This story makes up the fourth and final part out of a series of four about my trip to Hawaii and Baja, Mexico

After a night in LA, we were keen on having some cheap tacos and a Corona. A two and a half hour flight took us all the way to the southern tip of the Baja peninsula. I couldn’t help but think about how the passengers on that plane were happily going to spend their dollars on the other side of the wall and how I felt that was a little hypocrite. But well, I was flying in an air plane and I preach to be an environmentalist, I’m sure lots of people would call that hypocrisy as well.

Anyways, it took a while to get through customs and we still had to pick up our car and drive to Cerritos, about two hours away. We had booked the car online two weeks before. Booking turned out to be a real headache. The rentals weren’t cheap and the bad reviews were plentiful. In the end we played it safe and payed some more for a well-insured car. Whether this was the right choice remained to be seen. The rear seat of our car folded down and the boards could fit in without having to fold down the passenger seat. So far so good. We drove off into the dry lands of Baja California Sur and picked up some cash and food along the way.

Cerritos is a tiny coastal town. Claire and Alan recommended it to us, as there was decent surf and not too many crowds. The town of Todos Santos would offer some good coffee places too and was only a fifteen minute drive away. We arrived at our Airbnb just after sunset. I had heard bad stories of driving at night, so I was pretty pleased to jump into bed. We woke up to the chill vibes of Mexico. Very little wind, some birds and some cacti. The beach was a ten minute walk away down a dusty road. Just like all roads in Baja btw. Most days were overcast, but we were told it only rains a few times a year. I usually don’t like dry and hot places, but Baja had something to it that I really liked from the start. A certain moodiness and tranquility at the same time.

We gave ourselves a few days to get used to the place. The waves were small, but still pretty punchy. The beachbreak had lefts and rights and the potential for a righthand pointbreak as well. We never really saw it work unfortunately. We had booked our Airbnb for three nights and as those drew to an end, we were looking for a place to stay one more night in Cerritos. The cheapest option was a little hut on stilts. On arrival, there was no one there, so we went for a surf to come back later. That evening, our two hosts were in the kitchen. It took a minute for us all to connect, but after that minute we became instant friends. I had the best sleep that night of the whole trip in my little hut.
As we were enjoying the slow life with low costs of living, we made plans for our whale shark trip.

The Gulf of California is home to many different spieces of sealife. It’s referred to as the aquarium of the world. Blue whales, gray whales, humpback whales and whale sharks can all be found here. We booked a trip in La Paz, with the most eco friendly tour we could find. The drive to La Paz took us about three hours through super dry landscapes littered with cacti.
It was weird being in a city again. The large amount of stimili that densely populated areas throw at me make me tired. I have been feeling the same back home, where I hardly get into the big city anymore. Our Airbnb was surrounded by walls and a fence. La Paz wasn’t that big so I found my groove back pretty quickly. We had a burger at a rooftop restaurant and got back home early to get some sleep for our early morning sea trip.

We woke up to the morning sun and drove out to the harbor. We still had some time to get a coffee and some food on the corner of the street. This was the third sea tour of the trip and I had puked on the first two. Luckely the sea was calm when we set out on our 20 minute boat ride. We were joined by three others. The whale sharks we were going to see were juveniles but would still be around eight meters. They stay in the bay around La Paz until they are old enough to swim out into the Pacific Ocean. It took around ten minutes for the guide to spot the first sharks. They were pretty huge. We prepared to go in as the excitement rose. The view of this gentle giant in its natural habitat was breathtaking. To think that these were only juveniles was mindblowing. It was really hard to keep up as I was swimming with my waterhousing. The sharks didn’t seemed too bothered about us as they scooped in their daily dose of plankton. We saw different sharks, the biggest being around seven meters. One had a beat up dorsal fin, which looked nasty. It happens a lot appearently, when fisherman speed across the water, and hit the sharks with the propeller of their engine. I managed to snap a few photos. It was an experience to never forget.

Back on land, our trip was about to take a radical turn. As we set down for a coffee at Doce Cuarenta, news started coming through about the US not letting Europeans in due to the Corona virus. I had monitored the situation for the past weeks and didn’t take it that serious at first to be honest. But this was a game changer. If there were no more Europeans coming into the US, than flights would soon be cancelled due to the lack of passengers. Too much had happened the past year to risk getting stuck far away from my mom, sister and nephew. We still had ten days left in Mexico but I didn’t want to gamble. The choice was easily made, I wanted to go home. Jeroen’s situation was different obviously and I would have totally understood if he stayed in Mexico. But he agreed to book a flight back home two days later, via New York and London, back to Amsterdam.

We had already planned on a surf adventure north to Scorpion Bay. An eight hour drive through the dessert, where point breaks awaited us. But those plans had to be saved for another time. We decided to drive back to Cerritos to get some last surf sessions in. We checked in with our Mexican friends who were happy to host us again in the huts. We explored some beaches with them, made a fire and played music. They took us to the best Mexican street restaurant in town. We had a special friendship going on which calmed my mind down during a time everything seemed so uncertain. There were no signs of the virus in Mexico, everything remained as tranquilo as it ever was. But my urge to get back home grew and it was nice to surround myself with people that remained grounded.

Mexico stole my heart and I’m sure I will come back some day. The food is amazing and I was surely digging the vibes. On our way back to the Netherlands my bag got lost somewhere between Mexico and New York. I couldn’t care less, I just wanted to get home at that point. I didn’t care about the possessions in that bag, but suddenly I realised that the small jar with my fathers ashes was still in there. Appearently he wasn’t ready to quit the adventure just yet. Two weeks later, he did make it home, thanks to the efforts of a British Airways employee ♡.

Journal

Cacti & corona