Find Your Place: An East Coaster's First Baja Expedition

Not too expensive and the rooms even had a great view.

That wasn’t a bad thing. It’s what we wanted, but the immensity of the darkness and realization of our isolation became unavoidably apparent. If our car broke down, if we crashed into something, if…(countless unwanted circumstances came to fruition), then we had a big problem, but if we didn’t take a risk then we wouldn’t be able to enjoy its rewards. I mean what did Bhodi say, “If you want the ultimate, you have to be willing to pay the ultimate price” – and Bodie understood surfing – he was the Boddhisatva.

Not that we were risking too much, but an element of danger certainly teased us at each turn. Our small risk paid its dividends, and the road led to the quaint village of Eréndira, where I asked a nice Mexican girl at the mercado for further directions and where to locate some firewood. She directed me to follow “el camino principal” and to choose a place to camp on the cliffs along the ocean. After 45 minutes of exhausting the truck’s suspension in biting rocks and thick dirt, we stumbled into a small campground speckled with a few tents and campfires.

An older American guy (who told us he used to be in the army within three words of opening his mouth) suggested we setup camp in a nice spot overlooking the ocean just a few yards North. We took his advice and relished our safety with a few beers as we cooked chicken on the propane grill. Darkness forbade us to see what our new home looked like, and we were pleasantly surprised with what we saw come daybreak.

In the morning the sun burned through our tent and into our restless eyes to reveal a bay surrounded by cliffs. A fog had settled over the emerald waters, and red mountains chattered in the background. The ocean was empty – save for a few seals, and chest high lines marched steadily toward the beach. The spot was ours to surf all day, and we got to know it a little better each hour we surfed. Between sessions we’d come in to read or sleep or cook or think – and there was nothing else there to do – and that was perfect. The flat-brimmed hats with VZ sunglasses and RVCA shirts honking horns and snaking waves were deliciously absent, and surfing was the only thing left on the shelf. We milked the solitude for what it was worth until the shadow of Monday blew its whistle on our retreat. Hours of hellish border patrol-induced traffic later we found ourselves back at home in the O.C.

I’d hate to give the impression that Baja is a special sanctuary at the disposal of adventurous Americans – because it’s not. It’s a different country. It has its own people, culture, and language. Isolated towns prosper not too far from these secluded retreats, and they do so completely independent of American influence. People of these towns are nice enough to guide a lost tourist towards safety and expect nothing in return. They see the vulnerability in our eyes, our clumsy trails, and the lucrative potential within misguidance – and yet they abstain. Instead, they lead us towards a simple paradise – clean water, flawless scenery, and the opportunity to absorb it all. It’s funny how there wasn’t a trace of O.C. surf culture lurking in the mountains of Baja. Surfing didn’t mean rebellion or fashion or whatever the hottest surf company’s new slogan is. Surfing was synonymous with adventure and community, and those Baja sentiments linger somewhere in the depths of the O.C. – they’re just a bit more difficult to recognize. Maybe a bare-bones, camp-out, cook-your-own-food style of surf trip provides the perfect prescription to reframe a confused, complex Californian surf culture. Or maybe the weekend Baja trip illuminated a more profound epiphany: if your location presents your biggest problem, then it is most likely provides your best solution.

The sun setting on our Baja adventure.