It’s cold, Baja in January is cold. Chilly North winds that are so much fun to kite in, aren’t as much fun to ‘live’ in. We’ve pulled on the puffy jackets, wool hat and Ugg boots.
Instead of a cold beer after kiting, it’s a hot cuppa tea. I’m more grateful than ever that we have a hot shower, even if a crisp wind occasionally blows the curtain in cooling my personal sauna.
There is still plenty of heat in the daytime sun, the mornings are bitterly cold till 8am, and when you’re up at 6, that’s a chilly 2 hours. Tim is the brave soul who will sit outside, read the news with a hot coffee & watch the sunrise while I happily languish beneath the covers with a good book.
School starts at 9 and the kids know it. Jaxon is usually somewhere on the shore line, casting his rod, pretending not to hear me whistle for him. Charley is usually with the other kids up at the Ollinger’s camp. Neither kid wants to do any school work, Charley is more compliant than Jaxon who continues to put on the most elaborate displays of defiance, aka, a tantrum. The role of parent & teacher is never easy. They constantly complain, fidget, squirm, want food, want water, need to pee, drop their pencil and gaze out to sea after a full ten minutes of coaxing 45 seconds of concentration. It requires the patience of a saint and nerves of steel, either of which Tim or I are particularly good at.
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The wind picks up at noon, blowing away the mornings frustrations. Beach volleyball is done, the net comes down and the paddle boarders are chased off the water as the white caps creep in. Sonny our neighbour delivers freshly baked, still warm, delicious tortillas. The kids love to slather them in almond butter and jam, gobble them up then scatter to find their friends. No doubt, instantly forgetting what they learned.
The winds have been strong and consistent, the 6 meter kite is my favourite size to fly. It’s small, fast and fun, with the surfboard beneath my feet and tunes in my ears I love to head up to Pelican Reef, where the waves roll in. If I’d been told that at nearly 50, I would be surfing 6 foot waves on a strapless surfboard, I’d never have believed them!
On the no wind days we ride the trails. Over the years gringo snowbirds have built an impressive network of mountain bike trails down in the Cactus Forest. Not technical, but if you come off the bike, it’s straight into the ready desert thorns. More than 40km of rolling, interconnecting trails. So, no matter the weather, there is always have something fun to do. Including Kids yoga!
I must have blinked as its now late February and I still haven’t finished this!
Yay, the days are growing longer, the mornings are still cool, but the evenings warmer, back into shorts & t-shirt. Charley has had a few kiteboarding lessons from our friend Jim. She’s really enjoying it, once the wind calms down and the water not so rough, he’ll get her out on the water.
The kids have started at the local Montossori school. Just two hours a day, all in Spanish. A big difference to Charley who says ‘it’s like a balloon went off in my head, now I understand everything the teacher says’. Jaxon also loves it, declaring it to be the best school! I think that because all the kids from the beach are going too. The school is a 10 minute ride from camp, so they ride their bikes each way with Lily 11yrs and Hutch 9yrs, loving the independence. They will attend for two months, so fingers crossed they will be somewhat fluent by the end of March.
Tim and I have also started to learn to ‘foil’. That is riding a board with a mast and wing foil attached. Something I had absolutely zero interest in doing, happy to ride the surfboard and learn to jibe, tack, wave ride etc. More than enough to learn & keep me happy for the next 5 yrs. But a friend from Whistler left his foil set up here for Tim to use. Again, if I was told…i’d never believe them!
Our friends, the Ollinger’s a few doors up, took me out behind the boat to learn to ride the foil. Pulled behind by a waterski rope on a ‘wing foil board’, big, floaty and kinda stable. Tricky as it require precise balance in exactly the right place. Keeping the weight on my front leg with micro weight shifts to the back foot cause the foil wing to raise up to below the surface, which meant I was 2 foot above the water!! Not far, but when you’re on the board, it feels like 6 feet! I’d heard enough people talking about foiling so I had the gist of what to expect and what not to do. It was an exhilarating but scary experience.
We’ve since brought our own foil and are out there riding every possible morning before the wind builds too much. Now that I’m not crashing and falling in so much, it’s becoming more fun. The feel on the foil is like a magic carpet ride or skiing deep powder snow. The wrenched muscles are feeling better, am now used to being high off the water, I can head out easier than I can come back. I’d say I’m feeling like I’m about 45% in control, the rest is about holding on and hoping for the best!
We’ve been here 4 months, they days have ripped by, we have just one month to go before we pack up and begin the drive home. Our house is rented till the end of April, so we’ll take that month to make our way back up the Baja, in through the USA, fingers crossed they allow us to cross over, and home to Whistler where we will no doubt have to quarantine for a couple of weeks. It’s looking like Tim will have a house to build which will keep us home for the next couple of years, till we can travel again…
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