We were invited to the 4th Anniversary of the Desert Moon Hotel in Los Cerritos Beach by James Dobies, a prominent real estate agent in the area and owner of the Pescadero Surf Camp. Putting the hotel into MAPS on my iPhone, we were led from highway 19 between Cabo San Lucas and Todos Santos through the dirt roads (still full of holes from the rains this season) to the back of the hotel. If it had been light, we would have found the top, as where we parked, there were 87 steps up to the Riptide Bar and Grill at the top of the property.

Thank goodness there were motion sensor lights that lit up the way to the top as we were climbing. While it was a trek for an old guy like me, it gave us an opportunity to see the layout of the hotel, which has 14 rooms that move up the hillside. When we finally arrived at the bar, we were given a warm welcome by James and had the opportunity to meet Corneilo Mendoza of Dyclor Construction and his wife, who built the hotel. Dyclor has been building in the area since 2009 and has a very good reputation.

The bar had a nice layout of margaritas, sandwiches, chips, salsas and cheese underneath the wall in the bar that features rocks painted by guests of the hotel. It was a fun evening with the opportunity to meet several interesting people who live in Cerritos and Pescadero and to learn some of the similarities between this area and Zacatitos. However, Cerritos beach got electricity two years ago while we are off-the-grid. Several of the residents couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to live on the Sea of Cortez when the Pacific side was cooler during the winter and the cost of construction (starting at $85 a square foot) and land are so much lower.