We arrived at Bahia de Los Angeles with high hopes. Campo Archelon, where we planned to stay, had a restaurant, hot showers and potential turtle sightings.
Driving up the dirt road leading to the site we were greeted with a series of painted signs you might expect to see at Burning Man — “Enjoy the silence”, “Reduce, reuse, recycle”, “Beware coyotes”. Unfortunately, we soon discovered there were no spots available for the night. Slightly dejected, we headed back down the road and over to Campo Daggett, the neighboring site.
Daggett was just okay. In addition to a few palapas they had what looked like a full, single-story motel. Not a lot going on there, so we secured a palapa by putting down a camp table and then drove back into town to get some water and groceries. When we returned, we found another RV had taken our spot. They moved the table to another site, and they were sitting in chairs where we were supposed to be. We could have taken the other free spot, but it was next to what looked like a fishing junkyard and, besides, we had staked that spot out first. I went over expecting a confrontation, but I found a sweet German couple who were more than willing to move once they learned of the mistake.
I have been repeatedly impressed by the other travelers we’ve met. They have been consistently friendly, helpful and encouraging. I spoke with the couple a bit more the next day and learned that the husband had recently retired and had always wanted to drive down to South America, so that’s what they were doing.
That night we walked along the beach over to Campo Archelon for dinner. As we neared the site we could see several candlelit tables on the beach and a station where a Brazilian sushi chef was preparing fresh fish.
Could this be real? We hadn’t seen anything like this on the trip so far. It felt like we had stumbled onto a resort. The food at the main restaurant was delicious. It felt a little indulgent after acclimating to meals prepared in the van, but it was Thanksgiving and this would have to serve as our feast. Smoked fish paninis and margaritas were a fine substitute for turkey.
They told us they had spots open for the next day, so we packed up early in the morning and relocated to the site. We spent the next several days snorkeling, combing the beach for shells and trying to spot baby turtles. When the tide went out you could turn over the larger rocks and more often than not see an octopus lurking beneath it.
We saw several of the buried turtle egg nests that the locals work to protect, but we didn’t get to see any of the hatchlings make their way across the beach and into the ocean.
We had several more meals at the restaurant, a much needed shower in a trickle of warm water and we befriended a couple of British Canadians who we would end up meeting again several times down the road.
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