Hola amigos! We’re back and excited to be connecting again to share our latest adventures with you.
It’s clear our endless downtime days of 2020 have come and gone, as our blogs slowed down and life sped up. In our last blog post, we broke the news we bought a house in July of last year, and we have not sat down to write since. Why? Because our crazy selves decided to remodel it, to make it our own, and it became a full time job, on top of our actual full time jobs, traveling, friends/family visiting, and keeping a social life with our new friends here!
With all that, we realized we haven’t had much alone time recently, so it was time to clear our minds and take advantage of a much-needed long weekend away from our screens. Ironically, this was very similar in place and time to our last 4th of July getaway.
After a quick search on Airbnb, we landed on a new city we had not been to before, a little farther up the eastern cape of Baja Sur called El Sargento.
Vamos a El Sargento: Day 1
FIRST STOP: TROPIC OF CANCER
Along the road trip north, you pass through the Plaza Turística y Artesanal Trópico de Cáncer line near the city of Santiago. We didn’t stop last year, so made sure to pull in this time to scope the landmark.
Inside was a large, traditional Mexican altar filled with candles and flowers honoring those friends and family members that have passed on. A friendly local pup greeted us who seemed to be the only one around. We gave out a few pets, snapped a few photos, and hopped back on the road.
LA CIUDAD
Surfin’ into El Sargento
El Sargento is a quieter, hip coastal city overlooking Ventana Bay and Isla Cerralvo. It is situated about 30 miles east of La Paz or in our case, a 2.5 hour drive from San Jose and just an hour farther than our drive to Los Barriles last 4th of July.
Most of the action around town is found just down the street (~5 minute drive) into ‘downtown’ Las Ventanas, known for world-renowned kite surfing when in season (November — March).
El Sargento features campgrounds, glamping, boutique hotels, Mexican hole-in-the-wall taco joints and a few touristy restaurants mixed throughout. The scene felt less sleepy than Los Barriles with more places open and people about, making for a fun weekend of exploring.
SECOND stop: ALMUERZO At Nomada
On our way into town, we stopped for lunch at Nomada Organics, a popular outdoor restaurant featuring home-cooked, organic and healthy ingredients with entrees influenced from around the world. The restaurant is situated on a large desert property called Andantes, filled with thematic B&Bs, each incredibly detailed from exterior to interior with African, Moroccan, Mexican and Hindu traditional decor. Seeing how amazing the lodging was from the outside had us buzzing to plan a trip back to explore the property more.
After a quick walk around, we sat down on the patio, filled with a few other families and their pups. First up was ordering two refreshing lavender lemonades — you know you’ve found a hidden gem when there’s an entire page of “cool drinks” as Kyle refers to them.
Kyle chose a Mexican egg dish and Leigh went for the Italian panini. The Jersey in Leigh is always skeptical and ready to judge any Italian menu items in Mexico, but it was safe to say, all of our food was some of the most flavorful and fresh we’ve had in a long time. We cleaned our plates and took a frozen, basil margarita to go — our bungalow was ready for check-in!
Once wasn’t enough: On our way out of town, we ordered ‘to go’ from Nomada because we couldn’t leave without two more dank deli sandy’s before our road trip back to Los Cabos.
The Stay
CAMPGROUND & BUNGALOWS
About 5 minutes from Nomada, we pulled into our home for the next two days. Our Airbnb was part of the “Campground & Bungalows of El Sargento”, situated right above the beach on the Bay of Ventana.
For $100 USD a night, the location was hard to beat and our host was super welcoming. The campground was surprisingly very busy with guests for the 4th of July weekend, filled with a RVs alongside the bungalows, taking in the beautiful bay views from the hillside. Our bungalow was right on the edge of the property (the farthest one left in photo above), backing up to the steep stairway which led you down to the white sand beach.
Similar to what we remembered about this area last year, the morning waters are calm and the afternoon wind picks up for choppier waters. The bay is clear, shallow and swimmable throughout most of the day, but this one had a bit more seaweed which is not typical of beaches we’ve seen in Baja Sur. Kyle also managed to get stung by a jellyfish with his first dip in too — whoops!
La Tuna Restaurante
GOOD VIBES ONLY
The campground & bungalows are located right above the restaurant La Tuna, known for their fresh menu of… wait for it….TUNA!
