Punta San Jose: Hurry up and take your time!

September 6, 2014 ($425mxn)

Punta San Jose – Punta Baja (260km)

The next morning, as I enjoyed warm oatmeal, I leaned back on my camp chair, contemplating the vast Pacific Ocean laying before me just beyond that cliff we camped on top of, and realized the lack of pressure and stress I felt to be at any given point at a specific time. I was free to do anything and go anywhere… or to not go, and simply lay back on my camp chair and drink some disgusting coffee I had prepared knowing I generally dislike coffee, but thought I would miraculously enjoy it since I was on this trip.

This state of mind would accompany me throughout the Baja California portion of this trip. I think the environment of this peninsula alludes to a stress-free and lack of pressure sensation. For the most part, it is a narrow strip of land with desert and beaches, with very few large cities and with small towns long distances apart from each other in which no one is in a rush to get anywhere, they just carry out life one day at a time. Keeping that in mind, I reflect on the fast pace of San Diego, its traffic and the push to go, to arrive, to do, to be, the nonstop hustle sometimes weighing one down, and contrast it to the slow life of these towns in Baja which, at the moment, seemed desirable. The life in this peninsula seemed so much simpler. With that, I pondered on the idea that, someone local to any of these small towns would find their stress-free environment as dull and boring and the San Diegan atmosphere as exciting and lively. I would remember this thought months later, in Guatemala, when I began to long for the city life.

After Dominic and Tom were all surfed out, we picked up shop and headed south a few hours to Punta Baja, which was also at the end of a dirt road off the main highway. The scene was not the prettiest, nor was the ground the softest, but it would be enough to get us through the night and continue on the next day.