle with getting the tent assembled while the Mom and the girls talked very rapidly in Spanish and I don't think they were giving him a pep talk. Janice resisted the urge to go and help as she was concerned it would damage his machismo.

We discovered that the San Felipe Brewing Company had craft beer so we hopped in the Honda in pursuit of the liquid gold (IPA) that is really hard to find in Baja. We arrived around 4 pm just as they were doing trivia. About 30 patrons were there with at least 12 dogs. People really liked seeing our Boys. Almost everyone there, including the owner, were Americans. They called out the questions in English. We ordered a couple IPA's and ordered some food. We joined the competition as the "Airheads" and won or tied every round but finished second to last because we got zero points on the first round. 

We returned home and sat outside enjoying the sunset, listening to Mexican music playing quietly around us while our neighbors grilled out. Another Dad type joined the neighbor Dad and they stood next to the grill discussing that the women to men ratio in their camp was 10/2 and that the Dad's would be sleeping in the small compact car. I felt guilty and more than a little gringoish as we sat under the awning next to our motorhome.

 

I walked over and told one of the women "Puedes usar usar nuestra palapa y mesa de picnic. No la usaremos." (You can use our palapa and picnic table. We aren't using it.) She smiled and  said "muchas gracias". Later the two Dad's pirated the grate from the grill next to our palapa. The girls like our dogs and smile and return our waves. We moved inside and played Rumicube while listening to the Bruno Mars channel on Pandora. Our neighbors quietly partied outside. We still felt a little gringoey but think our neighbors think we are nice Gringos with potential and that they were impressed with our singing ability as we joined Bruno on a couple songs. At least the don't know we totally botched some lyrics.