A Week Alone on Baja's Beaches | Travel Series | Todo Bien EP. 03

Welcome to San Ignacio. This charming little oasis town is one of our favorite stops in Baja. We always make a point to stop in and enjoy small town life and the dates that grow in abundance here. There's a spot in San Ignacio that we really like for their baked date goods. We really liked their empanadas. They didn't have any, but instead we got pie for tonight and then an entire cake. Date cake for later. I really like it here. It's the same couple that works in there. I don't think they recognized us, but I think they're very sweet. I always joke around in the basic language that we have between us. Filing this one under sketchy ladders or ladders I would not climb. Love the spicy rim. So good. We don't normally spend time around towns or cities in any country due to the inevitable anxiety that comes with bringing all of our worldly possessions into unpredictable environments. Here in San Ignacio, we stay in a small campground, a short walk from the square. It's quiet. The people are friendly and we feel comfortable leaving our truck behind for an evening stroll into town. Here I got a rare opportunity to do one of my favorite but seldom enjoyed activities. Shooting film around town at night. It's so good though. Very good. This is my first shrimp taco of this trip. It'll be our, my first too. Oh man. Yeah. We haven't really done the seafood. Oh, sorry. I'm like really having a moment. It's so good. After spending the first half of the day loitering around town, we stopped in for a visit to the town's mission. The site was formerly the location of an indigenous settlement called Catacomban, which means Arroyo of the Reeds. Founded in 1728, the mission was built by Jesuit missionaries and completed in 1786. The San Ignacio mission is a prime example of beautiful mission construction that can be found all over Baja. Dogs are not allowed. I didn't. Specifically, it says that. Okay. No going in the church. Okay. Since picking up skating a few months prior, my opportunities to practice had been far and few between because we spend most of our time traveling on dirt. As our previous episode demonstrated. With nowhere to be, I skated around the square until I couldn't see the ground in front of me. It was glorious. It's a good agua fresca. You know what it translates to? We got guayapa. You know what it is? Is it guava? It is. Good job. I was going to say, yeah, it tastes like guava. Yeah. Your taste buds. Did all the translating for you. Good job. Thanks. It's so good. After a long gloomy day of driving, we neared where we planned to camp for the next few days. Out of nowhere, the setting sun dipped below the clouds. If the light gets good, you better believe we're pulling over to take advantage of the opportunity. coming out of our last spot and I was driving with, maybe I'll just say more gusto than Owen typically drives. And, uh, I tossed a couple of beers that were sitting here. Um, and one of them opened and most of the contents of the beer drained into our shower, which is actually quite convenient cause it needed to be washed out. Anyways. I like to think of it as I drive with more care. Okay. I just like, you know, we got a powerful truck and I like to drive it and let her let her hair down a little bit. You always drive with so much care, restraint, but you're also not a Georgia super speeder. And I am. Yeah. It's coyotes. Is that a frigate or something out there? I'm not sure. A new spot meant a new batch of birds to ogle over. Most of which we had never seen in the wild before. Like the brown booby. Classic. A few eared grebes with their piercing red eyes and a multitude of magnificent frigate birds. That's actually their name and it's fitting because they are in fact magnificent. Magnificent frigate birds are massive with a wingspan that can be up to eight feet across. Even though they're technically seabirds, they rarely land on the water because they lack waterproof feathers. Instead they offer stealing food from other birds and high speed aerial pursuits. While enjoying some quiet time at camp, we heard the sound of approaching voices, which was strange because we had yet to see another soul out here. Moments later, our friends, Alana and Kurt came pedaling into camp. We were delighted to run into each other after over a week of going our separate ways. They decided to stop so we could catch up before continuing their journey south. Together, we waded into the water and traded stories from our respective travels. week. When we get the chance, this is how we prefer to travel. Days that begin and end in the same place, give us the freedom to wander off on foot and see the landscape transform under the ever changing light of a passing day. So on my second attempt to make a pancake, a jumbo pancake in the rice cooker. Oh boy. Oh my God. Oh my God. It's right on this one right here. This is my second attempt at a pancake made in the rice cooker, like one big one. And I was finally successful. I think I saw it come out. It's so cute. Wow. One gigantically thick pancake. Think of all the syrup it's going to absorb. I'm a little afraid. I feel like peanut butter might be a better move. So fun. Yeah. It tastes like a pancake. Just like it's like a literal pancake cake. Our new business venture is Max Pancake House. Max International Pancake House. Thank you very much. That's true. We are in Mexico. Thus far on the trip, we had yet to spend much time in the water for anything other than surfing, mostly because the water had been frigid. Now that we were a bit further South, the water was warm enough to enjoy some spearfishing. The fish I caught ended up being a barred pargo, more commonly known as snapper. Well done. When I was filleting the fish, I slipped and sliced two of my fingers so deep that it went down to the tendon. Still in wetsuits, Owen worked quickly. In a matter of minutes, he cleaned and bandaged my fingers. My hands were so cold from being in the water that my fingers didn't even bleed until I was out of my wetsuit and my body had a chance to warm up. Thankfully, the situation hadn't been worse because we were over an hour from a paved road, let alone a hospital. It was a close call, but I was thankful that in this case we were able to be self-sufficient. Thank you fish. We appreciate your sacrifice. Buttery, flaky, right with the lime. Bony. I just pan fried it in butter, salted it both sides before, cut some slash marks in the outside after it was descaled. Yeah. Hopefully I got all the scales. I'm an amateur. It's really good though. I think you're going to like it. The day we went into town for a resupply was the one day that the local grocery store was closed for the week. To make the most of the trip, we popped into a handful of little tiendas around town and grabbed what we could. Planning and making meals from staples that can be found at small corner stores has come to be a challenge I enjoy. With enough food cobbled together, we deemed the long trip into town a success. During our time on this remote section of coastline, we came to realize that we weren't the only people out here. Down the way, there was a small family living off the land. They raise goats to make goat cheese and harvest conch to sell out of the Bay. Two of their children, a teenage brother and sister came through our camp to tell us that there were old pictographs in a Canyon nearby. They asked if we wanted to join them to go see the ancient paintings. To which we replied absolutamente. At the mouth of a narrow Canyon, we went off on foot. The pictographs we found were unlike any we'd ever seen. Fish of all kinds, turtles, and birds. Prompted by the pictographs, we taught each other the names of all the animals we saw in our respective languages. As incredible as these pictographs were, our favorite part of the day was chatting with one another in our broken Spanish and their sparse English. Just being together for a while removed the awkwardness of our challenge to communicate. A feeling that can be hard to get over when you're learning a new language. Before long, we were all laughing at my insistence that all birds should be referred to as amigos. This experience made me realize you don't have to share a language to feel comfortable in each other's presence. The people who just gave us a little tour, we took them back to their house and we bought some goat cheese that they make from them. I wanted to buy the whole, she cut it in half, wanted to buy the whole thing, but the fridge is small, but it smells incredible and I'm very excited to try it. Yeah, it's so good. That's amazing. Yeah. We also met the goats that made this cheese and we met a new baby that was born yesterday. Thank you. Our life pared down to just the basics. Open roads, quiet beaches and kind locals. Though we seldom saw a soul. We found comfort for the first time in a language that isn't our own. Our diets naturally simplified to only what we could find in small roadside tiendas. And yet we never found ourselves wanting for things that we didn't have access to other than waves. Like that on the new technique. Your own little tripod. We felt completely content in Mexico. A sign that maybe we are ready for life outside our home country. Next time on Todo Bien. Good luck holding that camera still for this. I'm going to approach. It's my destiny.