Review of Trip to Baja, February, 2024

You Sometimes CAN'T Go Home Again

I was all set to post more on my trip to Baja here, but I realized it’d save a lot of time to just put in a link to the 15 posts I did (from Baja) on my blog.

www.lloydkahn.com/?post_date=2024-02-10+2024-02-27

(From now on I’ll be posting on my trips directly on Substack.)

Sneak preview below: two videos and four photos from the posts:

There is actually surf all over in Baja. I got skunked surfwise (this is not me). At age 89 I just can’t spring up. Haven’t given up completely, but gonna try kneeboarding for a while, then maybe get in warm water (next winter — Guatemala?) and practice getting upright again. “You can take the boy out of surfing, but…”

With my bestest of friends, Isidro (Chilon) Amora, and his two boys, who I’ve watched grow up from little kids to fine strong men. Daniel on left, César on right

The people in Baja loved these running-shoes-turned-to-sandals. They’re seldom noticed in the USA.

I don’t much like particle board either, but this is an elegant structure in both design and site. Good architecture is so rare. Most of the latest generation of homes on the Cape are train wrecks.

Panga landing Los Cabos-style. Notice how he doesn’t even pull the motor up (to protect prop) when hitting the beach; the soft sand does the job. Much better viewed full-sized on blog.) I haven’t figured out how to make videos larger on Substack (or how to do captions for vids).

Conclusion, which I haven’t written about until now:

1. 3180 miles (round trip) is too much driving for me for a month-long trip. Out of 26 days, I was driving for 10. Plus it’s dangerous: with no shoulders on roads. Going even slightly off the road will leave you upside down — in the desert. And there’s way more traffic than when I was coming down in the ‘90s, including 18-wheelers going 75 mph. Passing one of these on a downslope at night coming into Santa Rosalia, I felt like I was face-to-face with death. No mas!

2. The 12 miles out to Shipwrecks, a popular surf spot on the East Cape, is now paved, and there are no more secluded beaches where you can camp solo (and nude).

3. Baja Bugs and ATVs have been replaced by UTVs (Utility Terrain Vehicles) that I gotta admit look cool, but cost like $30-40K, and are ripping up the desert and beaches. Yahoo!

4. Clueless gringos have built monster houses all over the East Cape.

   There are still wonderful things about Baja California and its people, but my turf has been pretty much ruined. So I’m gonna head elsewhere in this country that I love. Plus Chílon wants me to go to Mexico City (he’s a chilango) and other parts of Mexico with him and Carolina. Time for a change.

   But check out the blog, Baja lovers. There are over 40 pics/vids and a lot of interesting things covered (including a crashed cocaine plane).

   And for even more on the trip, there are over a hundred of my Baja photos at www.instagram.com/lloyd.kahn

   I’m still feeling my way around on Substack, so over and out…

   Or, as Little Richard says:

   “It ain’t what you eat,

   it’s the way how you chew it.”