At some point in the night, I was surprised by a pitbull tongue in my face. Cleo was scared of the noise the wind made and wanted a cuddle in bed, thinking that a lick in the face would be a perfect way to ask the question. Apart from that, we had a sound sleep, but I caught the bug bites Dan had been enduring. I blamed him since he had been complaining that he was the only one suffering and that I should share some of the pain. I woke with the sun, before it had peaked over the mountains behind the beach. Apart from the quiet RV a few rows down, we had the beach to ourselves. I was keen to get out for an explore and Dan and Cleo followed.

The tide was fully out, making the bay half its size. I walked out until I found the water and was surprised to see so many boats out in the mouth o the bay. There were half a dozen just hanging around, I assume they were fishing or they’d spent the night after spending the day at a secluded beach. I felt lucky that we were the only people on land, especially after the crowds of yesterday. Cleo loved the shallow water, thinking hardly anything of it, running around like a mad person. Yesterday we’d seen people clambering around some rocks to get to the beach next to us so I figured we could do the same, especially now since the tide was out there was no rock clambering necessary.

As we rounded the corner, Dan and I in the water, Cleo padding along the rocks, I saw what must have been mushroom rock. I’d read about it in the Moon Book and seeing it, it was obvious that we’d found the icon. We walked around the half moon cove until we reached it. With the sky lit up by the sunrise, it was an impressive looking thing. I explored a little with Cleo and we found that the thing was reinforced in its narrow column, probably to make sure the tourist attraction didn’t get lost to the force of the sea. I meandered out onto a shallow sandbar near the mushroom, then we slowly made our way back along the soft white sand.

Along the way, we poked, prodded and played with plenty of weird sea creatures, finding that the piles of sand poo were being created by some creature underground with a tube pushing out sad. We played with a starfish type being with long tentacles and a circular core that spread its arms when it was touched. We found shells with beautiful patterns that had long since lost what was living inside of them. There were white, straight tentacles sticking out of the ground looking to catch something that retracted into the sand when they were disturbed as if by a defence mechanism. It reminded me of being a kid at home, picking up and inspecting all of these things.

We rounded the cove back to the main beach and found it still empty, though the Kiwis had risen and were setting about making breakfast. We did the same, settling for cereal since neither of us were that hungry. We packed up camp and found it was only 8:30am by the time we were ready to head off. We didn’t want to stick around so that we could get to the ferry office in decent time to figure out what we needed to get ourselves and the car onto the boat.

We wandered over to the RV and had a quick tour of the RV as we said good morning to the four kiwi boys. Since they were heading back to America to continue their travels, I also told them everything I knew about van life in the States and drew them a map of the hike we’d done in Cabo. They were happy for the advice and wished us well as we did them.

After I made a foolproof system for Cleo on the bed (it wasn’t fool proof, she managed to wreck it), we drove the twenty minutes to the ferry terminal where the Baja Ferries office was open as they said they would be. No English spoken, so I had some phrases pre-translated that got us through. We managed to find out that we had to get our vehicle permit elsewhere and that in order to travel with Cleo, we’d need to provide a suitable travel cage for her. They didn’t provide anything for rent so it meant we’d have to go into La Paz to pick one up. We still had time to get to La Paz and back before the 11:30am boarding time. Dan was the key to us understanding all of these instructions, I didn’t understand a thing the lady said.

We half-raced back to La Paz, wanting to make sure we’d have enough time to pick up a cage and get back to the boat. It didn’t matter if we spent another day in La Paz, but we’d seen all we really wanted to so figured it would be better if we managed everything in one day. We started at the Walmart in town and found they had plenty of plastic dog houses but not travel cages. Next was a Sopiana, a big Mexican supermarket chain. Same thing there, they seemed to have everything for dogs except a means to travel with them. Now I tried Googling pet stores, which didn’t really translate from English to Spanish, but I did my best. Through Yelp, I managed to find a few different pet stores that might have what we needed. By chance, on the way to the first one, Dan spied a pet food place and went inside to check it out. He found they had a couple of carriers, but the only one big enough for Cleo was too big and about $120. When we’d originally started thinking about catching the ferry, we said we’d do it if it cost around $100 because that would justify the fuel we wouldn’t use getting from San Diego across to Phoenix. When the tickets for us and the car added up to $180, we still thought it was worth it, for the sake of going on the boat. With another $120 added on to that and the need to carry around a huge dog cage, it was getting a bit ridiculous. We pondered what to do for a while and both of us were getting thoroughly sick of driving around looking for pet stores. After the original place, we’d driven to two other Yelp suggestions only to find they didn’t exist. One last try sent us to a shopping mall where we went into a City Club (Mexico’s version of Costco) a bigger Sopiano and a Sears. This was not our idea of a good time. We didn’t have any luck at either of them but on the way out of the last shop, Dan noticed a sunglasses stand and I realised I’d left my sunnies on Crab Beach so I was in need of a new pair. This stand had two pairs for 150 Pesos ($7.50) so the price was right. With Dan’s advice, I bought me a functional polarized pair and a Baja-style pair. I was really going to fit in now! At least something came out of our whole day shopping.

