Mulege, Mexico… prepping for the sea kayak trip

Posted on November 9, 2010 by zkruz

I am actually updating on the correct date for once…

So we had a slight change of plans… in my previous post Matiss and i were going to sail to La Paz from Cabo San Lucas. We came back from San Jose del Cabo all full of groceries and ready to go only to find out the captain had found other crew and decided to sail to Puerto Vallarta (PV) instead of La Paz with us… sucks but what can you do… since we were so set on the idea Matiss, Anna and i tried all day to find another boat to crew on to La Paz… Anna having a more open schedule and that she was a beautiful girl, had no problem finding a boat and found another space going to PV. Matiss and i kept trying but had no luck… we spent one more night at Anna’s place and helped her move out and we took a bus first thing in the morning to Mulege… i almost didn’t make the bus because i needed to get some pesos out from an ATM… i tried 4 before i found one 6 blocks away from the bus station and had to run back just in time to make the bus… The ride was 12 full long hours of desert and watching spanish/english dubbed movies and one movie with spanish subs but english commentary… no one seemed to notice but us…

We met an awesome mexican named Roberto from Ensenada taking the 22 hour + bus ride from Cabo to there… he knew good english and told us all about mexico and places to check out when he was a tour guide out of mexico city…

Bill, our host graciously waited and picked us up at the bus station… now to get ready to kayak for 10-12 days… got to spend the next few days getting ready… below see view from Bills house.

Bill is an interesting couchsurfing host, a retired american he’s been living in Mulege for 11 years. He gave us a tour of the town and showed us the old jesuit mission that what built during the sad time of colonialism. Please click here to read Matiss’s much more in depth description of our experience in Mulege

Mulege is a very interesting little town. It lies in a river valley and it quite lush. In September of 2009 they were devastated by hurricane Jimena and the entire state of Baja California Sur declared a state of emergency. They have started the reconstruction to move the town to higher ground but it isn’t nearly as nice as this quaint little village that is a beautiful oasis in the desert landscape of Baja California Sur.

While we were getting ready for out trip Matiss was not feeling to good. Bill was kind enough to drive us around to all the super markets in town and i got most of our food together and organized for the coming trip. Hopefully Matiss feels better and we can get down to the NOLS branch in Playa el Coyote in Bahia Concepcion, get a hold of Ramon’s brother Clemente, get our boats, pack them and be off…

Los Cabos… Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo… Adventures in Baja begin!

Posted on November 7, 2010 by zkruz

We have now spent a week in both Cabo San Lucas and San Jose Del Cabo. A crazy over developed place… just ridiculous and they keep building more… despite the development it was still very beautiful and we did our best to enjoy it.

We spent our first night in the Cabo Inn Hotel (hostel) which was nice after a long flight… we met our future couchsurfer Anna who was from the Spanish Islands known as the Canary Islands… her english was exceptional aswell as her friend Ilse from Mexico. We met them at the hostel that evening and went out for our first genuine tacos… a little overwhelming being in the crazy tourist city of Cabo San Lucas… The hostel treated us well for a great night sleep in the heat. We moved to Annas house the next day and checked out Playa Medano, the famous beach in Cabo… It was nice but so many mexicans trying to sell your stuff constantly… we felt bed but that was their way of life… It took some getting used to but we found our way around the city…

November 3rd… learning some spanish we ecalante el montagne grande (climb the big mountain) went to some gorgeous beaches and made it to the top after a long walk (see below for view, click photo for link to more photos).

We later made our way to lovers beach, famous beach near the Lands end Arch… the southern most point of Baja where the Pacific Ocean meets the Gulf of California.

We had fun and went out for a night on the town experiencing some wild but expensive night-life Cabo San Lucas is known for.

We got into a good pattern of siesta and sleeping in… our stomachs are sensitive to all the different mexican food we have been eating… We went for a very nice sunset back at the Solmar Beach where another CS named Salina happened to work… we were able to just go into the resort and chill in the pool whenever so we did a few times and ordered smoothies at the pool bar…

We had a really nice jersey girl named Mary give us some left over alcohol and food who was flying out the next day… We enjoyed a nice sunset on the pacific that evening with Mary and another CS named Salina who worked at the resort.

Mary was really awesome but It was crazy to think how many people like her just fly down here for a week or two and stay in these fancy resorts… completely different experience from what Matiss and I were up to…

Our last day in Cabo San Lucas we felt we had a bunch of things to do and unfortunatlely had to miss the spanish lesson Salina offered to us. Later we went to the Medano Beach where there were a ton of sailboats anchored and partying on the beach…

we heard the loud speaker come on and say… ¨Who is looking for crew?¨ I immediately went over and found a great captain of a forty foot sloop looking for crew too La Paz… Matiss, myself and Anna all hope to meet him tomorrow… Anna is able to come because she just quite her dreadful job selling diamonds…

We decided to leave Anna for some space to think as she had hosted us and another guy (Brian) who biked from Buffalo, NY to Cabo San Lucas and was going to take the ferry across the mainland mexico and bike down to Panama then bike back… craziness but awesome. He was such a happy man! that evening (friday Nov 5th) we bused with all our stuff to San Jose del Cabo… 45min bus away to meet up with our next CS named Nayeli. We went out for drinks and dinner in San Jose… something we ate left us all feeling not too well… and this was not the first time… We rested today (Saturday Nov 6th) went to an organic Market, met JC one of the couchsurfing ambassadors for Los Cabos Area who makes a living gardening and juggling… quite the awesome fellow! Below you can find a view from the roof of his apartment in San Jose del Cabo.

Nayeli was so great to us… she even let us use her car to go shopping and get things we needed for our sailing trip… now i have time to update this blog so i hope you enjoy!

Also see Matiss’s blog by clicking here

Couchsurfing Interview on CBC Radio Thunder Bay

Posted on March 27, 2010 by zkruz

For those who haven’t heard about Couchsurfing, you should definitely take a gander at the website. I encourage people from all walks of life to sign up and be a part of the fantastic network and community of like-minded travelers who all share common ground and offer unique perspectives on life.

Please visit www.couchsurfing.org to learn more.

For the past two weeks I have hosted Serena Black from Quesnel, British Columbia, Canada. She came here from Carlton University in Ottawa, Ontario as a journalism student on an internship with CBC Radio in Thunder Bay, Ontario. She explained this to me in her couch request to me and how she needed a place to stay during this time and didn’t want to stay in a hotel/hostel. I thought it would be great to meet her and learn more about who she is and her involvement with CBC Radio. It was definitely one of the longer periods of time i have hosted but I showed Serena around a few different places and we both had a lot of work to do so it worked out well that we could both get some work done. During her internship she had the opportunity to be involved with and pitch some story ideas.

One of these developed into a story on Couchsurfing and she interviewed myself and some couchsurfers (Alex & Kacie) who drove all the way up from Texas just to experience Thunder Bay.

The following is an interview i recorded on my garage band program at 7:45am Thursday March 25th, 2010 on the Great Northwest morning show on CBC Radio Thunder Bay. Lisa Laco interviews Serena Black.

Click here for a link to the interview (If link doesn’t work search CBC Thunder Bay on http://www.archive.org)