April 3rd (Punta Conjeo)
Back on the highway and heading south, our next stop was the town of San Hilaro, only a few miles off the highway. Nelson and Goldman described it as a small village within an arroyo with a small stream of good water flowing. A few palm trees lined the banks and they stayed for several days to water their horses and gather a few specimens.
Now, there is only a single ranch at San Hilaro. The water still flows, but I would not say was "good." There are a few palms growing in clumps, but mostly the area along the arroyo is a tangled mess of mesquite and acacia. The stock runs free and the ranch was not very inviting so we turned around and headed back to the highway.
Ten miles of dirt road stood between the pavement and the sandy beaches of El Conejo. We thought it would be nice to camp on the beach, dip our toes in the water, and see a part of the Pacific side we had never been to. If you surf, this is the place to be. It is a perfect left point break without crowds. There were four vans parked on the bluff overlooking the waves, all huddled to protect their camp at the center from the wind. They had stacked rocks, laid out surfboards, and strategically placed driftwood to keep the 20-knot winds from blowing sand into everything they owned.
These four groups (three couples and one single guy) were all traveling separately but found themselves in a similar location with a similar mindset: surfing. One couple was just starting a two-year journey to South America. Another was from the Pacific Northwest and was escaping the snow and bad weather, while the last couple didn't have any plans and was not sure where they were going next.
It is not a bad place to be or a life to live when you can walk down the beach to the fishermen and buy lobster for dinner, "showers" are available at the ranch nearby for 50 pesos per person where there is a water tank elevated and a PVC pipe that dumps cold water. This is private property and a guy comes around every morning to collect your name, logging it into an account book.