Sunsets in Baja By Maureen Russakoff

Sunsets in Baja are lazy events that occur over two to three hours.?It's as if the sun understands the pace of life here and sets the example inviting us all to s-l-o-w d-o-w-n.??

We are content with the understanding that we arrived here rolling over directly into a new transient phase. I'm observing how quickly we insert our habitual patterns in new environments.

Drinking coffee in the morning is an integral part of my daily routine.?We've been here a week, and I've identified and become cross identified with "my" coffee cup.?As?Rich?wrote in his post yesterday, we've made our first pilgrimage to the local Costco. We have a new favorite gourmet grocery store.

Our Airbnb host calls this unit Casa Gaia,?Cerritos Beach?PALACE.?(How he employs the word?"palace"?makes me doubt he's spent?any?time in Europe. This place is a palace to the same degree that?Rich's 1995 Toyota Camry is a?HOT car!)

All the typical adaptive carelessness that comes with beachfront vacation places?-?something fails, and a good enough "fix" is inserted instead of a solution, challenges my hunger for faithfulness to original design?-?or anything that vaguely resembles DESIGN.

One of the incredible comforts?of?our home in Chapel Hill was how carefully considered and well-designed the property was. If you reached out your hand to turn on a bank of lights, WELLA right where it SHOULD be, there was a light switch. In a luxury-built property, people carefully collaborated and worked from a set of plans, and there were consequences for deviation from the precision choices.?Everything was good enough once it was excellent. The illusion of control is easier to maintain when standards are established and enforced. Code is as code does.

No rigid standards prevail in this far off-the-beaten-path peninsula where cowboys still ride horses daily. If you don't like what you see inside, stick your head outside and enjoy the mountains, the ocean, and the desert.?The wind off the seas stirs up the desert sands, laying a dusty thin film over everyone's transportation. (This is not a complaint, just an observation of the obvious).?

Note to self: when you buy a car, truck, or SUV, in addition to making sure it is a four-wheeler, get a tan-colored one?-?staying one step ahead of the dust reduces the number of times I feel like I have to wash my car.

We will be buying when we find the right place.?

What we are seeing so far:?all?the new builds here intended for the ex-pat market are square three and four-story concrete boxes with one or more?palapas, an open-air space that shelters you from the sun as you proceed to take advantage of?the?indoor/outdoor living spaces that the climate here facilitates.?

In?this post-pandemic period,?Baja Sur is experiencing phenomenal growth.?We are eager for our growth. We are hoping it is phenomenal.?

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