San Pedrito Beach 2018 | El Pescadero, Baja California Sur

This is only my 2^nd season in San Pedrito Beach in El Pescadero close to Todos Santos. I came here first on new years eve 2016/2017. Due to some unforeseen events, I stayed at this place longer than expected. That was indeed a blessing. It didn’t take long to fall in love with this beach and the community.

The reason we got here had to do with a slipped disc injury my travel mate “Jens” was suffering from. In this area, he was hoping to find the right practitioner to help him to overcome this issue. Well, if you had your own experiences with a slipped disc than you might know that instant cure is almost never possible unless you find someone who can perform miracles.

Still, El Pescadero and Todos Santos were good places to find a wide variety of snake charmers and spine benders. Unfortunately, the only medicine that could cure Jens was to relax and chill out as much as possible.

I stayed for almost 4 more months at San Pedrito Beach till I had to go back to Europe but I was hooked. There was this deep desire to come back here and have my own van to hang out. So I put this on my midterm agenda and just 6 months later I booked a ticket back to Mexico.

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New Season in San Pedrito Beach

In early February 2018, I returned to San Pedrito Beach. It took me a while to shake off the city dust and get used to being pounded by waves again. Of course one of my main objectives for this new season was to improve my surfing capabilities.

Unfortunately, my paddle muscles I acquired the previous year had melted into oblivion during my long hours in front of an office desktop in Germany. I became soft and pale, but that was my personal challenge.

Let’s talk about the collective change. Like my very own body, also San Pedrito Beach had transformed into something bizarre. The year before the whole beach was a free camping zone and only Rafa’s bar “Pura Playa” had been a light beam of order. The rest of the beach was just wild west camping at its best.

Photography by CHRISTIAN KOEHLERT – MAYAMAGIK | San Pedrito Beach Photographer

Transformation Of San Pedrito Beach

Now in 2018, things had changed. Now we had 3 different habitats. There was still the territory of “Pura Playa” of course, which as the name indicates, consists of a certain pure state. It’s clean and nicely made. You will find proper restrooms and even a shower at Rafa’s place. There are also distinctive rules that tell you what to do and what is forbidden or restricted. If San Pedrito Beach was the Middle East than “Pura Playa” definitely would be considered as Israel.

That also makes sense from the perspective that the only constant inhabitant of “Pura Playa” territory was Rafa’s lovely bartender “Liza” who is an Israeli citizen. You can find many other parallels like the fact that Rafa has a very good connection to the local law enforcement. That is compared to the average gringo a huge advantage in case of an emergency or in any “shit hits the fan“ scenario. He won’t talk much about it and he might even deny it, but that is exactly what you expect from Israel. They also don’t like to admit that they have atomic bombs.

So, there was no doubt in my mind that “Pura Playa” represents Israel if we consider the middle east as an analogy for San Pedrito Beach. So, what is with the rest?

Photography by CHRISTIAN KOEHLERT – MAYAMAGIK | San Pedrito Beach, B.C.S.

SAN PEDRITO BEACH | FREE CAMPING AT EL PESCADARO

Before this season, you could see the rest of the beach outside of “Pura Playa” as rogue nations that were threatening Israel’s perfect order with suicide shitting dogs, trash spilling extremist and roaming beach bums. Some sort of conspiracy went on to transform the local paradigm. So, a regime change was instigated by clandestine means. The true power or owner of the San Pedrito Beach residing in La Paz allowed an intervention of foreign forces to stabilize the region and establish some basic rules.

Looking back on human history it is always a difficult task to bring “freedom and democracy” to savage territories. Just behold how the United States always (with only best intentions of course) try to bring some of their fine cultures to foreign countries. In the end, those countries become hell on earth and the resources somehow vanish into western enterprises.

Regime Change and Color Revolution at San Pedrito Beach

This tremendous endeavor to transform at least a part of San Pedrito Beach into a cultivated zone fell on the shoulders of my former travel mate Jens. I guess he didn’t have much choice than to accept this mission. He could be seen as a kind of UN occupation force with a very weak mandate. We have seen scenarios like that many times before. It sucks. When you promote a German engineer to become the new sheriff in a context of a Mexican “zero f**ks are given” scenario, skirmishes are predetermined. It’s like when the Americans tried to press their idea of law and order onto Iraqi citizen.

So, San Pedrito Beach ended up with a zone that I called Iraq occupied by German UN forces. The rules were vague and the service was low but still, you had to pay taxes. At least we got some proper outhouses now in San Pedrito. Still, the problem was the cultural clash, with a German technocrat ruling the domain. That created upheaval among the peasants of Iraq.

Photography by CHRISTIAN KOEHLERT – MAYAMAGIK | San Pedrito Beach, B.C.S.

Wild West and Vanlife at San Pedrito Beach

When I came back to San Pedrito Beach in February 2018 the situation was already about to boil over. At this time an escalating civil unrest was about to unfold witch required the intervention of the true power from La Paz. Well, the owner had to make a decree when Jens and Pablo the local longboard pro had a turmoil over some silly b/s. Well, I didn’t understand it but it wasn’t my task to facilitate a peace agreement. I was busy enough with my own objectives and mourning about my missing paddle muscles.

The point is that Iraq was a delicate territory with too much politics. The bad thing was, that I had to stay at the Sheriff’s place till I got my own bandwagon. So I was quite in the middle of some tensions. Thank god, I found a good van on Baja Craigslist. A Spanish couple was desperate to sell their 1980 Dodge van and I was desperate to buy. Also, we could make the deal in Euro. Now I had all the freedom to move and after a few days I decided to relocate myself to the 3^rd option of San Pedrito Beach called “Somalia”.

Desperado Vanlife At San Pedrito, El Pescadero B.C.S.

The very north part of San Pedrito Beach remained to be the wild west. Iraq got separated from the north part by a 4” deep ditch, called the “Trump Trench”. I guess it was designed to keep economic refugees away entering from the north side of San Pedrito a.k.a. Somalia. The territory here was definitely a failed state ruled by a more or less self-declared governor called “Timmy”. He seemed to be the dominant local warlord. I guess the primitive social rules in Somalia promote the best surfer becoming the governor of this territory which put me at the end of the pecking order.

That was ok since Timmy was not eager to abuse his power. He only got active if someone in his kingdom started to pollute his precious air. Otherwise, zero f**ks where given by the governor. Still, you could always ask him for a good advice which made him a very accessible ruler.

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End of the Season in Baja California

At one point the mayor moved to the east-cape and also many additional misfits from Somalia left the territory as well. Many other people came and left. In the end, only Timo and I remained in Somalia. Timo already got expelled from Iraq for perpetual besmirching of the “Trump Trench” and other felonies. Now also Timo left his exile because he started his house sitting season.

With June approaching San Pedrito only 4 residents remain. There is Grayson from Australia who is on his inner spiritual journey – well, you can actually count him out. There are only just Rafa, Larry and I left. Larry became my new and probably my last neighbor this season. Since he can’t surf due to his injured knee I am the best active surfer of Somalia which also makes me the governor of this part of San Pedrito Beach. Till, the end of my season in Mexico, which will end in early July, I will celebrate my reign over the beach accordingly. Whatever this means.

See you next season in San Pedrito Beach. Peace out!

Tags: Playa San Pedrito | Travel photography | Todos Santos | Vanlife