After a few days boondocking, we thought it would be a good idea to regroup (this really means dump sewer, fill potable water tank and do laundry) at the Maranatha RV park just outside of La Paz. It was again, on a gravel parking lot – but they had a pool, which we used right after we parked. We had to stay here for 2 nights, because I had a work webinar for 6 hours the next day, so I needed to be stationary and have half decent wifi. We did manage to tour a bit in between chores and work and we decided that we really liked La Paz. There is a pretty good infrastructure here, that doesn’t exist at any of the other towns/cities we’ve been too yet. And they have the most amazing Malecon, that goes on for miles – 5.5 miles to be exact. We rode our bikes along the whole thing to check it out. (#Nenshi – this is a bike trail system that actually works!) Lots of historical statues and plaques describing the history about the city. Of course, we had to have a margarita to rehydrate and then went out for supper at this open air restaurant, near the marina. We both had a drink or two and a full meal and it was only 500 pesos – like $27 US. We will be going back to La Paz on a different trip for a bit more site seeing, for sure!

After a quick trip to stock up at Walmart (which was waaaayyy better than the “stinks like pee” Walmart in Mexicali) we headed out Friday morning to Tecolote National Park. I highly recommend you youtube this place, or copy this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBHrnagq34Y  or google and check out the pics of this beach, un-frickin’ believable! We had been watching videos of other full-timer RV’ers hanging out here for the past few months and were looking forward to this boondocking location. This place was completely free – it was a million $$ real estate!

Our fabulous view for 4 days!

Right beside Tecolote is another beach within 3 minutes car ride or 8 minutes bike ride called Balandra Bay – there claim to fame is the nicest beach in Baja. This place was very neat, a protected bay, that at low tide, you could basically walk the mile across the bay to the beaches on the other side. There are also cool rock formations here. We also loved this place!

Balandra Bay

Have we talked at all about how social this full-time RV boondocking lifestyle is? In Maranatha, we ran in to Ryan and Cindy (for the 3^rd time?) and met their friends Guy and Bev. In Tecolote, we found Todd & Nadine and the Nova Scotians (from Juncalito beach) and Doug, Tom & Christine (from digging us out of sand). There always seems to be a happy hour and fire pit on the beach every night. We’ve realized that everyone is on the same course, you may bump off track for a bit, but end up in the same places – this is what is super cool about Baja!

We had a knock on Ruby’s back end, bright and early at 7:20 the next morning. Carol from Vancouver had a crisis! Her friend Felix was deathly sick all night and was too sick to drive his Class A RV to La Paz to go to the hospital – could we drive the RV for him? Todd got into the driver seat of the Seabreeze motorhome by 8 am and I followed behind in the honda. We got him to the hospital safely and he reported back in two days later that he was ok – he had full vertigo as a side effect of food poisoning. We ran in to them by accident back at Balandra Bay 2 days later and he was looking great! Thanks so much for the card and coffee Felix and Carol!

On the way back to Tecolote from Felix’s emergency ambulancing/hospital trip, we stopped on the side of the road, outside of La Paz, to cut down wood for the Saturday night fire pit, which was a planned (Facebook) Overlander party. There were a helluva lot of RV’s and old VW vans pulled in and setup for the event.

Saturday night, we met a shitload of new people – Josiah from San Fran (event organizer), Robert & his wife from Mississippi, Meg & Nick from New York, 36 & 28 (we forgot their names) from Seattle. There were at least 20 more people we met, but the ones we list are the ones we think are cool!  Sorry to Danny and Tina (AKA 36 & 28) for forgetting your names (due to Tequila consumption!) on Saturday – we really think you are cool and hope to meet up with you again, sometime soon! By Monday afternoon, all Overlander peoples were gone, and we were left with about 10 other random RV’r’s and THE BEST weather/tide/beach day watching pelicans eat fish at Tecolote! OMG – check this out: Tecolete beach

We feel so incredibly blessed to visit this part of the amazing world, meet the people we have met, share life stories and experiences with them, the Mexican culture and all they have to offer. How did we not know this was a thing? Why have we not done this before?!

Life so easily consumes us in North America (and probably other places, but i can only speak for Canada/US), about chasing materialism and having the best of everything, but life is passing us by without really experiencing it. I’m so thankful that Todd started the conversation about downsizing and minimalizing, and now that were living, we can’t imagine going back!

living the dream!

I want to give a shout out for the resources we have been using to plan our itinerary (which is mostly by the seat of our pants!). First, word of mouth (by everyone we’ve met). The Travelers Guide to Camping Mexico’s Baja by Mike & Terri Church is the camping BIBLE – many people use this book. The Campendium APP and the IOverlander App – between the 4 of these resources, we’ve made all our decisions and highly recommend them all!