Since quitting the corporate world and leaving the hustle and bustle of day to day life, I have been making a conscious effort to follow the path that makes me happiest. Surfing, yoga and exploring, which I am lucky enough to be able to share with my partner in crime, Ben Hall.
Where I am sat right now, most encapsulates this as I’m overlooking glassy blue waves, from our make shift Mexican camp out of the back of our ever faithful Ford Explorer “The Chief” while Blue Whales breach in the distance.
We have finally hit the first portion of the epic journey that started in Los Angeles after a huge amount of preparation, bed building, car searching, paper work and enough camping equipment to scale Everest. It has taken us one week to get to the warm waves of Southern Baja from LA where we have found a hidden oasis with an A-Frame peak and a smooth right hander, not far from Todos Santos.
Our journey started in North Hollywood where we stayed with family members for the week, which helped massively giving us a base to plan the mission. From the hectic streets of Venice Beach to the apocalyptic weather in San Diego, where we had to urban camp with a river of rain water pouring down the streets and palm tree leaves whipping into our beloved truck. Since it was so breezy, we headed to the pub where the nachos were cheesy and after a few pints, the urban camping was easy.
Next step was hitting the US/Mexico border at Tijuana, with all of our documents at the ready, we sailed through without so much as having to show our passports. The open road was ours. As the landscape started to change into cactus and palms the atmosphere noticeably lifted to give rise to a sense of calm and serenity. However with many military stops, with young Mexicans holding large machine guns along the way reminded me that all is not as calm as the general vibes would suggest. We ran into one particular encounter where Ben unwittingly drove through an ‘ALTO’ sign at a military check point, but luckily no shots fired.
We spent a couple more nights as we drove through the desert, camping with fellow road trippers we met along the way in remote locations, where the morning rituals would be yoga and a morning swim then a quick fish for breakfast. Driving through Loreto we hit our 1000 mile mark. We caned it the rest of the way until we arrived at Ceritos beach, where we cracked a tinny, watched a sunset and saw the Manta Rays flipping on the horizon. Since building a home made out of rocks, driftwood a canvas and ‘The Chief’, we have decided to make this our base for the next week or so while we get our fix of waves until we feel the urge to continue the road trip south for the next 3000 miles to Costa Rica.
We will let you know how that went in our next blog in a couple of weeks time.
