Thursday April 3rd
Waking up to our dog scratching his ears uncontrollably isn't the best way to start the morning. The past few days, Luca, the big Pit Bull, had developed a case of something in his ears that he wasn't too fond of.
Lindsey had told us about a local veterinarian that they had used and trusted, so we called her for directions and drove the dogs downtown to see if we could get him fixed up.
I thought that since his ears are big, and always drooped over, keeping them taped up might allow some air to circulate in there and dry up the moisture. I put some cloth tape from our First Aid Kit on his ears, pinning them together, which he seemed to love. He stopped scratching them and was as happy as could be.
But this didn't cure it 100%, and there is no need in making him suffer, so the vet would give us the details on what we needed to do. Hopefully this wouldn't break the bank with the cost of the vet's charges.
About an hour in the vet's office, he had taken a sample of the ear canal and looked at it under the microscope, which ruled out ear mites. He told us it was probably just a Yeast Infection in the dogs ear canal, which he said is very common with some dogs, and can be caused by their food.
He gave us some drops and said if it doesn't go away, try switching his food and taking him back to a vet once we get back to the United States. We've had issues with him in the past and I knew this could be a very expensive ordeal to get it cleared up.
Side Note: Since then, we've found that switching to a Organic food that doesnt have any fillers, especially corn, he's yet to have ear problems again.
When I went to the counter to pay the bill, it said $300! I thought "
Oh Man, these dogs are killing me!" But the woman said "
300 Pesos"
That's only $30 American, which included the prescription medication. Not nearly as bad as I had expected, and I thought, man, I should have the doctor look me over while we're here.
We said goodbye to Lindsey who had met us at the office so I could give her a CD with some images on it, and left for Todos Santos. We figured driving through Cabo, with the 200 t-shirt shops and all the cruise ships in port was about enough as we needed of this big city.
Before we left, we stopped at the first Wal-Mart we had seen south of Ensenada. Our cupboards were looking mighty bare, and we thought we might as well stock back up for the next month heading back up the Peninsula.
Once on the road North, we were both happy to see almost no traffic going our way, and everything headed towards the hustle and bustle we always try and avoid.
It only takes a few minutes of driving North along HWY 19 before you're back into barren mountain sides lined with thick cactus forests. With the big Pacific Ocean on our left side, we were having trouble keeping our eyes on the road because of the beautiful views along the coastline.
Todos Santos is only 50 miles North of Cabo, but might as well be on a different planet for the diversity between the two cities. This little art community is almost all American ex-patriots who were in search of a simpler life and chose this little seaside village in Southern Baja.
You might recognize Todos Santos from the legendary Hotel California the Eagles made so famous. You know the one that you can never leave...I guess it's a major tourist attraction now and people take tour busses up from Cabo to come see it.[/COLOR] But Don Henley of the Eagles denies that this was the hotel he wrote the song about.
There is only one campground in the town, and when we pulled in, Cindy said aloud "
I'll tell you right now, if it means driving at night in Baja, I'd rather risk it than stay here."
The Camp Host came out to greet us, and over the multiple barking dogs chained up in the place, the first thing she asked was "
Are your dogs nice?"
Cindy said "
Yep, and they don't bark either!"
The woman said, "
Good, because those damn dogs never shut up!"
We asked if there was anywhere to camp along the beach, as Todos Santos is about a mile inland and the temperatures were really hot when you got away from the ocean breeze. She told us about Playa Los Cerritos which was about 7 miles back down the road. But warned us that the surf can be very dangerous, they've been know to run people off and we might get stuck in the sand.....and it's dry camping. Sounds like our kinda place!
We said, "
We'll give it a try", and whipped around heading for the beach.
Between Mile Marker 64 and 65, we found a graded dirt road with only a small sign for
Los Cerritos Beach Club & Surf. We figured that had to be some kind of joke, since why would there be a beach club out here in the middle of no where that was only advertised with a small hand painted sign on the side of the road.
But after a few miles of bumpy washboard dirt road, we pulled up to a beautiful beachfront tiki bar, overlooking some amazingly huge surf pounding the secluded shoreline.
There were cars everywhere, surfers playing in the water, some tents set-up on the beach and a few motorhomes who had found this secret surf spot along the beach. I walked up to the bartender asking if there were any rules to camping along the beach? He just said "
As long as you don't set-up your camp right in front of the bar, you can camp anywhere you want."
Now most of the places we've run into on the Baja, are pretty laid back, but this brought me back to my days of working as a cabana boy on the beach in South Florida.
Cerritos Beach Club has luxury beach chairs, tables and umbrellas set up in front of the tiki bar. On top of that, they have a few servers, good looking ones that Cindy was already eyeing, who were serving drinks, lunch or anything else you might request right to you on the beach. I think we found home for the next few days!
It was amazing how calm the waters were on the Sea of Cortez side just a few days ago, but here on the Pacific side, we were watching 6-8 foot waves pounding the shore. Surfers were everywhere enjoying the constant supply of rollers coming in, and to sit and watch them through a camera lens, was just as much fun for me as it was for them to get pounded by Mother Natures awesome tides.
When Cindy and I were walking up to the beach, a young guy asked us about our camper, the usual, "
Is that a rental?"
We got to talking with Brad, an American who actually worked here at the bar who told us some info about the place.
Cerritos Beach Club is going to be a top notch resort area when it's finally finished. Right now they are just in the developing stages, but the bar is as First Class as I've seen here in the Baja. Phenomenal service, very reasonable prices and just the right amount of Americanism to make you feel at home, but still let you know you're in Baja.
I liked the big plasma screens showing the American Speed Channel over the bar, the tables on the beach with propane fireplaces in the center, and the beach rentals which included surfboards, boogie boards and jet skis if you were brave enough to take your chances with the pounding surf.
Brad even said they rented Lap Tops by the hour if you needed to catch up on some emails while at the beach relaxing. Now, I've seen internet cafes, but never the rental of the lap top itself and especially not on the beach with a salty margarita to go along with it. This is as top notch as they come!
I think we sat talking with Brad till the sun set and most of the surfers had retired to their tents along the beach. As the night air got a bit cooler, one of the waiters brought out nice thick Mexican Woven Blankets for us to cover up in while sitting out on the beach. Does it get any better than this?
When we camped along Playa Santispac, we were lulled to sleep each night with the comfortable sounds of the calm ocean water lapping at the sandy shore. Tonight we sat listening to the surf booming as it struck the shoreline like thunderstorms off in the distance. The cool breeze blowing off the Pacific Ocean had us fighting over the blankets, but surely not complaining for the perfect sleeping weather.
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