Living the life in la Ventana

Before leaving for Baja from the mainland I was in touch with our friend Joe Cool. Joe left San Francisco several months ago for La Ventana. I had heard about it but had never been there so we arranged to meet up there. We set sail for the anchorage in “Bahia de los Muertos” Bay of the dead or “Bahia de los Suenos” Bay of dreams they are trying to change the name to.

Joe came out on his SUP or stand up paddleboard and took us to La Ventana in his van, it is a great little place with a heavy focus on wind surfing and kite boarding so the average age dropped substantially from the more retirement age folks in the cruising communty.

The bright yellow building where Joe has an office houses a pizza place where they do wood oven fired pizza and it has a kite surf school in as well as yoga classes in the day, the pizza was really great, the folks were very nice and welcoming

On the way back to the anchorage we went to this place called “Casa Suena” for a cocktail. It is a resort on the same little bay where we were anchored so we could see the boat. However this was a little more then just a palapa on the beach. We arrived at the front gate where we told a guard we wanted to come in for a cocktail, he called in and we were allowed to pass. After driving about a mile down a clean well maintained dirt road nestled in between the desert and immaculate golfing greens we arrived at another gate with another guard where a huge and beautiful ornamental steel gate rolled out of the way to allow us access to the grounds. We drove a little further (All of this is in Joe’s old van) where we were met by a valet who took the keys and a very nice lady who introduced herself as Lopita. She walked us to a stretch golfcart and drove us a small distance to a very elegant club house with pool tables old arcade games, a shuffle board table and a magnificent bar.

We had cocktails contemplating the difference between the aroyo where Joe stays for free and this place where you could rent a bungalow for $1400 US a night, quite the opposites.   ohh, and the beers were $4.00 and the Margarita’s $6.00

The back bar

This is the mezzanine where they have three levels of model rail road tracks that are all operable and the guests are encouraged to use them if they feel they need to.