La Playa el Coyote....At Last!

We arrive on Wednesday, three and ½ days after crossing the border.  It’s not so much about a great distance (1,000 km), but it’s the kind of driving that takes total focus and concentration.  The road is narrow, and the pavement edges are dramatic.  I find myself “sucking in breath” with each on coming truck, and somehow, we pass each other and on we go.  The landscape varies between desert beauty, mountain majesty, acres of sand and scrub, tall Cardon cactus, prickly Cholla, and this year…add some fog, mist, clouds and wind!

Arriving safely in Santa Rosilita, after descending the Cruesta de Infermo (Grade from Hell), we are thankful that our new braking system worked perfectly for towing the Jeep.  The road here follows the shoreline and three foot waves are crashing onto the beach!  Windy!

In coming...it's Steve and Nan!

I go ahead in the Jeep....and wave him forward!

Another hour sees us safely to the beach.  The road into Playa el Coyote has been worked over by a bulldozer after Hurricane Paul, and we find it easier to transit than last year. I go ahead in the Jeep to check it out and since I don’t return, Steve brings in the bus.  Go Slow.  That’s the deal. 

20 campers are already set up and enjoying life here.  We are told…hey…this is the first cloudy day!  (and windy and cold)  We find a spot, way down the beach from our usual hang out and park.  Whew!  3:00 p.m. and all is well.  Although we start to unload the Jeep rack…there is so much to do…we finally just sit, look out at the waves and wind, and begin our winter on the beach.  Friends start checking in with us, few by few.  There is much greeting, hugging, handshaking…and yes storytelling.  Oh, and a few woofs.

Coyote Bay

The beginning campsite!

Palapa move in almost complete

By 0715 Thursday morning the first vendor has arrived.  Amellio is one of the two water vendors and he wants our business.  We are still asleep…or pretending to be!  He waves in the window!  He toots his horn.  He then decides to wait us out, standing in the back whistling.  Ok then.  I give up and just go out in my jammies, saying “Oh!  No hoy…possible manana!”  So, it’s time to get up and get going.

Amellio brings water....today he needs a little gasolina....a trade for honey?

Most of the day we are organizing our campsite, hanging blankets, unfolding chairs, a run to town for purified drinking water jugs, gasoline for the Jeep and a phone call or two.  Everything takes double the time as there are many pleasant interuptions, conversations…all with folks already in the “beach life zone.”  What is time?  There is always tomorrow.  More important….Que Pasa? 

Technician Steve....

The technology report is not so happy.  We have a very good satellite system, installed carefully, with one part replaced within the first five days….now a country away from the installer, and out of cell phone reach as well (17 mile drive)…it is once again not working.  We have learned SO much about how one of these devices works, basically because it is NOT working.  The first problem had to do with the unit not stowing down.  This problem has to do with it’s brain not being able to go looking for satellites in the sky and find ours.  In fact, it can’t find any.  It spins around until it’s dizzy and we are tired of the rotation noise, and disappointed in the blinking or not blinking lights.  Steve is locking on to fixing this like a bulldog…and it is requiring hours and hours of time, phone calls, emails, (from someone else’s connection) and burning through frustration levels. 

For me…if I can’t have the connection then, I can’t.  I’ll go on and make other plans and operate as we have in past years.  Not as planned, but plans change.  I am sad to lose the money and wonder how that will go as far as recovering any of it.  Check it off to a very bad investment?  But, then, go on.  Steve says, if electronic things are going to fail, it’s usually in the beginning.  So, get on with fixing it and it will be fine.  Strange to have two things fail right away.  This saga continues at this point….won’t it be fun to find out how it wraps up?

P.S.  It is now Saturday morning.  Steve fires up the dish again, just a random chance???  I got to Norm's to collect email ...and when I return...there is a smirking smile radiating from my techo husband's face...."Shhhh...it's working!"  We are hanging a "Do Not Disturb" up...quickly posting a blog for me...and accepting that this moment in time, it's working.  That's it.  This moment in time.  

What's with the fence thing?

Here's how you picture us on Christmas Day!