We did this every trip. We did it in San Felipe for three Easter vacations. We did it in Guyamas at San Carlos Bay another year. We did it on Memorial Day weekends, again in San Felipe. It was Labor Day weekend just north of Ensenada, where I met Robert, who was to become my boyfriend for my entire senior year of high school. One of my favorite trips was in April 1969. I was 16. Nina was 15. We were camping at Pete’s Camp, just north of San Felipe and right on the bluffs above the beach. There was a huge group of us—about seven RVs— clustered together in a circle like a wagon train. There were dune buggies and dirt bikes on the outer rim, along with inner tubes, rafts and the occasional aluminum fishing skiff. ATVs and jet skis hadn’t even been invented yet, so things were a bit quieter on the beach and in the water. We had a big fire pit and barbecue in the center of our circle. We shot fireworks off at night on the perimeter while the parents danced inside to the Tijuana Brass.
The Colorado River dead-ends where the Gulf of California begins. About an hour south of the delta is San Felipe, where the low tides are so low you can walk out half a mile across sand and mud flats that were underwater just a few hours earlier. Actually, trudge is more like it. I remember being ankle-deep in mud on my way out to go swimming more than a few times.
The afternoon was hot. San Felipe’s climate is similar to that of Palm Springs—only it’s on the beach. The tide was almost high, so we could see bait fish jumping and pelicans swooping across the warm ocean, alerting the fleet of panga fishermen and shrimp boats patrolling offshore to the whereabouts of their day’s catch.
Feeling a little restless after the five-hour drive, and more than a little bit ready to stir up some action, Nina and I decided it was time to take Victoria for a stroll. It was that magical, mystical time of day right before sunset, when the light is pure gold. We each had a silver ten-peso piece our grandfather had given us for Christmas. We’d been saving them ever since—with boys, beer and Baja in mind.
We wandered down a maze of dirt roads, in search of the cantina. “Where is that cantina?” I asked my sister.
“Right over there.” She pointed. We went in and sat down.
“Buenas tardes,” I said to the guy who was tending bar. “Dos Carta Blancas, por favor.”
We felt mature. Sophisticated. Yet plenty wild too—like authentic, expatriate renegades. He handed us each an ice-cold bottle of beer and we paid up. We were the only customers in the cantina.
A little aside here. When Nina and I lived in Colorado Springs in the early ‘80s, some friends of ours nicknamed us Hoover and Eureka. Why? Because we could suck down beers faster than most of the guys we knew. You can rest assured we learned (and honed) this skill in the campground cantinas of Baja. After all, we were motivated. We had to down those beers before our parents or any of the other adults in our group showed up and caught us. We learned to drink fast, and we never got caught either!
We drank a beer apiece, and then decided to go looking for boys.
As we scouted the campground, we suddenly heard the roar of an approaching aircraft. We looked up. A single engine plane circled overhead, leveled out for landing and came to a stop on the dirt road right next to us. Mouths hanging wide open, we stared in disbelief as the door to the plane unhinged and out popped a single dad named Steve, his teenage son, Jeff and daughter, Lisa. We waved. They waved. We introduced ourselves. Turned out they were friends of some of the people we were camping with. Nina’s eyes lit up. She sidled up to Jeff and started flirting in earnest as we led them to our campsite. By dinnertime they were an item. By 9:00 p.m. they were sneaking off for a kiss or two on the beach. Their romance lasted the entire week—until the little plane took off and faded into the sky.
The day after they showed up, Nina, Jeff, Lisa and I walked out over the mud flats to go swimming. On the way back we stopped in at the cantina. This time it was packed. There were people from our age all the way up to our parents’ ages and older. American rock ‘n roll was blaring from a jukebox. We sat down and ordered a round of Carta Blancas. The table next to us was all guys—college guys, we soon found out. Within minutes, we’d pushed our two tables together and Lisa and I were set. We were in Baja. We had boys and we had beer. What more could a girl want?
