On the beach (day 3)

Sunday December 23...9:45pm

Sure enough, they never came to collect the camping fee for yesterday...and they haven't come today either. We're hearing that the guy doesn't always stop in to collect the fee...and so we're hoping that $6 a night may actually end up being maybe $24 for the week...I guess we'll see. This is Mexico. Things are pretty laid back here.

We walked about 20 minutes from here to a little community that's built on the beach. It seems to be almost all Canadians and Americans who've built this little community. There are laws in Mexico whereby you have to be a Mexican citizen in order to purchase land within 100 km's of the waterfront, however as always, the lawyers have found a way around that law by having the bank hold a trust over the land for maybe a 25 year period, and then the bank leasing the land to the foreigner who has effectively bought it. Something like that, anyhow. We had been told that if we wanted internet, we would have to drive all the way back to Mulege...but by walking 20 minutes towards this little community and using my special wi-fi antenna, we were able to get my laptop on an unsecured network by sitting on a little hill overlooking the community.

Whiskey watching Kevin get onto the internet

Glen, Kevin, Ruth and Whiskey out for a walk

After our walk, we were to meet at 1:00pm at one of the beach regular's site for the gift exchange. There were about 35 people there, and as each person brought some kind of gift, there were a corresponding number of gifts on the mat. Also, everyone was to bring some kind of snack plate to share. It was a lot of fun. They do the gift exchange as a sort of a "musical gift" where one person opens something, and then the next, and so on...excepct that if you like something that someone else has already opened, you can go steal it. And then that person gets to open a new gift. A gift can only be stolen twice before it is "frozen" as that person's final gift. Then we took a break for snacks. After that, they did round 2, where you could either opt to try and keep your current gift, or steal somebody else's if it wasn't already frozen. It was too funny. I ended up with a bottle of Mango Rum, Ruth got a can of beer and a noodle water float toy. Steve ended up with a little variety pack which they had actually given to us to put in as one of our gifts...and Glen got a pair of pants from this woman who does designer clothing. Ruth gave away a haircut as a gift and will be doing a woman's hair on the beach tomorrow at 9:30am. She's already got two others lined up for haircuts after everyone found out there's a hairstylist in the neighbourhood!

Getting ready to open the Christmas gifts

All the gifts

Opening up the gifts

The winds seem to be settling down. Hoping for a nice hot day tomorrow!

Total Nights Sleeping in the RV... 71...

December Fuel $ 878.32

December Grocery $ 350.44

December Overnight Costs $ 66.00