El Coyote

Scott in the midst of Cervantess Don Quixote at Requeson. Maybe, in the great scheme of things, we are on our own romantic journey and Panama is our windmill. We have got our fingers crossed that this giant will be slain, however.
Our camp spot at Playa Requeson, just south of El Coyote. Not bad for $3 bucks a day.
The road into El Coyote was precarious to say the least...But hey, on the bright side, it sorted out all the nancies and kept the beach solely for the dedicated. Scott maneuvered the Land Cruiser like a seasoned pro, however, and we were soon relaxing on the beach under the shade of a palapa.

Playa El Coyote is a real jewel. Located on the Cortez side of the Baja Peninsula south of the 28thparallel, its white-sand beaches, warm waters, and abundance of outdoor activities make it a legendary destination for Mexicans and foreigners. We sought it out because the Seattle-ite owner of our hotel in San Quintin tipped us off to it. I said "how much time should we spend there? Two or three days?" He leaned back into is reclining chair and gave his large belly a little breathing room, blew out a deep breath through pursed, flimsy lips spraying flecks of his bologna sandwich over the desk in front of him and responded, "Oh, two or three WEEKS." We were sold. Our camp was set up on the southern tip of the beach, somewhat distanced from the locals and their cars, which all seem to be equipped with a nice little feature that allows them to play Ranchero music at impressively high decibel levels. Fleeing the pesky flies in the morning, we stumbled across Berthas Restaurant, just up the road at Playa El Burro. A couple of ice-cold Dos Equis Lagers later (in Mexico, ice cold beer always sounds tasty, even at nine in the morning--something I’m accrediting to physiological and mental acclimation, a process that I am in no big rush to explain scientifically) and we had a snorkel set to play. While we were enjoying our beers, there was a little commotion outside. Just in front of the restaurant were a biracial team of overweight, old gringo expats and some younger, fitter Mexican dudes trying to un-beach an embayed sailboat. An English expat, our neighbor in the bar, was shirtless and looked as though he had a strong allergic reaction to dental offices, but he was also adept at telling us the story behind the sailboat. Apparently the boat, which didn’t look very seaworthy, had been bought by one of the expats now on the beach. It was purchased exactly in the position it was in when we first laid eyes on it, stranded on the beach. Despite its theoretical ownership, locals tired of the eyesore encouraged the local dive-master Mick, also from England, to take it out and sink it. Once it was at the bottom of the sea, it would create a man made reef in which to explore while diving. The Mexicans were now taking order from the gringos and began to try and push the sailboat of the beach while the gringos themselves plopped down on their rears in a motorboat and tried to tow the bow off simultaneously. I leaned over to Scott sitting next to me as the motorboat began waving back and forth at about 6000 rpms, "This is a futile effort if there ever was one." But just as I had finished my sentence, lo and behold a miracle occurred, and the beached sailboat began to drift out to sea. I had no hat on my head at the time, which was lucky because I was not very hungry.

We rented some kayaks just down the beach for five bucks an hour and set off to an island located maybe half a mile out into the bay. On the other side it was said there was a beautiful, vacant white sand beach. We paddled out there and chanced upon a French-Mexican tourist with the same game plan. He was an engineer in France for an aeronautical firm, but had grown up in Mexico but attended French style schools in Mexico City. Politics and culture were easy subjects to talk about for him, and he struck me as an optimist and had a positive outlook on US and Mexican politics, unusual, I thought, considering his French heritage. Some local expats rolled in on their inflatable dinghy, and told us that this island was called Isla Perros Muertos, or Dead Dog Island, because locals brought their dead dogs out here to bury them.

That night we brought some tequila over to our neighbors at Playa El Coyote. They were not too excited about cracking open our bottle of very budget liquor, but they were quite keen to talk to some Americans, especially ones so close to them in age. From Tijuana, there was Raul, 28, and his girlfriend Lucia, a very pretty girl also from northern Baja. Then there was Hussein, Mexican but of Jordanian descent. Marcos was a local from Santa Rosalia but had studied in Vancouver B.C., and by the time we showed up had already drank a sufficient amount of booze to perform a little dance in front of the fire for us. His style lie somewhere between the robot and swing dance, but it was pure entertainment. Raul grilled up some delicious fresh shrimp tacos for us, and told us about his time studying in Montana. White noise included a soothing mix of reggae, German techno, and Radiohead, and the scene by the fire soon put me in a very relaxed state. They told us about the night before, during which they had dropped LSD, which explained the blasting techno music that continued until 4 a.m. While we sat there listing to these young Mexicans, I began to smile. Travel is really all about the people, I thought. Lucia kissed me on the cheek like we were friends before I headed off to bed and told me it was nice to meet me. On a side note, this was the most contact I had had with a female in ages. Sorry Scotty, but there are some things in which even you can’t cut the mustard. The tequila had done its job, and I made it about half of a page into my book before I fell into a deep sleep.