Sashimis, towers, seared tacos, medallions and more. This is right up foodie alley, so we were more than excited for this hot spot in town to be steps away from us. The restaurant sits right on the sand with various seating options — tables, Adirondacks, beanbag chairs and tee-pee daybeds — giving off a very laidback Tulum-esque vibe.
Daybed? Check.
Mezcalitas? Check.
Tuna tower? Check!
The tower was stacked with diced tuna, mango (mouthwatering in season, which is now) and avocado with crunchy onions and tempura-fried chips for dipping.
The tower was so delicious we had to go back for more — this time trying the Baja shrimp tacos and skirt steak tacos. Hot, delicious, and scarfed right up. Ya know, sometimes the phone does’t eat first!
La Tuna had a 4th of July celebration planned for Saturday night with live music and a grilled ‘Pescado del Dia’ on display. We went down for sunset cocktails (lavender G&T pictured above), listened to the local Blues band, and then headed out for our Italian dinner reservation at San Siro which was also fabulous.
Fun In The Sun: Day 2
BEACH WALKS & BRUNCH
Early AM beach walks, while typically easy to snooze through (see Kennedy’s early ‘you got me out of bed for this?’ face), are always the best and most refreshing way to start our staycation days. We get our steps in, beat the heat, take in the sights and find fun, unique shells along the way to take home to our growing collection.
On Sunday morning we ventured down the street to one of La Ventana’s boutique hotels, Casa Tara Retreat, a private oasis centered on yoga and wellness. Their ocean-front restaurant on-site is called La Moringa, a health food restaurant we stopped in for breakfast. Menu items are made with local produce and Baja-inspired flavors. Banana pancakes and the views did not disappoint!
Later that afternoon, we set up our beach umbrella and chairs, packed a cooler and spent the afternoon in the sand. There were a bunch of locals who drove up on the beach, bringing out their floaties, paddle boards and jet skis. The early July temps here were hitting 90s, so it was too hot to bring Ken down for the day (the sand was on fireeee!) so we opted to have her join us for sunset.
As Kennedy’s gotten older, her anxiety as it relates to noise, has become more sensitive. Due to now living near one of the louder beaches in San Jose del Cabo, she has come to associate every beach afternoon with loud music, whistles, parties… even when theres not. This behavior goes hand-in-hand with her leaving the room when:
You start any guided app workout (as one of them 4 years ago featured a fog horn signaling completion of your workout)
Ask ‘Alexa’ for anything, as one time she was asked “what sound does a dog make?” and the barking ghost dogs freaked her out (rightfully so). Side note — our Alexa is now named Ziggy.
Open a bottle of wine with an electronic wine opener, fly a drone, or use the Roomba. All scary.
Bribed with treats, we snuck her down to la playa for sunset and snapped a few, cute photos. Five minutes later and she was ready to return to the bungalow (despite trying to make her relax in Kyle’s comforting head-lock position). We tried.
Weekend Reflections
A {much needed} CALMNESS
Most people assume by living in Mexico full-time, we live a relaxed, yet glamorous, lifestyle powered by tacos and tequila. And while we wish that was true, and while you might get that perception from our blog and social media, it’s far from the our daily norm. They say to think of social media as a' ‘highlight reel’ for a reason.
Our staycations are planned so we can settle down from the craziness of our day-to-day lives. We both still work for our US companies, with remote employees working the American grind hours, despite the location flexibility. Days are filled with Zooms, emails, calls, pings and never-ending to-do lists, which many of us can relate to.
Pair this with the stress of typical “Mexico problems” and seemingly never-ending sad news coming out of our home country and you can start to feel more than overwhelmed… no matter where you live. We’re all feeling a heavy heart these days. Sometimes we just need to stop and take a deep breathe.
Our cure? Cotton-candy sky evenings, toes in the sand, and taking in the calmness of the surroundings around us. Peace of mind, serenity and exploration are much needed every once in awhile to center ourselves, take care of our mental health and remind each other why we moved to this magical piece of paradise.
Our last morning — the fog rising above the water, making the Isla of Cerralvo look like clouds.
All good things comes to an end, so unfortunately Monday came quick and we had to hit the road home. We made it back safely (ironically getting a flat tire just a few short days later in a safe place, and thankfully not in the middle of the winding desert roads during our road trip).
We hope to be back to blogging more often soon — so stay tuned. Hasta pronto, amigos y familia!
Much love,
Kyle, Leigh & Kennedy 🐾
