If it is Monday it must be Mulegé

The road from Loreto to Mulege

It’s a short 85 miles from Loreto to Mulegé today. It’s a winding road through the peninsula and back to the Bay of Conception. The road hugs the shore. The beach camps are beautiful: El Requeson, Hotel and Playa Buenaventura, El Coyote, Posada Conception and Playa Santispac, where we stayed on the way down to Cabo. The water is incredibly blue and aquamarine near the shore. It calls to you, for fishing, canoeing or kayaking.  Mulegé is another desert oasis. We all lined up at the Pemex gas station and await Bill’s signal to move in. We go into the camp in groups of three to make it easier to manuever into our spaces. We are in the first group to go in and get settled quickly.

Our campground

Bill said we can walk to town and points in the general direction of the path along the river.  Some tempers flared as Bill, asked for the fourth time how to get to town, said “put one foot in front of the other.” Bill apologized and said he was joking, but senses of humor seem lacking lately. Too much togetherness perhaps?  We’ve been traveling, eating and touring together for two and a half weeks. Personality conflicts and attitudes are the downside of group travel. It’s bad enough if you travel like this with friends, but with total strangers it seems worse. This is probably the main reason we would not caravan again, too much togetherness, with too many personalities (ours included.)

The river in Mulege

We followed the river into town and admired some of the houses and fancy Palapas (outdoor, thatched, open-air rooms) along the way. There are also the ever present, half-built places and some still destroyed from a hurricane the year before. We were told our campground was under three feet of water. The bakery was destroyed and is still not open.  We poked around the shops, had a nice Mexican meal at Hotel Las Casitas, enjoyed some ice cream, picked up some groceries and walked back to camp. After dinner we had some beers with a few fellow travelers and chat with the son of the campground’s owner.

Downtown Mulege

Hotel las Casitas

Day two is a free day. We had biscuits and gravy with the group for breakfast (fortunately I did not bring a scale with me) then we drove into town and attempted to find the road up the other side of the river that goes to the beach. We drove up and down narrow dirt roads. Some were two way, but so narrow we hoped we wouldn’t run into another car, since there was only room for one.  We went in circles and finally gave up, parked and wandered around town some more. We stopped at the “Americano” bar for lunch. This is the Baja’s  fourth largest city and a mecca for many retired American’s looking for a low-cost place to live. While the locale is pretty, and the weather is first rate, basic amenities like electricity and running water are scarce. Our RV had better facilities than some of the houses we saw.

Bahia de Concepcion, Beach camping