Mexico Off The Beaten Path - a Desert Oasis in Baja Sur

For me, for me, for me, for me. For me, for me. Here it says for me, for me. Do you have a lot of food? I feel like it's going to be a pretty good day. Okay, we just pulled over for this. So if you saw the last video then you'll know that we missed that turning which takes you directly on a highway to San Francisco. We ended up going through this massive dirt road for like three or four hours, got caught out there. But it's because that sign's been covered up with surf stickers. You can't even see the turning. I think it's because some of the surfers don't want people knowing about San Francisco so they've just covered up the sign. Very helpful. If you do come here, that's the turning. We have just arrived to a place called La Purisma. It's like way out in the desert but then it turned into a kind of oasis and there's palm trees around and like there's really nothing around. It was all desert and then once we got here it's all this greenery. We're staying at Cabanas La Purisma. This lady here that runs the cabana is now showing us the langostino that we're going to be eating later. Okay, this is my cabana. Is it open? Oh, happy days. It's big. So this is us for the night and we're going to be doing some activities around La Purisma. The owners here are so friendly and they're so welcoming and I just wish I had better Spanish and I'm trying to put together my broken Spanish and answer their questions and interact and anything but it just makes me feel like I really need to learn a lot more which is something I'm going to be doing. Fortunately, a few of the others here do speak both fluent Spanish and good Spanish so we can interact. But yeah, just really nice, really friendly. Like I said, they haven't had anyone here really during the whole lockdown and during the pandemic like the height of it no one was really coming. We're only the second guests that have been here whereas normally there'd be a lot of people coming to this area. So yeah, it's nice that at least there's some tourism coming back here. Okay, so first up is a horse and carriage ride with my driver. No, he's the driver. Didn't release the clutch. Stalled. Oh yeah, okay. Okay, we're going back to San Juanico. Okay, that's cool. We just horse rode for about 15 minutes and came out to this lookout point. This is actually like an oasis in the middle of the desert. There was nothing else around and then suddenly we opened up into all of these palm trees. Oh, perfecto. We now have luncho. Huele bien. This is very cool. We're just frying the langostines out here. Huele bien. That's my Spanish phrase for the day. Smells good. And we're about to eat in this little bit. Okay, so it's guava. Muchas gracias. Like guava juice. Very good. Muy rico. Vortex. We've also got the homemade tortillas. What do you call that? Tortilla. Yeah, it's really good. But one thing trips like this especially do make me realize is how much I need to learn more Spanish. Because it's fine in certain places like in Quintana Roo where Cancun and Tulum is that's obviously you can get away with just English. But if I want to travel around more of Mexico Central America and South America I really want to work on my Spanish and be able to have proper conversations like they are. That's one thing I've taken away from today is I'm going to get back and work on my Spanish after this. Look at this. I don't know where to start. Okay, this looks amazing and I just learned how to make it properly. You have to rip this out, get all the meat out then start building your taco and then add these things with a little bit of lime and a little bit of salsa. Oh, this is so good. Just cracking out lobster claws with a rock. Just had about five tacos of this stuff. So, so good. Muy bien. Yeah, it's really good. Any of you that have watched me for a long time know that when I do food reviews it's usually really good. So now it's going to become muy bien. One of the other things the family do here besides running the cabana is they produce their own wine. So they've just showed us how they make it using an old cowhide where a woman would stamp her feet to crush the grapes into the cowhide, leave it there for a week, then pour it out into barrels, let it ferment for a month before covering the barrels and then let it ferment for another two months is the short version. I think we'll get to try some later, but for now that was just really interesting to see how they do make it here in quite a traditional way I think. And now, after seeing that, which was cool, we're going to be going kayaking. So finally today we've come to kayak and stand-up paddleboard in front of this. Look at that! How cool is that? Ok, we're here. Ian's out ready and I'm about to jump in the kayak. Vamos! Let's go. Ok, actually there's two kayaks, two stand-up paddleboards so I'm going stand-up paddleboarding. I usually fall off quite a lot. Ok, this is very cool. I decided to bring out my phone just to get this bit and do one-hand stand-up paddleboarding. Look at that! Very cool moment. Seriously, this is one of those moments where I just feel very grateful to be able to do this. I'm literally stand-up paddleboarding in a lagoon, in an oasis, in the middle of the desert in Mexico. For me, this is what it's all about. Right, that was an epic way to finish and I don't think I can top it in this video. The sun's just about to set so I'm going to finish it here. La Purisima was great to explore for a day. If you do get a chance to go on a road trip around this area and you are in Bajosur or you're around it, then come check it out. Come find these guys. Go to La Cabanas, to Purisima and go kayaking or stand-up paddleboarding. I'm going to finish it here and tomorrow we're going to a new place. For now, thank you for watching and this is my life.