Our next stop is Guerro Negro.
The only reason to stop here other than a convenient overnight stop
is whale watching. The surrounding area is prairie and desert and
there isn't even very much agriculture happening. The main industry
is a salt works and of course whale watching.
It's the grey whales that come
into the lagoon after their migration from Alaska. The males hang
around long enough to mate with the females that aren't pregnant.
The females begin to give birth in January and stay in the lagoon
long enough for the babies to be competent swimmers. By the end of
April all the whales have left the lagoon and are headed back to
Alaska. The orcas and sharks wait outside the lagoon to prey on
these huge animals. Mostly it's the babies that they take out. Our
guide told us that only 30% of the babies born in the lagoon will
make it back the following year. These whales are huge; about 3
times the length of the panga we were in. The whales come right up
to the boats and the mothers even seem to be pushing their babies up
to the boat for a pet. The whales go under the boat, in front of the
boat, behind the boat and alongside the boat and somehow never touch
or knock the boat which I found pretty amazing. Scanning the horizon
you could see many blowholes, the heads of whales, and the tails.
One even had the tail up and came down very slowly,
almost like a
ballet. Every now and again a whale would breach and make a big
SPLASH; amazingly enough never near a boat. The only risk in the
boat is when the whales come above the water near the boat, liquid
comes out of the blow hole and you can get pretty wet. Not sure that
all the liquid is water. On the way back to the dock the driver took
us close to the sand dune area.
These are large dunes of mostly
white sand. We also saw dolphins and seals on our trip. We also
stopped at the salt works. Mexico is one of the biggest producers of
salt in the world. At this mine the salt is used in Mexico as well
as being exported to the U.S., Japan and other Asian countries.
The next stop is Catavina. This
is another little oasis in the desert. The area is also the most
diverse as far as plant life in the Baja. We walked into the desert
among the boulders and the very big cactus. They include cardon,
cirios (boojam), cholla, prickly pear, and several that none of us
knew the names of. The boulders are an interesting array of shapes
and sizes and appear to be sandstone with a granite look. It's very
soft and I could even break it with my hands. In some of the
boulders there's a hard rock layer. Later that day we drove to a
cave painting with easy access. We walked across a wash and up the
side of a hill where it's actually a cave. It was a small cave with
many paintings.
The colours used were red, white, black, yellow, and
blue. The designs were mostly geometric, lines (counting?), faces,
and hand prints.
As an interesting aside, there are
no power lines between the turnoff to Bahia de Los Angeles and El
Rosario. The town of Catavina has a bank of solar panels, the hotel
has a generator and most homes and businesses seem to have extra
solar panels or generators. This is also the first place we had rain
and did it pour. It rained most of the night of Feb. 28 and the
afternoon of Mar. 1. We personally had not had rain since Dec. 20 in
Apache Junction.
On our drive to El Rosario, Drew
and I had an interesting little experience. We were behind Bob and
Ann when their outside carpet flew out of the back of their truck.
What luck, there's a pull out right here so Drew pulled in and
immediately knew he was stuck. After a good rain it's really not a
good idea to use these unpaved pullouts with the very sticky, gooey
mud. Even we sunk in 3 or 4 inches when we came out of the motor
home. We got the car unhitched and then just by chance a tow truck
came along. Drew flagged him down and he said he'd send a big tow
truck. Soon all kinds of people were stopping and asking if we
needed help including semis.
Nobody had the proper chains and hooks
to get us out. Finally one truck drove by and then I see him doing
a U-turn down the road and he comes back and he's got the proper
chain and hooks. Now remember we don't speak Spanish and these folks
stopping don't speak English so the communication is all through our
lousy Spanish and a lot of sign language. Drew tried to make him
understand that our rig is very heavy and of course he said “no
problemo”. He backed up the truck including trailer, hooked up the
chains and pulled the rodent out. That part took very little time.
Amazingly enough after he pulled us out, of course the 2 rigs were
blocking the whole road, no traffic came along at all. Chains were
unhooked, of course the trucker had to do another U-turn to be on his
way and we had to hook up the car and be on our way. And oh, yes, I
found a paved pullout just up the road so we pulled in there to put
everything back together. We decided that it was a cheap lesson for
both of us. It was also a good lesson about people on the road and
Mexican truckers just don't want to leave anybody stranded no matter
who they happen to be. This little incident took about 1 hour out of
our day and we were in El Rosario and parked and eating lunch by
12:30.
