Inching along Bahia Concepcion

We are at Playa Santispac on Bahia Concepcion (map), just 13 miles up the road from our last stop at Playa Buenaventura.  We were scheduled to be in Mulege last night, at the Villa Maria RV Park.  However, folks who ventured into Mulege Monday reported that the park was barely recovered from the hurricane, which sent a 20 foot wall of water crashing through it.  On top of that, we were already signed up for an optional dinner right here on Playa Santispac, meaning we'd have to bum a ride right back here for dinner.

So we opted to spend last night here instead, and catch up to the group today in Mulege.  Four other rigs made the same decision, and we arrived here in a mini-convoy of our own yesterday afternoon, with Odyssey out in front.  The beach is operated by the local ejido (agricultural cooperative), and we paid 70 pesos each for the privilege.  We were very fortunate to find enough room right on the water to park all five rigs in a "U" configuration, creating a little private slice of beach.

At six o'clock we walked over to Ray's Palapa Restaurant, something of a local institution here.  If you don't know it's here, it's easy to miss -- it literally looks like a grass hut.  The food was excellent, though, and we were well entertained by Bob the DJ, assisted by his energetic wife Suzy and local line-dance instructor Herb.  Among the three of them, they managed to get most of our group of 30-odd folks up and dancing.  The dance floor, by the way, is the same shell-based sand as the rest of the beach.  Ex-pat proprietor Ray was convivial and made sure everyone had a good time.  Our group was large enough that he essentially closed the joint for our private party, although a handful of locals (by which I mean gringo snowbirds) held court at the bar.

While we ate, the wagonmaster chatted with each of us staying here at Santispac, to ask us to spend another night here.  It turns out that between our own caravan and another Fantasy caravan of nine rigs heading south on a Baja tour, the Villa Maria park is completely full.  There may be a usable space or two, but certainly not room for all five of us.  We've all agreed.  While on one hand I was looking forward to a chance to charge our batteries (the park is reported to have working  30-amp service) and perhaps dump our tanks, we have a very comfortable setup here on the beach, and Fantasy will pick up our ejido camping fees.

We do have a group dinner tonight in Mulege, so we will have to bum that ride we were hoping to avoid.  The good news is that three of the rigs here have cars, and there are enough seats for the 11 of us that are here.  We're hoping to head up an hour or two before dinner, so we can get a chance to see a bit of Mulege.

Tomorrow we will pull up stakes and head out.  The caravan is heading to Guerrero Negro tomorrow afternoon, however, we intend to make a stop in Santa Rosalia to visit Tioga and George, who arrived there yesterday.  It is yet to be determined if we will spend a night in Santa Rosalia and catch up the following day, or if we will just have a brief visit and continue to Guerrero Negro tomorrow night.