Well, there is gardening, yoga, restaurants, Zumba, qigong, theatre, volunteering, restaurants, dancing, rescuing stray cats and dogs, late morning coffee, Sunday brunches, walks on the beach, and oh! – posing in a tastefully done nude calendar called Gorgeous Women of Baja.
Aha! Where did that last activity come from? As it happened, last year a Rosarito couple got the idea to fill their leisure time by emulating the wildly popular 2000 calendar from Rylstone, England, portrayed in the movie ‘Calendar Girls’, by producing a calendar along those lines. It seems almost everyone has seen and enjoyed that movie. (If you missed it, you can find it on YouTube.)
Thirty nine Baja women modeled in two calendars — one in Rosarito and one in Ensenada. Apart from filling up some spare time, why did they model? Who are these women? Are they very different from the average Baja expat? Well, several said they could now check one more thing off their bucket list; a few said it just seemed like something that would be fun; still others felt it would show that today’s woman in her 60’s or 70’s can still look great!; and most were happy to participate in a project designed to raise money for needy local charities.
On the other hand, a couple of the women posed in the calendar to re-validate themselves as whole women. One had been raped while another had suffered severe physical domestic violence. We only learned of these situations after the calendars had been released. Both said their participation had been cathartic and very worthwhile…and that the experience was a positive one.
Nearly all the calendars have now been sold with a bigger and better one soon to hit the market combining all models from both Rosarito and Ensenada into one Gorgeous Women of Baja calendar!
Article by Chuck Smith, photographer and co-producer, GorgeousWomenOfBaja.com
and Ella O’Bryan, The Original Yogini of Punta Banda, and one of the Gorgeous Women of Baja!