Who needs Sea World?

Being that Sea World San Diego costs $70 a person, we just couldn’t justify the expense before we had even begun our road trip. Fortunately here in La Paz, we found out that we could go swimming with sea lions for only 500 pesos ($35) – what a deal! Tuesday morning we boarded a boat with a few other tourists and set sail for Espiritú Island, off the coast of La Paz where a colony of sea lions live. The water was freezing and there weren’t enough wet suits so unfortunately our experience was short lived, but still totally fun! They flip and dart all around you – it’s actually a little nerve wracking at first, but once we got used to them, we even were able to get some great photos. Take that Sea World!

Won't you be our neighbor?

Wouldn’t it be nice to wake up in the morning and walk on down to our palapa to see what the plan for the day is? Maybe we’ll surf fish or kayak out to the island. Really, we’ll do whatever you’d like. There are still a few available in our development for the low price of free with no money down, so come get yours today! We’re really friendly neighbors!

Cabo Wabo

Hello Spring Break 2009! While Todos Santos was much more our speed, we had to go to Cabo San Lucas if we are going to boast that we’ve hit all the beach destinations in Mexico after the trip is through. Sorry if you’re one of those people that loves the all-inclusive, we aren’t. However if you’re more like us, rest assured that Cabo can be done low-key. After touring the RV parks in the area and being disgusted by the size of the other rigs, we took our first official hotel break and boy did we find a good one. A hidden gem right in the heart of Cabo, Hotel Los Milagros was a perfect place to call home for a few days (and a good bargain too). We must have been a sight for sore eyes, because when we showed up, Sandra the owner hooked us up with the Penthouse, complete with a full kitchen. Now if we can only find an apartment like this in Antigua, we will die and go to heaven!



We spent our first day in Cabo on Playa Amor, losing our obvious gringos-from-snow territory look while sunning and snorkeling on the beach. Things were going simply swimmingly until 3pm when our water taxi failed to pick us up. (Note: make sure you get a receipt from the water taxi driver when in Cabo). 1 hour of waiting and 100 pesos later we hopped a ride on another taxi (luckily there a plethora) and made it back to the spring break madness.

Divorce Beach at Playa Amor

All showered up and ready to go out for dinner, we strolled past a great little shop – Arte de Origen- (not the typical Mexican tourist junk) where I fell in love with some artwork that cost more than our night at Los Milagros. I bravely suggested to Ben that if we hit up the supermercado and make a simple dinner in instead of dining out, we’d be able to afford to make a purchase tomorrow, and lucky for me, he liked the idea. A night of grilled cheese and tomato soup (which we both love by the way) was definitely worth our great souvineer from Cabo (photo to come later).

Baja California Sur

When you cross over the 28th parallel, you have arrived in Baja Sur where we quickly learned that being into Baja Sur didn’t mean we’d be seeing less cacti, just that we would be seeing a lot more beaches and more of the colonial Mexico that is present on the mainland.

Bahía Concepcíon

Playa El Requesón

Our first beach stop was at Bahía Concepcíon. We had every intention of setting up camp and staying a few days but the wind took control and we couldn’t fight it, so we packed up and moved on to Loreto where we got accosted by the local time-share guys enough to make us move on from there as well. The following day we made it to Todos Santos and once again struck gold. A quaint artist Todos Santos is best known for the “lovely place” the Eagles sing about, Hotel California. While bus loads of tourists from Los Cabos stream in and out of Hotel California, we admired it from across the street and spent the day ducking into art galleries and exploring hidden beaches.


During a morning beach walk we were blessed enough to watch a grey whale breech six or seven times out at sea. What a giant splash! I’m glad our gentle whales in San Ignacio didn’t get that excited the day we visited! Unfortunately we didn’t have a camera with us to get any photos, but I promise you it was really cool.

Desert Art

Maybe it was a mirage?

Bienvenidos a Mexico Baja California

We crossed the Mexican border in Tijuana on Sunday, March 22. Ironically enough that day was also World Water Day and since Ben will be working as a water engineer in Guatemala, it couldn’t have been better planned. Is it just me or are the stars beginning to align for us? So, that gives us somewhere around 6 weeks to meander our way down to Guatemala.

After crossing we high-tailed it as far away from the border as we could, given all the warnings about border towns in Mexico these days, and made it as far as Catavina. In the middle of the desert (in a pretty barren RV park) is where we spent our first night in the ECamper.

our first camp site in the desert

The first few days we did a lot of driving -like 200-300 km a day- and saw a lot of cacti. When we did pass by other travelers, more than likely they were either a) from California or Oregon, b) driving a huge RV, or c) pulling their red-neck desert toys along with.

It doesn't get more macho than these!

It wasn’t until we reached the oasis town of San Ignacio that we finally felt like we belonged here in Baja. We found this cute little lagoon to camp beside at Los Petates RV Park and set up camp just in time to enjoy the sunset.

happy hour at the lagoon

The following day we took a 2-hour ride down a bumpy road to the Bahía San Ignacio where we went whale watching.

salt lagoon created from rain water & salty soil

waiting to see the whales

Watch and be amazed!


Ballenas - San Ignacio from Krista Lengacher on Vimeo.

California Dreamin'

La Jolla

Our second stop out of Denver was in San Diego, California for a week long layover in while we had our Element converted into our new road home. It worked our perfectly for us when our good friend Horacio offered to call up his sister Veronica and her family to see if we could stay with them while we waited. Luckily they weren’t weirded out by 2 complete strangers living with them for a week and welcomed us in as part of the family. Thanks Reyes family!



It was no real hardship for us to be “stuck” in SoCal for a week so we took in as many of the sites as we could while we made our final preparations and even found a few days to relax. Some of our highlights included dining at Old Venice in Point Loma, star searching in Los Angeles, wandering the streets of La Jolla, relaxing in Balboa Park and living like a local at Pacific Beach.

Jim's Cave

The best part about SD is that it has a great mix of Latino and American cultures and everywhere we turned someone was speaking Spanish, which would be a great way to help us keep up our language skills. Do we seem like a California couple? Just an idea.....don't freak out yet!

Where are my friends Donna, Kelly, Brenda, Brandon and Dylan?

Mom, this one's for you!

And Brian, this one's for you!