Day Seventeen, Palm Sunday, April 1st: Mulegé/Santispac

The sea is like glass this morning – we wish we had rented a kayak last night! Ana’s, the restaurant/store on the beach, is in “summer hours” right now, open from 2pm to 10pm, so if you want to kayak in the morning before the wind, you need to rent one the night before. The spell of this place is that once you are here, you don’t want to leave, even for a little while. Vendors come by to sell you what you need, so there is no need to go into town. Obero came by this morning already with his musical horn – I told him we came back because we missed his morning music – ha. We bought some fresh hot tamales for breakfast – yum! We plan to go into Mulegé this morning to explore the town a bit, but it’s so hard to leave here!! We will camp here one more night, then continue north.

Mulegé is the first place we’ve been where we did not feel welcome. We drove out to the lighthouse, and got friendly waves from a bar near the beach, but that was it. Mostly we got no response to smiles and waves, and even got distinctly cold and dirty looks from some. Never mind the hurricane – what too many tourists can do to a town is not always pretty. The Mulegé Mission was pretty, but after the warm, open, welcoming feel of San Javier, with people inside saying prayers even welcoming tourists into their sanctuary, I think we are spoiled.

Back to Santispac where more happy familias are setting up camps – reminds me of when I was a kid and we camped in Yosemite Valley – kid heaven! Lots of other kids, water to play in, rocks to climb, adventures to be had. Kids are everywhere just having a blast! Kids having a blast being kids sounds great in any language.

God knows why, but my friend Jenny Dodge told me I should add recipes to our blog... but I did make a great bean dip today, so here's the recipe! You may notice similarities in the ingredients to the fish marinade... hey, when you've got ingredients that work, stick with them! Ha.

Bamix Bean Dip
1 can Trader Joe's Organic Pinto Beans (or whatever kind you have on hand!)
Grated cheese - I used some soft white cheese from Mexico, enough to get the dip to the right consistency
Cilantro
Onion
Lime Juice to taste and consistency
Serrano chile to taste
Spices: Cumin, Paprika, Chili Powder, Oregano, Pepper, Salt to taste

Mix it all together and blend with the Bamix * Hand Blender (hence the name, Bamix Bean Dip - ha)
Eat with totopos (chips)!

*The Bamix is a powerful Swiss hand blender that I first saw at a county fair years ago and wanted one ever since! Now I finally have one, and use it to make smoothies on a regular basis, and this bean dip was a new, and successful, experiment!

---

Go back to Day One of Baja Trip