After a very peaceful night in our new spot; without any noisy night time animals, passing traffic or even any wind, we awoke feeling ready for the day. The boys had several ideas of improvements to make to our campsite. The toilet, had collapsed slightly, so Lee wanted to rebuild another one. Carsten wanted to make a garden. I wanted to make a water filter.
We set about our respective jobs. Hanno and Carsten climbed up the waterfall and brought back some building supplies. Lee began creating large pit reinforced with bamboo and rocks. I set about the problem of the water filter. Taking the remains of the plastic tequila bottle, I made a funnel. I then discovered our water tank filling hose, which has a hose connector on it, actually screwed onto the tequila bottle. After rummaging around for a long piece of bamboo, I cut a notch to hold the bottle. This meant you could simple prop the funnel under the flow of water, and it would be diverted off to the side. Therefore you didn’t have to stand so close to the waterfall and get soaked while you filled the bucket. All that I needed now was to add a filter to remove the sand, rocks and small worms that tumbled down the waterfall in and amongst the water. The first version used a piece of old sponge, but this got jammed down into the hose by the volume of water and was also so fine that it filtered very slowly. In the end I was quite proud of my invention, using a piece of the green abrasive part of a dish sponge, I cut a little disc out that was trapped between the rubber washer of the hose connector. This meant the filter couldn’t move and when positioned right under the waterfall a steady stream of clean water poured out. I asked Lee to take a photo of my marvellous invention, but unsurprisingly he forgot.
With the addition of clean(er) water to the camp, I decided to do some clothes washing. The laundrette we had passed was shut, so the big bag of clothes I had got ready was still sitting there looking at me. Stefi kindly gave me some washing liquid and some hot water, and I sat in the sun washing through our clothes and hanging them on a line in between our two campers.
It was towards the end of the afternoon that two trucks arrived, and ruined it all. Carsten was first to talk to the people who had got out with some kids to skim board at the base of the falls. It turns out that one of these was son in law to the owner of the land, and that he did not want campers there. Apparently if he allowed us, he would have to allow all the locals and he didn’t want that. He was also concerned that the animals would be put off coming to drink if we were there. We assured him that this wasn’t the case. We offered to pay. We offered to move further away from the water, but in the end the answer was always no. Feeling thoroughly deflated that we would have to move on again, and that we were running out of places to go, we resigned ourselves to packing away again in the morning.
Tony, the son in law, was kind enough to offer us a plot of land in Cerritos we could stay on. Funnily enough, it was a building site. He also said he was building a hotel on another plot, and he wouldn’t mind us staying on this plot for additional security. In return we would get access to showers and water. These seemed like fairly decent options considering the circumstances, and we decided to explore them in the morning. Little did we know it was all about to change.
In no rush to leave that morning, we discussed what we would do. Hanno and Kirsten seemed keen to check out the plots in Cerritos, while Stefi and Carsten were not so keen. They fancied trying somewhere more abandoned and remote around Cabo Pulmo. We didn’t want to leave the area as we were still waiting for our post, so while Dino Adventure packed up and set off, our two campers remained.
Deciding to make the most of free water as we didn’t know where we would end up, Kirsten and I did some washing. The guys went about returning to the campsite back too normal and covering all traces that we had been there.
In the meantime, we checked up on the news. Announced that morning, was the decision that the coronavirus quarantine supposed to end on the 30th of April, had been extended to the 30th of May. While we were prepared to tolerate two weeks on a building site, if it had free showers and water, six weeks was not going to happen. Kirsten and Hanno had seen a casita for rent on the local Facebook group and had agreed to meet the owner. Fed up with constantly getting moved on and never having a place to go, they were going to commit to a rental for a month. This made more sense for them as they needed to stay south to catch the ferry, not something that applied to us. We didn’t really fancy it and still reckoned there were places further north, below Loreto where we would be able to get away with camping. On the other hand, we still had our post to wait for, so we decided to try and head into Todos Santos with the other two and park up for a few days while we waited for it to arrive. First things first, we had to get past the blockade.
We didn’t expect it to be easy, and it certainly wasn’t. Apparently they recognised our friend’s camper, and were happy enough to let them through. Ironically though, they didn’t recognise ours. This is not something we are accustomed to dealing with in Ruby, normally trying to be inconspicuous is our main issue. We have also been in and around the town of Todos Santos for several months, and we were surprised that our camper wasn’t recognised. After much convincing that we hadn’t just arrived to Baja, they eventually sprayed our hands with some pointless homemade anti bacterial solution and let us through.
It was a stark comparison driving through the town now. Nearly all the businesses were shut down and the streets near deserted. As we drove through and turned off the main road, it became clear that the casita they were renting was just down the road from Rob and Jen’s house. Parking our vans up outside, we went in and met the owner. This was the lady who oversees the turtle rescue that we had watched that first time we had visited the town. She showed Hanno and Kirsten around the generous sized casita with its own balcony and offered us to have a look at another one. We politely declined, but asked is we could camp in there Ruby for a night, not really having anywhere else to go. However, she said she didn’t think there was space, so we walked back down to Rob and Jen’s to see if we could stay in their garden, leaving Hanno and Kirsten to settle in.
We walked the brief walk down the road to Rob and Jen’s house, walking into their house we were greeted by a blur of brown fur and a high pitched scream. We hadn’t met their new rescue puppy Elliot before, and he dived for cover from these horrifying strangers under the nearest sofa. After turning up completely unannounced, Rob and Jen were kind enough to let us pull Ruby into their yard, telling us we could stay for as long as we wanted. We hoped it would only be a day or so at the most, as soon as we had our post we would head north. Accommodation temporarily sorted, we at least could sleep that night knowing that for once we had permission to be where we were.
Apparently our vans had been noticed by the local residents as within less than an hour of us being there, someone had posted pictures of our campers on the facebook newsfeed stating that the blockade wasn’t doing it’s job correctly and that these tourists were unwelcome in town. The post had already been deleted before I saw it, which was lucky really as I can’t say I take kindly to innate stupidity. It seemed that while a few people were outraged at our presence, the majority of people had jumped to our defence, saying they knew us and we had been in the area a while. This is one of the worst things about this current situation, it brings out the worst in some people, who when they are afraid, seem to lose all sense of logic or perspective and jump to all kinds of conclusions with the presence of facts.
To the person who thought that this was a acceptable thing to do, and probably sat there for a moment patting themselves on the back for ‘looking out for the community’. That’s fine if you want to be an idiot, you probably don’t realise you are one, but please don’t sit there behind your phone, blaming me for global pandemic. Don’t post pictures of my camper on social media like it’s the cause of the lockdown in your town and that we should be targeted. When you inevitably get Coronavirus, because you didn’t take any other of the basic recommended precautions, because you think you’re safe now ‘the tourists are gone’ and you can’t possible get it from, let’s say a resident here, don’t expect any sympathy from me that the laws of Darwinism appear to be working.
The Kombi Chronicles 