When I was growing up, camping was our family vacation. We never had the money to fly anywhere exotic, or stay in hotels. We camped. It was cheap, and it was fun, and in British Columbia there were countless places to explore and places to pitch a tent. I learned a lot about nature, the outdoors, and how to live in a minimalist way with only the things you brought with you.
Now that Shari and I have moved to Mexico I’m seeing some similarities, and the skills learned from years of camping have been paying off!
In the early days of camping there was no running water. Sometimes there was a communal tap. Often it was just a communal hand-pump from a well. When you have to carry your water back to your campsite in bottles, pots, and 5-Gallon totes, you learn not to waste it. Cabo San Lucas is surrounded by saltwater ocean and Mexico desert. There are no freshwater lakes here. And it only rains about 12 days in the whole year.
City water is rationed… they only turn it on to specific neighbourhoods once every few days on a rotating basis. Sometimes it’s as often as every 5‑6 days. But other times it can stretch to 16‑20 days. For our condo we have a 5000‑litre underground cistern, and a 1000‑litre rooftop holding tank. An electric pump gives us water pressure, but if the power goes out we can still get gravity-feed pressure from the roof tank. If you run out of your store of water between city rations, you have to pay to have a tanker truck to come to fill you up.
We have learned to take shorter showers, and not let the tap run straight down the drain if we’re not actively using it. No one wants to haul buckets of water (or call tanker trucks) if they don’t have to!
Flashing back to our early days of camping, our first campstove had a tank on the front into which we poured liquid fuel (originally “camp fuel”,
but later we learned that ordinary unleaded gasoline worked just fine at a fraction of the cost). The tank had a small piston pump on the side where you pump it full of air pressure to drive the fuel into the stove. When it ran low on pressure you had to pump more – often while the stove was still burning. If you ran out of fuel you had to take it all apart, open the tank, add more fuel, pump it up, and start over. Toward the end of my camping era, we progressed to a propane stove which would keep running as long as there was propane in the tank. Always remember to check that the propane tank is full before you head out camping!
In Greater Vancouver our home had a natural gas stove. The province has abundant resources of it. In Cabo San Lucas there is no natural gas. And with electricity being so expensive here, the most popular choice – including in our condo – is propane. We have a large propane tank on the roof which fuels our stove and oven, hot water tank, and clothes dryer. The tank is too big to throw in the car and run to the gas station to fill it (the gas stations here don’t sell propane anyway), so before you run out completely you have to call a gas truck to come by, pull their hose up to the roof, and fill it.
Although our kitchen stove has more burners than any typical camp stove, it’s no more sophisticated. Our stove has two different size burners (four small + two large) and each has a setting range from Low (really really hot) to High (really really freaking hot). Apparently the concept of “simmer” is foreign to Mexico. 
To successfully cook rice I have to resort to the camping technique of “move the pot further from the fire”. This means stacking one stove grate on top of the other to move the pot extra high over the “Low” flame. This hack works for the rice, but still uses more propane than is necessary to do the job.
Back to camping… everyone had a cooler. Sometimes two. There are no refrigerators in provincial park campsites. So to keep your week’s rations from spoiling you packed your beer, eggs, meats, cheese,
pre‑made lasagna (hey, don’t judge my camping food!) into the cooler and topped it up with ice. If you were smart, you remembered to open the little drain hole at the bottom once you got to the campsite so the excess water would run out as the ice slowly melted. If you forgot that step, everything at the bottom of the cooler quickly became waterlogged.
Today we have fake ice packs. They don’t melt into a wet mess, and they often stay colder longer than conventional ice. And in Cabo San Lucas having a cool place to put things is essential!
Our favourite grocery store is about 25km (16 miles) away. Lately on the drive there and back, the outside temperature is about 34°C/93°F. If you were to buy any dairy, meats, frozen foods, or anything perishable, it’s going to be melted, spoiled, or half-cooked by the time you get it home.
Our shopping routine now starts with grabbing the ice packs out of the freezer, throwing them in the cooler, and hauling it down the stairs from our third-floor condo to the car. After exiting the air-conditioned grocery store, we then stand outside by our car and re-arrange the groceries to pick out everything that needs to go into the cooler (why can’t the baggers learn to put all the cool stuff together in one bag?). Once we’re home we lug the full cooler up the stairs to our third-floor condo (it was much easier on the way down). Unlike camping, the food doesn’t have to stay in the cooler for a week. After putting everything away where it needs to be, we throw the ice packs back in the freezer, ready for the next shopping trip.
Funny… I haven’t had an urge to go camping lately. But you know, camping never had a view like this!
