Kitesurfing Californians found the perfect beach in Baja – then it was gentrified

Hundreds of people camp on the cheap at a beachfront campground in La Ventana, Mexico. Photos: TNS

Days after Kirk Robinson got fired from a corporate job he hated, he and a windsurfing buddy loaded their gear into his Volkswagen van and headed south from Los Angeles in search of a mythic beach.

It was the early 1990s, and the two had heard vague reports of a remote spot near the end of Baja where the wind blew strong and smooth from noon to sunset.