We’d long since given up catching the ferry today so were taking our time and decided we needed to give ourselves a break from this whole endeavour and just chill out for a while. There was a taco stand right by the last shopping complex we stopped at with a huge sign that read pescados so that was our solution. Another place with a big shaded seating area and absolutely no one inside. Tacos for 20 Pesos, we got our usual order. When they came out, we were astounded at the quantity of fish sitting atop two tiny corn tortillas. It was the same as what you’d get in a full order of fish and chips! We soon found out it was mostly bread and batter with tiny bits of fish, but I didn’t mind. Toppings galore, we ate happily, glad that our shopping ordeal was over. It was much too hot to be driving around town and walking around carparks. We still hadn’t made a decision about the ferry and so went to the beach to ponder some more, figuring we’d stop at the churros place that was closed yesterday. Dan called them from the fish taco place. Someone picked up and said they were open so surely this time we would put churros in our mouths? Still no. We drove past and the place was just as shut as it had been yesterday. There was no way we’d be able to understand an address if we called again so we gave up on the endeavour entirely. Clearly it just wasn’t meant to be a successful day. Licking our wounds, we picked up some beers and an ice cream for me (there is a trend forming here) and sussed out a tiki hut back on the La Paz promenade.

We dipped ourselves and Cleo into the water to cool off, then settled into the sand. Dan down a few beers and had his usual afternoon nap while I sat in my comfy chair and blogged. It wasn’t a bad view looking out into the calm turquoise waters. By the time Dan woke up, we were both thinking to ditch the ferry idea and drive back up through Baja towards Phoenix. It would save us money, be less hassle with Cleo and would mean we wouldn’t have to endure the insane heat of mainland Mexico. A flip of a cigarette pack later as a coin toss and it was firmly decided.

We hung out at the beach a little longer, pondering our next move since we knew we weren’t getting on a boat and we figured we’d take our time heading back north and go out to some of the beaches we’d missed. We would start by hitting Punta Conejo on the west side of the peninsula about two hours out of La Paz. We drove out of the huge town, stopping to get fuel, then at another bloody shopping center to get a few supplies and we were out. Cruelly, on the was into the shopping center, Dan saw an ice cream place with a clear sign reading “Churro Loco” (Crazy Churro) but when we enquired inside, we found it was only an ice cream flavour. What?!?! Whatever, let’s just get out of La Paz.

We were in high spirits driving north along Highway 1, Dan behind the wheel. We listened to Mexican radio as much as we could and were surprised to already find some of the parts we’d travelled before seem a bit familiar. For the first twenty minutes I was all over my maps trying to figure out where the turn off was to Punta Conejo, eventually finding some GPS coordinated and sending us there. Not long after I’d figured it out, I lost cell service. It was nice to be out of touch again. No more Google maps.

At 7:30pm, after driving thirty minutes down a sandy road surrounded by cactus and driving through an open gate that had “Propiedad Privada” (private property) written all over it, we were at the beach. It was the first time we’d been on the Pacific side without a marine layer and it was gorgeous. The wind was pretty fierce, so I donned a jumper before we went exploring. Cleo was in heaven chasing shit all over the place and I was just about as happy. We were out of the touristy part of Baja and back in the wilderness again. We drove past a compound where we saw a single guy come out to have a look at us driving by so we made sure we camped out of sight of him, but we otherwise had the place to ourselves.

We collected a bunch of firewood and did the dinner routine again, me starting it off, then Dan finishing. We were still on a steak binge, but this time it was steak, pesto and peas pasta. In the time Dan finished dinner, I’d put the chairs around the fire ring and set up a tepee to get the fire going. It took one flick of the lighter and we had a fire to warm ourselves by over dinner. Cleo, the coward that she is around fire, managed to tuck herself under the nearby bushes as far as she could so that she could still see us but was out of the fire’s danger zone.

Another wicked meal that we were super impressed with, we stayed out by the fire until the stars came out and there were plenty of them to admire. Hello wilderness, so glad we found you again.