We are now in a huge agricultural
area that goes from El Rosario to Vincent Guerro at the north end.
Acres and acres of green houses and fields of vegetables.
Strawberries and tomatoes seem to be the biggest crops. There's also
a series of towns that are one right after the other. We stayed in a
cute little campground called Los Olivos which is in an olive
orchard. It was extremely neat and tidy and there was no dust or
sand or grit and somewhat protected from the wind. The caretaker was
busy raking the gravel when we arrived and we felt guilty as we were
still dropping red mud from our incident.
There was a hotel next
door with a fabulous garden and a fabulous restaurant. We did walk
through the garden and we ate at the restaurant one evening.
While here we did some amazing walks on beaches and in the countryside.
We also took a trip out to Los Volcanos Park
Then it was off to Ensenada for a
week. We stayed at a resort which was a bit of treat after all the
places with questionable electricity, water that was sometimes on and
sometimes not, dust, sand, rocks and hot showers that were sometimes
hot and sometimes not. The resort consists of a hotel, RV Park,
houses and restaurant and bar. The resort is on an estuary so
there's lots of bird life. There's a sea wall that goes from the RV
Park around to the hotel and restaurant which makes for a very
pleasant walk.
Ensenada is a large city of 500,000 and also the
wealthiest city in the Baja. Just about every day there's a cruise
ship in port. It's also a container port. When a cruise ship is in
port the city is extremely busy. All the shops and restaurants are
open, vendors of every description including mothers with young
children trying to sell jewelry or small toys, beggars, bars trying
to see you beer and margaritas, and of course more vendors. ( When I
say vendors I'm talking about folks that walk the streets selling
some product such as wallets, jewelry, and anything they can carry in
a bag or on a board that folds up.) The second day we went into the
city there was no cruise ship in port. There were also no beggars,
no mothers with children selling stuff, only a few vendors, some of
the shops were closed and while most of the restaurants seemed to be
open, nobody was trying to sell us beer and margaritas.
We visited
the oldest building in Ensenada which was built in 1886. It started
it's life as a military armoury and then became a municipal jail.
Now it's an anthropology museum and a small museum showing the
history of the building. We also went to the fish market.
Another
building we visited was the Riveria de Ensenada which began it's life
as a hotel. It was built in 1930 during Prohibition in the States.
Americans would come down to drink and gamble. It fell into
disrepair during the 60's and 70's. In 1978 renovations began and
it's now back to it's former grandeur. It's now municipal offices
and available for special events. The gardens are also beautiful
with several fountains and statues.
We went out to Bufadora; the
snorting buffalo. The Pacific coast along here is very scenic and
very rough. It reminded me of the Oregon coast and parts of the
California coast. Bufadora is a point where the water comes into a
narrow channel and then “blows” straight up. After parking the
car we had to run the gauntlet of vendors to get to the Bufadora. It
did put on a good show for us as the tide was coming in.
Our last stop in the Baja was the
Valle de Guadalupe which is the centre of wine producing in the Baja.
There are 52 wineries in the valley and they produce both red and
white wines although I think they're a bit better at the red wine.
We tasted many varieties and they ranged from very good to very bad.
This is also a olive and olive oil area so besides wine we bought
olives, olive oil (it's so good, I'm now wishing I bought a case),
salad dressing, salsa, jam, bread, cheese, and juice.
Sadly it's time for us to cross
the border back into the U.S. The crossing was easy and we're now in
El Centro, California. We're here a few days to get groceries, do
laundry, clean up the motor home and car and of course do the update.
We had a good time in the Baja and I think I have another Baja trip
in me with the motor home. We'll have to see what Drew thinks.
Driving is a challenge with the narrow, twisty roads, construction
with the detours in the ditch, interesting roads into campgrounds and
then of course parking in campgrounds with small spaces. The scenery
is fabulous with the combination of mountains, sea coast and desert.
The people are friendly and eager to help. In fact they really don't
like to say they can't help you.
Adios for now. Drew and Donna.
