So it turns out finding a beach in San Carlos isn’t that easy. We got in the dinghy and zipped back out the way we had come in but realized that the shoreline everywhere was just rock. The beach out front of the actual town is sandy (I believe), but over here near the marina is not, and we didn’t feel like a three mile dinghy ride. The only semi-normal looking beach we saw was situated in a tiny cove with a bunch of houses crowded up around it. Eventually that’s where we headed.

We swam and played and explored. Explored is just a kid’s word for picked up junk. A few other people came and went, but looking at the hundred or so homes on the hill above us I couldn’t spot one sign of life. Not one. Not a towel over a railing, not an open window, not a dog, nothing. On the dinghy ride home I continued to look up at the homes on the hills and from that perspective would have had to surmise that the whole town was dead. Killed by zombies just days before our arrival.

And after what we saw next I was sure of it. Five raccoons scrambled down the rocky desert hill, found a shady spot behind a boulder in the water, and went for a swim. They had one eye on us the whole time, finished what they were doing, and ran back up the hill. It was four o’clock in the afternoon and probably ninety-five degrees in the shade. Since when do raccoons go frolicking outdoors in those conditions? Must have been dying in the heat like we were.